We went to see Thiango’s opening night in the musical Oliver at the Clink Theatre in Port Douglas this week. We all really enjoyed it.
It’s been raining every day still. It’s getting cooler though.
Varsha and Laxmi have had music again.
The markets were on.
And young creatives. Varsha has been working on her prototypes for production items.
Dakoda has come over for a play a few times. Laxmi and Dakoda made some beaded jewellery.
We got back into the swing of our regular activities this week.
Varsha has been doing some fabulous drawings. This one is inspired by a scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where the knights have been enchanted and fallen into a deep sleep and their hair and their fingernails have grown very long.
Laxmi has been reading and writing Harry Potter fan fiction: stories inspired by the original book but often going in quite different directions. Laxmi has also been using Instagram to get other people’s ideas about what should happen.
We have played the monster game and watched a few episodes of a fabulous documentary called Australia in Colour where Australian history is told through old film that has been coloured.
We went to music at the music house in Mareeba. The same teachers that came to our hall teach there with a couple of others. Varsha and Laxmi are both playing piano and Laxmi is singing.
We went to Atherton and met up with Tekira. Laxmi and I went shopping with her birthday money while the others went op shopping. Laxmi said it was the best day ever. She bought Super Mario Maker and a Pokémon case for her 3DS and a rolling suitcase with the Hogwarts crest on it. We had a picnic on the picnic table in the middle of the main street.
Dakoda came over to play with Laxmi and they painted and cooked and played outside. Laxmi has 11 pages left of the 766 pages in the 5th Harry Potter book.
Varsha went out walking with Luca and Jazz and met up with Thiango and had them all back at our house one evening. Varsha is making an animation using Flipaclips and working on her ideas for a product for Young Creatives. She went swing dancing this week too.
She’s also been embroidering on T-shirts for Luca to give to Finn.
We made a video for Grandma Lois and Grandpa George’s 60th wedding anniversary. Varsha got all the gear set up and did the sound check before we recorded it. It was a pretty crazy video!
I went to Tennant Creek for 10 days to help Erica with her new job . I left John and Varsha and Laxmi at home. John sent me these photos of them at home one cosy evening.
I flew into Alice Springs airport for the first time in many years. I caught the shuttle bus past the Gap and met up with a lawyer who gave me a lift to Tennant Creek.
Erica has started work at the art and culture centre. It’s been closed for a while and she and the staff there are going to reopen it.
It was very hot and there were lots of flies. The sunsets were very beautiful.
Our good friend, Kev, has been living in Tennant Creek for a long time now. He helped us a lot and we enjoyed his lovely backyard.
It was really great to see all the art they will have in the shop and in the exhibition space.
Kev drove me to the airport in Alice Springs. We had to leave before dawn. It was so beautiful to drive through the big landscape. This picture was taken coming into Barrow Creek.
John flew to Adelaide an hour before I landed back in Cairns. The landscape driving home was such a contrast to Central Australia.
A beautiful rainbow landed on our house on the morning of Laxmi’s birthday.
Laxmi invited some of her friends from the Tablelands Homeschoolers to her party. They had to drive quite a way to get here so we had her party early. She invited Grandma Jan and Grandpa Ken as well. They flew up from NSW. The theme was magical creatures.
Laxmi dressed up as an angel bunny.
We started with long balloons to make into creatures.
Then we played pin the moon on the wolf.
We had an obstacle course based on Temple Theives mini game in Roblox. There were lasers and swinging acid bottles and see saw planks. John was the Gem Keeper.
We finished off with a yummy chocolate birthday cake.
Lorne turned 83. We had pizza and cake to celebrate.
Varsha and Laxmi painted a wolf for the pin the moon on the wolf game for Laxmi’s birthday.
Laxmi and I have been doing yoga together in the mornings.
There are lots of dragonfruit ripening in the garden.
Varsha was taken by the name of these Philippino snacks we found in the Asian grocery.
We went down to Cairns to see Linda Jackson’s show and hear her artist’s talk and do the workshop designing ponchos.
A tree snake came into the house. We heard it because it had a rhinoceros beetle screeching in its mouth. We helped it find its way out of the house.
We went to Cairns for swing dancing. Laxmi came for the first time. She loved it. We did some errands and stopped at a coffee shop beforehand. Laxmi did a drawing on a serviette. We talked to John in Brisbane on the phone.
It was really hot and we decided to spend some time in the air conditioned library after the appointment at the bank. Laxmi really liked her tiger friend. We borrowed some good books.
Laxmi has decided she’s going to have a magical creatures birthday party.
Sharing some of our world with you.
Varsha found a nice spot to read Catcher in the Rye.
Laxmi thinks she might be related to the girls in the mural outside the supermarket.
We had lunch at Dino’s on John’s birthday.
Varsha and Laxmi made cards got John’s birthday and Varsha made him a birthday dog.
We looked up the most common birthdays and found some cool graphics.
This week was the 5th week of learning a routine at swing dancing. Everyone had got really good.
The dam has been great to swim in since it got hot.
The rain eased up a bit this week. Varsha went to see Finn off at the airport and we all went swing dancing.
We went to the dentist and the orthodontist in Mareeba on Wednesday.
On Thursday we went to Malanda to the games day with the Tablelands Homeschoolers. There were theatre games and board games. Laxmi played chess and Varsha played a version of dungeons and dragons. We went op shopping and looked at some of the big mosaics in Malanda.
Dakoda came over for a play on Friday. Cosi came for a while too. They played in the rain, did some sewing and drawing and made videos of each other cooking.
It’s still really rainy. Playing lots of games and watching things. Varsha was inspired to refine her wardrobe after we watched The rest of Marie Kondos Tidying up shows.
It cleared up a bit and went into Mareeba for shopping and op shopping and the library.
Yesterday was the first activity with the Homeschoolers for Term 1. We went ten pin bowling in Atherton and to the park for a play afterwards.
