Appy boys

A few weeks ago Declan created an app, which, sadly, was rejected by Apple. The app was based around a wiki which he maintains with a group of friends and had too much copyrighted content in it for Apple's taste. 

Callum meanwhile has programmed an app from scratch that tells him what's coming next in his complicated two-week-rotation school timetable. His runs on Google android and is currently in beta-testing with his school friends. 

Debating Declan

Declan was picked for the Neutral Bay debating team. He's very chuffed. 

Canberra, a well overdue visit

We realised we haven't been to Canberra for absolutely ages. (My current research suggests it was nearly four years ago!) So this weekend, we decided to go down for the weekend.  We visited the Inca Gold exhibition, which we all enjoyed, although it did make us wish we'd gone to more museums in Peru (where most of the exhibits came from).

We also had a quick whiz through the rest of the National Gallery. Declan was quite scornful of much of the modern art, "That is not art", he would exclaim every time we saw piece of abstract art. He did like Blue Poles, but didn't think it was worth the acquisition price. He still loved the Monet waterlilies (which I suspect was the origin of his Monet obsession) Callum, as well as enjoying the art, did quite like checking out the building engineering.

Next we took in Questacon, which was a well overdue visit after our science museum tour of the world. We loved it as much as ever, although Callum still didn't manage to do the Free fall, which he was disappointed by. We all thought it compared well with many of the best science museums overseas.

And then finally, on Sunday morning, after our planned bike ride was stymied by the rain, we visited Parliament House as Declan was keen to see where our government was made. I was pleased to be able to see both the Senate and the House of Representatives. It was much easier to get into and more welcoming than our tour of the US Capitol, although I imagine more people want to see the US Capitol.

A great weekend, as we always say after we've been to Canberra, we should go more often!

Spit to Manly

It's been a while, so we decided to do the Spit to Manly walk this morning. It was a beautiful day, albeit a bit humid (even starting at 7.30 am).

Despite the heat, we finished 2 hours and 20 minutes, which is probably as fast as we have ever done it.

About half way, we ran into Tony Abbott (only recognised by me and Evan, at least at first) and Callum had a long discussion afterwards about what exactly he would have said if he had realised it was Tony Abbott.

Bike ride

This morning we went for a bike ride to Darling Harbour. I was thinking there might be a bit of Chinese New Year decoration, but disappointingly, Darling Harbour has decided to go for a Valentine's Day theme for the whole of February.

We all noticed that our bike skills had improved with the Vietnam trip - we are all better at negotiating tight corners than we used to be.  But we've lost a bit of fitness; the schlep up Miller St back home was still hard work.

Ancient history

I've been sorting out some of our old photos, and found a whole lot of video of our trip to Italy in 2007. I've made it into a video for youtube - here it is if you are interested.

I feel I have to point out that Declan basically refused to be videoed the whole trip; that is why Callum got to do all the commentary!

Souffle

In our continuing tradition of cooking on Saturday afternoon, Callum and I (after protests from Declan) decided to make a cheese soufflé for dinner, as we already have way too many dessert items in the house.

Last time we tried it here, we hadn't figured out our oven yet, and it was a bit of a disaster. This time it was both tasty and goodlooking, and we were very pleased with it. We may have to revert to tradition next time and make a dessert soufflé, which could be even more delicious.

The Eaglespur is Revenged

After a bit of discussion while on holiday, Declan promised me he was going to finish his book/blog. And he has! If you would like to know how it turned out, here is The Revenge of the Eaglespur.

Tae Kwon Do

Evan has been trying to convince me to give Tae Kwon Do a try (as it is pretty good exercise, and fairly convenient given everyone else is doing it.

So the boys were thrilled to take me along last week for my first go. They were arguing over who got to spar with me, and teach me how to kick and do my patterns. That has settled down a bit now, as they realise that I don't immediately reflect their wonderful teaching, but on my third try today they are still quite happy to have me.

Declan was particularly enjoying today giving me low rankings for my kicks, as I wasn't kicking him hard enough.

Back to School

Callum and Declan started school this week. They were mostly looking forward to it, particularly to see their friends, but the downside of not as much computer gaming time was unavoidable, and meant that they both claimed not to be looking forward to it at all.

Declan is in Year 6 this year, at the top of the school (literally, his classroom is on the top floor) and very excited that they are all getting iPad Airs in week 3. We aren't quite sure why that excites him so much (given he has one of his own) but he seems thrilled. They also have couches in their classroom, and are allowed to have up to five games on their iPads, so I'm not sure how much they are actually going to learn this year.

Callum is in Year 8, and started the day after Declan, as at Mosman High the Year 7s start the day before everyone else. He got to go in anyway, though, and help Evan teach some of the new Year 7s programming, which he quite enjoyed. He has already come home with a complaint about his new science teacher's lack of science understanding, but all of his other teachers seem to meet with his approval. Interestingly, he didn't get his first choice of languages (French), but got put into Japanese, which I don't think he minds all that much, as he will be learning a bit more that way.

So far, no homework for either of them, which is probably a good thing for the first weekend.