Magic tricks

One part of Declan's loot from his party was a magic trick kit. Declan spent an hour last night carefully learning a couple of the tricks (which he did quite effectively, even with the handicap of pyjamas with short sleeves and no pockets).

Not to be outdone, Callum remembered a similar kit he had got from a party a few years ago, and he's been busily learning a few tricks of his own ever since.

Visit from Lucinda

After Declan's party, Lucinda came back with us for a sleepover. She and Declan and Callum had a lovely afternoon together, playing nerf gun wars, sorting out Declan's present loot, playing Team Fortress 2 on the computer together, and then after dinner, watching the third Narnia movie with us. In a model of restraint, Lucinda managed not to give away the entire plot, despite having read the whole book quite recently.

Unfortunately, after they'd all gone to bed, Lucinda became sick with a stomach ache, and her dad had to come and pick her up, which was a sad end to a lovely day. 

Laser tag party

Declan has been looking forward to having a laser tag birthday party since Callum's 8th birthday party (which was laser tag). This was the first year we could manage it, and he was very excited. In the end there were 14 of them (including Callum and Declan) and they had two 12 minutes rounds in teams in Chatswood.

Also included in the party was pizza in the karaoke room (the karaoke was wasted on Declan, although a few of his friends enjoyed it more) and half an hour on the video games after cake.

A good time was had by all. For the record, Declan's friend Gabriel was unequivocally the best at laser tag (apparently he has had a lot of practise), with twins Jamie and Ethan consistently in the top four. Lucinda and Callum were the others at the top of the table most of the time.

Sickness in the house

For the first time in over a year (since Sorrento, to be precise) we had a sick child in the house today. Declan decided mid way through the morning that he was too sick for school. Fortunately, Thursday is Evan's big day at school (ethics, programming, robotics) so he was there to take Declan home. Unfortunately that meant that programming and robotics were cancelled.

But since Thursday is also Declan's favourite day at school (programming, robotics, and science) he clearly was sick and not shamming.

We now have to hope that nobody else in the house catches whatever it was.

Debating team

Callum took part in his first official (representing the school) debate this week as he was third speaker against Neutral Bay. Ironically (in a debate against an OC class), the topic was that OC classes should be abolished, and Callum's team was the negative, with the OC class having to argue that their classes should be abolished.

Unfortunately for Cammeray, most of the normal team was away on band duty, with only Callum being an experience debater. In a surprising (to most of the audience) adjudication, though, Cammeray won even with the inexperienced team. We like to think that Callum's role as last speaker in the debate won the day as he  brought all the points home.

Sydney Writers Festival

Part of the reason the mountain folk were down in Sydney was to visit the Sydney Writers Festival; a very cultural event which I am embarrassed to say I have never visited before.  We went with Angela and Aidan and Tom, with Tom in particular very keen to see John Flanagan. We were there to see two very different writers - Andy Griffiths, author of many many hilarious books, most of which Callum and Declan have read (one of which, The Cat on the Mat is Flat got Declan to realise he could read a book on his own). He was great in person, weaving funny quotes from many of his quotes into what felt like a completely impromptu chat about how he writes books.

The other author was John Flanagan, author of the Rangers Apprentice series, who talked a lot about the experience of writing his books, and how he plans them out. He's just released the second in his new series, Brotherband, which he is promoting, but the audience mostly wanted to talk about Rangers Apprentice.

Callum and Declan really enjoyed both talks, and were completely captivated. Callum felt compelled to point out the continuity error in the Rangers Apprentice series (you could see John Flanagan wince at being asked a very familiar question) and Aidan asked Andy Griffiths how he came up with some of his Just Doomed jokes.

Talkover

We had the mountain folk down for a Saturday night sleepover this weekend - dinner and a movie for the kids, and dinner and conversation for the adults. Very civilized. The boys, Aidan, Tom, Callum and Declan shared the floor of the playroom, and didn't get nearly enough sleep, since they spent every possible waking moment talking or playing computer games.

Poor Emma decided she wasn't that keen on being the only girl in the testosterone filled bedroom, so slept with her parents.

All children had to be dragged away from the computers this morning to be forced to eat breakfast.

Mothers Day

We have discussed with the boys that we think that Mothers day is overly commercialised, and we don't think we should make too much of it. But of course they still do things at school. Which is lovely because they are handmade and thoughtful.

Callum made and decorated a poem for me, and Declan did some tapestry of a heart and made a card. But the most fun thing was that Callum created my own personal amazing race so that I could find my poem, complete with a task to make some of Declan's birthday present lego, and another one to read two pages of their current bedtime book. A great time was had by all.

Spit to Manly

After our recent walking adventures, we decided to revisit our old favourite walk, the Spit to Manly. It is a 9km walk along the foreshores of Sydney Harbour (mostly), through Sydney Harbour National Park, with beach walking, walks through classic sandstone scrub, and some lovely fig tree vine forest.

Declan found it tough going at times, which means we need more walking practice if we are going to do the Milford Track! but the rest of it found it shorter than we had remembered.

Callum and Declan with North Head in the background, at Dobroyd Point , half way

After a quick coffee at Manly Wharf (hot chocolate for Callum), we caught the ferry to Circular Quay and then to Milson's Point, finishing with a well earned early lunch from the Kirribilli markets (and for Callum and Declan, a miraculous recovery of energy and game of tip with Griffin, who we ran into at the Gozleme stand). 

Brain cake

Declan's friend Griffin (who has always had a soft spot for Declan, as they almost share a birthday, albeit five years apart) gave him a silicon brain mould. You can use it to make a cake or jelly in the shape of a human brain.

Since Callum and I were planning to make a cake for the grandparental birthday celebration anyway, we decided to make a brain cake. Sadly no pictures were taken, as we were too eager to eat it. Next time we're planning to use red icing.

Declan's birthday continues...

Everyone tried to figure out how to make it work

In a fantastic display of uncleing, Uncles Martin and Kevin brought Declan a Drone helicopter for his birthday. I suspect that they had to restrain themselves from having a go at home first, but nevertheless Declan got to be the first user as he flew it around our flat.

Not only can you control it through your ipad, but it takes pictures through two different cameras, and enables you to record video that you can share with your friends. We're hoping Declan doesn't use it to spy on the neighbours.

Drone spies on the table

Boys measurements

As is traditional on a birthday, we measured the boys. They've both grown 1.5 cm since last measurement  (which surprised us, as Callum seems to be growing out of his clothes quicker). Callum is now 140.5cm, and 37.7 kg, and Declan is now 134cm and 31.3 kg. Declan is slipping down the height percentile rankings, now he is only 52nd percentile, and Callum is down at 43rd percentile.

Happy Birthday Declan

Declan turned 9 today* on the 9th of May (a coincidence he was quite pleased about). He has been building in excitement for at least the last two weeks (possibly longer), and has been planning his present list for some time. Today he only got presents from his parents and brother, but they were good ones - remote control tanks, a lego ninjago set, a new nerf gun and a toblerone.

He brought chocolate in for his class (abandoning even any pretence of home cooking cup cakes!) and we went out for dinner tonight, where he was very pleased to be interrupted twice by congratulatory phone calls.

In two weeks time he has the other part of his birthday he has been planning for about a year - a laser tag party.


* apologies I am putting up this post late, but dating it correctly.

Cross country results

On Tuesday the boys had their cross country race at school. Callum, after having done some practice on the weekend did well - running the whole 3 K course and (he reports) keeping up a steady pace the whole time (interestingly maintaining his position after the first three minutes, during which he overhauled a whole bunch of overeager sprinters). He came 20th in his age group.

Declan didn't manage to run the whole 2K of his course, but didn't walk too much, and came 65th in his age group. It is interesting, Declan knows that the way to keep running is to run slowly, but he can run almost slower than I believed possible! (and I've done some slow running in my time). 

Declan settles in

Evan and I had a meeting with Declan's teacher Ms Wood on Wednesday. We wanted to talk to her about how he is settling in, and whether he is being challenged enough in maths.

She said that now we're in Term 2 Declan seemed much more confident and happy with his place in the world (something she only noticed by contrast with Term 1 - he seemed fine then, but he's much more confident and outgoing now). He and his friend Lachlan feed off each other and are really doing well in class. Lachlan is more theoretical, and Declan just wants to get down and calculate things straight away.

But she agreed with me that he hates getting things wrong, and needs to be given a few more tricky things so he learns that the world doesn't fall in and you learn quite a lot from struggling with a problem.

Science educators

The University of Sydney sponsors a part of the Eureka Prize, the Sleek Geeks Eureka Prize in two sections for primary and high school students. The task is to create a 1-3 minute video educating about science.

After many dinner table conversations about what the boys could do, they settled on explaining Newton's laws of motion in Minecraft, a nice combination of their two obsessions. After we showed them how to record their voices, how to edit bits of video, and after several false starts, found some software that allowed them to record segments of Minecraft, they spent a few hours on Anzac Day and last weekend editing their video.

The finalists from last year are of a very high standard so they are up against stiff competition, but we all think the finished product is pretty good whether or not they make it that far. We're not sure if we can put it up on youtube until the competition is finished, so anyone who wants to see it will just have to come and visit!

Cross country training

The boys have their cross country running carnival at school on Tuesday, and Callum, in particular, has been very keen to do well. We went out for a run yesterday morning, where Callum pushed through his tiredness and ran the whole course (including the hardest part, the run up the hill from the ferry wharf) without walking once.

This morning, he is off to the actual course in Artarmon to practice with his friend Angus.