Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a joyous holiday. We certainly did as Pap and Gram arrived safely on Christmas Eve. Last Friday was the last day of school, and the last day of Primary school for Alanna. As part of the never-ending celebrations, the Year 6 kids gathered for a breakfast in the park before school. Afterwards they walked to school, where they spent the day signing each others shirts.
Aliya gathered with some of her friends:
At 1:00, the entire school gathered on the oval for assembly. The Year 6s were in the front, where they sang "Lanterns."
The night before, the school principal called and suggested that Andy and I would definitely want to be at the assembly. And here's why: The principal from Alanna's future secondary school came and presented her with the Academic Excellence award! It was a nice recognition of her hard work, and Alanna was pretty excited to receive a check with her name on it!
Here's the video:
Aliya with her friends Ollie and Oscar:
Whoo hoo, school's out!
Sad goodbyes in the Senior Learning Center afterwards. The kids are all going off to different secondary schools. More than half of Alanna's class are going to very expensive private schools ($20,000+ per year), which is something we find hard to fathom. I suppose part of the reason they can do this is that Uni (college) is a lot cheaper.
After assembly, we headed home and packed up the van for a weekend of camping with other families from school. Our destination was a Big 4 Campground on the Bellarine peninsula, about an hour and a half from Melbourne. They all stayed in cabins, but we "roughed it" in tents.
The camp ground had a nice kitchen. We all bbq'ed together and brought salads to share.
Sadly, no campfires allowed, so we made do with a little Weber grill.
On Saturday we went to check out the beach, hoping to surf. No luck. Have to try again the next day.
One of my favourite things about our camping trips to Leo Carillo is having a group picture every year. So (and Julie would be proud!) I gathered all the kids for a group photo. Aliya and her friend managed to tip over and fall out of the go-kart she was riding in, so her knee was a bit sore.
And now the adults:
And a silly pic:
After packing up on Sunday, we headed to the beach at Ocean Grove for one last look at the waves. This time, we were in luck! We rented some wetsuits, and Andy gave his now-perfected surfing lessons.
Alanna got up quickly. She really gained confidence while at Year 6 camp last week, where they surfed for over two hours. For fun, Andy had them wear his Go-Pro webcam.
Aliya teaching her new friend how to stand on the board:
Most of the camping families were from Year 3, so Alanna brought along her friend Charlotte.
Great times! After a few hours of water play, where even Andy got a chance to surf, we headed back to the campground for lunch, and then home. We had a lot of laundry to do, and guests to get ready for!
Hello? Is there anybody out there.....? Needless to say, I am a bit behind in my blogging. Not for lack of topics, as I'd love to tell you about our trip to Bali, the visit from Andy's mom, the visit from the Ransoms, and the perfect dog we puppy-sat for four months, just for starters. But mostly, I haven't been motivated. Even now, I should be wrapping presents or packing for our camping trip, but instead I'll do a short post for old time's sake. Last week had a couple of rather interesting events. First, Aliya was invited to participate in a fashion show. The mother (I still can't say Mum) of one of her good friends teaches fashion design. Every year, the graduates show off their projects in a fashion show, and there's usually a couple of kid outfits. Aliya modeled a very cute outfit:
She did rather well for her first time on the catwalk, not that we are encouraging her to take up modeling. Stick to math and science, Aliya! Here are clips of her modeling and of the finale.
The next night was Alanna's graduation from Primary School.
Each of the 69 students were allotted about a minute to make a short speech. It could be a thank you-type speech or some favourite memories. It might sound tedious, but they were actually entertaining, and often very touching. Here's Alanna's:
After the ceremony, the Year 6's walked down a red carpet into the Senior Learning Center, where they had their own dinner. The adults mingled in the library, enjoying snacks and our BYO wine.
We capped off the week with the long-awaited Taylor Swift concert.
We'd seen her last year at a much smaller venue, which I greatly preferred. This time, she was playing Etihad stadium to almost 50,000 people. We were told that Taylor was the first woman since Madonna to do a stadium tour of Australia.I won't post any pics because we were just too far away from the stage. Still the girls enjoyed the show. Aliya especially enjoyed the first opening act, Neon Trees. For about a year, she played their song Animal whenever and wherever she could. The second opening act was Guy Sebastian, an Aussie singer who is very famous here, and I believe recently broke into the US market. We took the train into and out of town (have I mentioned how much I love the public transport in Melb?) and we got home quite easily, although it was 11:30. Thankfully our basketball games the following morning were later than usual. It would have been tough to play at 8:15 am! That afternoon, we had one final activity. Our school Drum Corps performed at a "Carols in the Garden" service at a local church.
Here's two videos. In the first, they did a routine from the school recital. Check out drill sergeant Mr. Hood's dance moves!
This week has been less crazy. Alanna spent three days at Year 6 Camp in Angelsea, a beach-side town at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road. They surfed, boogie boarded, mountain biked, climbed towers of milk crates while on a harness, and had a beach carnival. Good times. School finishes up on Friday, and as soon as the festivities are over we are heading to the Bellarine Peninsula for a camping trip with a few other families from school. Pap and Gram arrive a couple days later, on Christmas Eve! We can't wait. Not sure when I'll blog again, so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Or, as John Lennon said, Happy Christmas and Merry Goo Year.
