A busy December!

 

 

We left off at with SA getting a thumping at the Adelaide oval... with Daniel, River and Brett Lee's signature in attendance...

 

Daniel went off to visit his uncle, aunt and cousins in Germany. By all accounts he had a wonderful time ... though we are still waiting for him to tell us about it : )

 

Whilst he was away Issy did beach training on Semaphore beach with their karate dojo

 

an hour in the water and an hour on the sand... ouch!

 

Issy was a reindeer in the school Christmas concert.

 

David Loveband - the principal - in a Christmas concert mood.

 

Issy's class after they had finished their item...

 

Issy's class also all made gingerbread houses in class.

 

Issy became a cub... at teh Adelaide aquatic centre... a favourite venue.

 

proud as punch.

 

Leroy and Rex... the new additions to our family!

 

both apricot toy poodles, 9 and 7 weeks old respectively.

 

together they are a whirlwind.

 

when we take them for a treat to the beach... they sleep.

 

Our Christmas lunch with the Gonsalves family... biriyani and turkey on our stoep.

 

River, Danny, Tya, Issy, Kingsley and Supriya.

 

hitting balls onto the roof...

 

Henley beach...in summer this time.

 

with those UV rays beating down through the hole in the ozone layer!

 

and the sand beating down on your head.

 

spot the baloon o copter, a birthday present from Janine. (Don't notice our lush young lawn).

 

Isabella and Rex.

Issy's end of year assembly for the early years section

 Issy in the red shirt in the centre of her class with her cardboard guitar singing "that'll be the day when I die" at the early years final assembly in the Mulberry hall at their school last week.

We can only fit our Christmas tree onto our front stoep...and we have some solar powered Christmas lights on our front gate.

The Norwood Christmas pageant!

 Basically its a parade down the high street (the street's name is 'the Parade') of a whole lot of dressed up people, coounities, interest goups, schools, bands, businesses etc. Our primary school's theme was bugs so Issy the bee and Issy's friend Tya the butterfly and Tya's brother River, the veiled pole carrier... can be seen parading above.

 Close up of the bee.

 

 The bee and the butterfly from the back.

 This is Norwood primary school's float... only the reception year kids were allowed to ride on it... the rest of us had very sore feet! Daniel's enthusiasm for the occasion is plain.

Here, he manages to mask his feelings of near disgust better. He did not take part... but 'roamed' around (barefoot) watching everyone else.

There were even penny farthings!

 and lotus flowers.

 

The bee and her brother.

 

 Isabella, River, Daniel and Tya. River and Tya started school on teh same day Daniel and Isabella did. Issy and Tya are in the same class and in the basket ball team together. We walk home from school together most days (unless we are the last four on the playground in the afternoons left furiously playing hand tennis). River and Tya have come from Singapore but their parents are from Mumbai. Their Dad, Kingsley works in Papua New Ginea as an engineer, 28 days on and 28 days off. We hope to spend Christmas together.

The bugs on the float before the pageant in the grounds of the school Daniel's classroom is at the back on the right, in the background.

Odds and ends

Daniel at his last Saturday cricket match when he was not out at a lovely park near our house on the river Torrens in St Peter's called River Park http://www.npsp.sa.gov.au/page.aspx?u=768 .

Isabella and her friend Tya's sunflower plants that they have planted in the school gardens.

 

Our rapidly wilting summer lawn!

 

A rather surreal birthday party the kids were invited too (Siobahn's - a class mate of Issy's, with and Irish Dad and South African mom). The venue is a lovely old Russian orthodox church, now owned by a trampoline champion who holds 'team trampoline' kids parties there, where kids can jump themselves silly and watch him do amazing jumps for one and a half hours. Issy LOVED it (Daniel asked to be taken home and enjoyed being able to spend time at home alone, while we finished teh party).

 

 

 

The children were dissappointed that people don't really celebrate Halloween here... they had planned to trick or treat. So we dressed up and ate horrible cheap dough-nuts and less cheap virgin mojito (Issy's favourite) at home.

 

 

This coming Starurday is the Norwood Christmas pageant... photos later... we think this is a giant parade down the high street... Isabella wants to dress as a bee (the theme for their school is bugs). Daniel reserves teh right not to take part : )

School photos

These are the school photos. Norwood primary is considered a small and old fashioned school with an arts focus. It is an inner city suburb school with small grounds and like most public schools it does not have its own pool or theatre. It also does not have a tuck shop. But it is right next to the local Norwood footy oval and it does have its own gym and kids are allowed to play in the gym and on teh oval at breaks, provided they bring their hats to school! School plays are done in the local theatre. Swimming only takes place for 2 weeks of the year (for the whole two weeks) at a local pool and lunches can be ordered from a local cafe. The school has just over 300 kids and just over 30 nationalities are represented at the school.

Aborigine children (of which there are hardly any) are accompanied by their integration officers (which appear to the untrained eye to be adult white males who come and see to their particular integration needs ... not yet entirely sure what these are...for a whole day once a week or so... Daniel is lucky enough to have one of these largely invisible children (except when they are accompanied by their integration officers) in his class. However, when I looked at Daniel's photos today and told him that Richard in his class was aborigine, he was astonished (and quite impressed)...when I asked him why he was surprised he said he thought Richard Indian or something but that he danced well nd was a really fast runner and that he was "really nice" even although he doesnt play much hand tennis (considered by daniel to be the whole point of all education. (Of course Daniel was also quite astonished to find out that Caleb Bianco might possibly be Italian... I reassure myself by reminding myself that Daniel was in Grade 2 when he came home one day and said he had noticed that you got different colours of skin...). So unlike his sister, who started classifying everyone according to very

strict visual criteria when she was three (maybe because she had arather strict  Zimbabwean teacher who felt it her duty to warn teh chldren in her care against the evils of inter marriage) .