School Holiday update

School holidays are nearly over, so what have the boys been doing?

First we went to Melbourne, for a long weekend, which Evan summarised on the travel blog. We had most fun at the science museum, and kayaking down the Yarra, but we also cycled 10- 15K or so along the Yarra and back, which made me realise that the boys have got MUCH better at cycling in the last year.

In the first full week, Declan had Nic over for a day, and then went to Finn's for a day and much computer gaming was had.

Then for the middle weekend we went up to the Blue Mountains (with the everyone but me stopping off at Warragamba Dam on the way), and went horseriding, and to Ironfest (with the Lees and Angela and Tom).

We bought Declan a proper sword (blunted) for his early birthday present at Ironfest, which he has named Estela (which is elvish for hope).

Callum went off to Mosman to do his group school holiday project (Callum caught the bus by himself to Mosman oval), and we all had a lovely Anzac Day lunch at the Gaynor Vincents (with copious Anzac biscuit eating, as well as hide and seek).

And then Aidan and Chris came down on Friday to play with the 3d printer, and video cameras, (and much copious gaming was also had).

Trendy Melbourne

Declan tries out the punching bag in our excessively hip Melbourne hotel.


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War horse

We went to see War Horse this afternoon. I booked it after we had a long conversation with the boys about theatre compared with movies, and I realised they hadn't seen all that much live on stage.

They both loved it. Declan commented approvingly that it had made him cry. Callum (of course) loved the puppetry, but also really got into the story.

We thought it was great. And it was great for the boys to watch it after having been to see the World War I battlefields, and especially the cemeteries.

Pyramid Homework

In Callum's assignment for history this term, he had to make a model of something from Egyptian history. Well, the boy whose 5th birthday party was a paean to all things Egyptian was in heaven. Especially as he was allowed to make a virtual model in minecraft.

Here is his youtube video showing off his model.

Zombie biscuits

In our regular saturday night dessert making, Declan and I decided to make Zombie biscuits. Declan and Evan printed out a zombie cookie cutter using the 3d printer, and Declan and I made them. Here are some pictures.

Wallace and Gromit visit

Declan's fish and my snail, ready for claymation

Today we decided we should really get out of the house, and visited Wallace and Gromit at the Powerhouse. We had seen the same exhibition nearly four years ago in London, so were really looking forward to it.

Sadly, it didn't live up to expectations. Hard to tell how much was our much greater experience with science museums and exhibitions of all types, how much was that the boys were much older, and less impressed with stuff aimed at (according to Callum) four year olds, and how much was that the exhibition just didn't have all the good stuff from London.

We ended up deciding it was a mixture, but that the fact that the Powerhouse (as normal) had no explainers to be seen anywhere probably didn't help it in the contrast with pretty much any other exhibit of its type we had ever been to.

Parkour practice

As a bonus, we paid a quick visit to the Ian Thorpe pool (where the boys beat me in a race where they did 25 metres, and I did 50, despite swimming breaststroke) and saw some locals practicing Parkour nearby.