Halloween

Today was Halloween and the boys had costumes all planned. Declan was Mace Windoo and Callum was a mad scientist.

Cockatoo island

For the second year running Cammeray had family camping at Cockatoo island.




We were pretty well prepared this year, with a book each, a nice chicken salad dinner and breakfast. Unfortunately we made the same mistake as last year and forgot cutlery.

Fortunately though thethreatened thunderstorm didn't eventuate and everyone had a wonderful time wandering the island with their friends, or sitting chatting over a beer, according to taste.


Callum and Declan also got a paddle in the new Harbour pool despite the SMH front page article about dioxins in the area.

Dessert ninja

Yesterday after dinner we had a fleeting visit from the dessert ninja. He delivered our magnums and then mysteriously disappeared.

Online testing

We've almost decided that on our trip away we will be getting the boys do to an online maths course (so we're not entirely relying on our own will power and teaching ability).

Our current favorite is ctyonline from John Hopkins University in Baltimore. To get in, you have to do an online test, which the boys duly did on Tuesday. Apparently they were by far the youngest ever seen at the testing centre, which normally specialises in adult vocational testing.

It was a vocabulary and maths out of level test. Declan's test was a year 4 test, and he was 56th percentile for vocabulary and 86th for maths (out of the year 4s). Callum's was a year 6 test and he was 96th percentile for vocabulary and 99th percentile for maths.

That got them both in to the maths course we were aiming for, so now we've got to decide whether it is the right course for them both.

Swimming

For the first time in ages we went swimming for fun at North Sydney pool today. We discovered a few things
- Declan has grown out of his swimming shirt ( we only bight a new one for Callum last time)
- Callum can happily do laps of the 25m pool freestyle (he jacked up at racing me after beating me once, but was quite happy to swim back and forth)
- despite many years of swimming lessons, Declan still can't really swim a good freestyle, although he is quite safe in the water these days
- despite deliberately going to the pool to get wet, none of us really enjoy being soaked by the rain on the way home.

Secular festival

This morning we bypassed the religious festival celebrating Mary McKillop's sainthood and instead went to the much more popular Crows Nest fair.

Their favorite big slide wasn't there this year (possibly because there were so many crafty stalls) but the jumping castle was, and the boys had a very entertaining 10 minutes on it, despite being, in a sign of how big they're getting, the biggest kids on it.

They also collected several balloons from various causes, and, in Declan's case,enjoyed some delicious old fashioned lemonade (Callum screwed up his face and declared it too sour).

Sick

Declan has had a reprise of his illness of a few weeks ago - headaches and vomiting. He's been very unhappy, telling me how much he hates being sick, and missed school on Thursday and Friday this week. He had a tough night last night, but this morning (touch wood) seems a lot better, even enjoying a chocolate croissant from the french bakery for morning tea, but deciding he wasn't quite enough better for a bike ride.

Around the world

There may be a few people who read this blog who haven't heard our exciting news - we are planning a year long round the world trip in 2011. The boys are getting increasingly excited about it, once they've realised that they will be able to take their iPads with them.

Last week we got their backpacks (ordered on line from the US) which made the whole trip much more real for them. They immediately started packing them, to see if everything fits, and had a wonderful time showing them off to their grandparents, and walking up and down the stairs repeatedly to test them out.

We plan to blog here about the boys, but also on a special site about the trip, which I've been roadtesting here.

Island hopping

On the weekend we went island hopping as part of the Crave Sydney festival. First stop was Goat island, where there were redcoats and convicts parading and being flogged respectively. Declan, Callum and Jack got to sign up as redcoats.


After that we hopped to Shark island, where we got to touch all sorts of different animals including a giant cockroach. Declan was very taken with the shark teeth. And the final stop was Clark island where we got to taste some local bush tucker. It was a lovely day and the chance to see islands that you don't normally see.

Reading

Last night I got home from choir and went to check on the boys only to discover Declan still reading at 9.45. I practically had to prise the book from his hands even then as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

For the record the book was Diary of a Wimpy Vampire, a derivative pastiche from the current trends.

In other reading news, Callum has just finished the Harry Potter series.

Chocolate Tart

Maeva, Callum and Declan's French teacher, brought them a recipe for chocolate tart (in French) yesterday. Challenged, we decided to make it together. It was delicious (as Grandma pointed out, it's hard for something with 300g of chocolate, 200ml of honey and enough eggs butter and flour to stick it together not to be).

Here are Callum and Declan showing off their handiwork.

Holiday visit

Declan's friend Finn invited us to visit his family's holiday house near Bundeena today, so after a visit to the grandparents yesterday, today we visited them. They have a fabulous house on the Beach of Port Hacking. We had a lovely walk along the sand at low tide, where we saw big battalions of soldier crabs scuttling away on our approach.

Then after lunch, we walked around to a little bridge where we while away an hour or so playing pooh sticks and throwing rocks into the water.

Finn and Declan had a great time between our two expeditions developing major engineering works on the sand, while Callum continued working through the Harry Potter series.

Grandparents visit

We are visiting Grandma and Grandpa for a night. Callum and Declan were a bit perturbed when they realized that we were coming with them. They usually get the grandparents to themselves when they visit, so they wanted to know why we were coming too.

We've had a very nice visit, with some very complex quantum mechanics discussion over dinner (Callum was pretending to be two different versions of himself by coming into the dining room by two different doors).

Callum and Declan helped Grandma make a chocolate pudding which was very tasty, and had a great time testing out all the other attractions of the grandparental household.


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Location:Tulong Pl,Kirrawee,Australia

Rocket Boat

Declan has decided that we should have a family Rocket Boat challenge at an as yet unspecified date. Each family member gets to make their own rocket boat, and then we compete for which goes the furthest. He's made his own prototype (pictured) but hasn't yet figured out how to stop the paper from becoming sodden and sinking, so the actual competition is still some way into the future.

A show!

Callum and Declan did their usual week of ATYP in the school holidays this week. We managed to sneak Declan into the 3-4 class, which he loved. He went from last term not wanting to participate in the end of week show to this term being disappointed he only got three lines.

We weren't sure what made the difference. One explanation was that he got to play Sir Lancelot, so got to wear his knight costume, and another is that he had a very enthusiastic teacher.

Regardless, he was so excited about the show today that he asked us if he could get in the shower at about 6.15 am.

Callum played a mad professor (his favorite character) in a show about dreams and nightmares. Oddly enough both shows featured time machines.