Fun in the Holidays

The kids were back to school on Tuesday, and I was able to get into a better routine of doing my work in the day instead of after they went to bed! My efforts at getting to bed earlier have been a little more successful as a result!

But before the holidays ended we got up to lots more fun.

Having to go into the city for an appointment with Phillip, we decided to use the opportunity to look at the Queensland Museum. Phillip dropped us off and fetched us later, which meant that we saved on the generally high cost of parking in the city. It was a fun afternoon. We deliberately didn't go into the Sciencentre which we've heard is really great because we want to do that with Phillip. We still had fun for a couple of hours though -- a dinosaur display was most enjoyed by both the kids.





Another day we went to the Downfall Creek Bushlands Centre which is based at a park in the north western part of the city. Seems like a really great area so it was quite a nice drive, especially once we started to go away from the city. It was quite hilly terrain and very green. We definitely need to consider heading out that way with Phillip sometime to see what else we can find in that area. Anyway, the Brisbane City Council had organised an educational event for kids. It was free of charge and such a wonderful outing for the kids. They were shown different animals that could be found in the reserve -- including a bearded dragon and other types of lizards, snakes, a bandicoot (which is very similar to the bilby I mentioned in my Easter post), a squirrel glider, a tree frog and a tawny frogmouth (a bird that looks rather like an owl).













There was also an opportunity to walk through the park to see the types of areas where we could find the wildlife that we had just seen (tame versions of) close up -- somewhat fortunately for the moms we didn't find anything apart from a few bugs! Then it was back to the centre where the children got given clay and various seeds, leaves and sticks and were able to make their own clay creations. What an entertaining two hours for the children and amazing that this was all for free. We ate our picnic lunch in the park afterwards and the children spent time playing on a great jungle gym.





We also spent a few hours at the Wynnum Park where we've been a couple of times before. The whales that squirt water had been fenced off and are apparently being repaired, but the kids enjoyed the jungle gym, and then had a really fun time going down this slide into the huge wading pool.



Back at school on Tuesday, Slade was appointed as the representative for his class -- they call it a pod rep. And is now a member of the Student Council.