Rhubarb pie

Because it was so cold on the weekend, we decided to have rhubarb pie, cooked from scratch by Callum and me. It was delicious, we seem to have found a great pastry recipe, that is possibly almost as good as Evan's grandmother's recipe (it is impossible to be as good, when you are competing with nostalgia).

The movie was I am Legend, with Will Smith, which was so scary (with disease created zombies) that Declan barely slept that night.

Declan goes to the movies

Declan's group of friends went to the movies on Saturday, to see Jurassic World. Declan was very proud of himself, because he caught the bus there and back all by himself. They all met at the movies, without a parent going in with them! He is getting very grown up.

That does (from what I can gather) mean that ridiculous amounts of popcorn are consumed, to the limit of the amount of money that goes with them, which means that next time, Declan is taking less money.

Declan's maths report

Declan got his maths report this week, delayed because it is Year 9. He came 6th in year 9, a tie with Callum's good friend Ben, and the comments were great; "Declan is a gifted mathematician.. he is an extremely diligent, hardworking student who focuses well on all classwork that is set.". When he showed me the report, Declan did try to hide the sentence that says "to further improve, he needs to ensure he always shows full working.", which is something I may have said to him once or twice. 

Callum's report

Callum got his report this week, which was, as usual, very complimentary. He managed to top science, and is doing well in almost all of his other subjects. The comments were all great, as well, with the summary being "Callum is highly valued by his teachers who comment that he is diligent, conscientious and interested with a great work ethic and lots of enthusiasm."

Mountain sleepover

For the June long weekend we all went up to the mountains to visit the Langdon Linigen's new place, and (in the absence of rain) admire the lake. There was a lot of boating happening on the lake, with all the children having a great time rowing about, Declan in particular managing to get the boat to himself a couple of times.

Evan also convinced the boys, as part of their "brain training" (we have been watching Todd Sampson) to swim a length of the swimming pool. Given it was June, in Leura, it was pretty cold, and both of them said they couldn't really feel their bodies by the end of the lap. I was proud of them both, because they just got on and did it, with the promise of a hot shower and lunch afterwards.

Various movies and desserts

As well as the update I've just posted, I thought I'd update desserts.  We also watched paper planes this week for our movie - a newish Australian movie - a good time was had by all, and we particularly enjoyed the Tokyo scenes.

For dessert recently we have cooked Rhubarb pie (very successful) darth vader biscuits (always loved by all) melting moments, and Evan's favourite, bread and butter pudding.

Various updates

It has been a while since I posted, sorry to all our readers. I'm going to put the full update in one post.

We had the festival of Jennifer (aka my birthday). Callum and Declan (after suitably wishing me happy birthday) had a very pleasant sleepover with Martin, enjoyed by all three of them (plus Harvey the dog, who appreciated the extra attention from Declan) by all accounts. They watched a movie together, cooked dinner together, and then took Harvey for a walk in the morning. Evan and I stayed in town to have a look at Vivid, which meant we could spend a bit longer wandering around (we ended up taking 4 hours) than even our very patient boys would probably have been happy with.

Declan got his school report, which was excellent, with the highlight being him topping science (showing again the benefit of reading the marking guide on all his assignments). The Principal's comment was "Declan is highly valued by his teachers who comment that he is a lateral thinker, enthusiastic, motivated, creative and willing to take risks.

Callum has been having a great time doing Beyond Visible - his science and maths elective. They took control of the Parkes telescope, on the science side, and they have been working their way through various maths olympiad prep questions on the maths side. Callum is really enjoying the maths stuff, and the whiteboard we bought him for his room is getting a real workout every time he has a new question to do.

Callum did a review of "The Secret River" - the play, as his english assignment, so we are all looking forward to watching the TV adaptation which has just been released on TV. He did very well, which is great, as he seems to have turned around the general english teacher view of him as someone who is focused on maths and science only.

Declan's most recent interesting assignment has been for english, where he and his friends have done a video which is supposed to be about Odysseus encountering the cyclops, in modern dress. The early version I have seen is mostly about nerf warfare and tanks, but apparently the voiceover is going to tie it back to Odysseus and a cyclops.

They've both had quite a lot of assessment tasks to do at school, at various times this term being a bit stressed by how many things are due at once. They've largely finished them now, and we are all looking forward to our holiday which starts next Tuesday!