Cat had a New York themed New Year party at her house. There was a concert with sword, ballon and swing dancing.
Lovely rainy week between Christmas and New Year. Harriet and Milly and Cosmo were here. We sewed, played Articulate, read and swam in the dam. Laxmi loves dancing in the rain. John made some progress on the monsoon palace when it wasn’t raining.
We had a lovely Christmas morning with Harriet and Milly and Cosmo.
In the afternoon Cat, Will, Thiango and Cosmo came to join us for our Christmas lunch feast. It lasted all afternoon and into the night.
Harriet, Milly and Cosmo have come from Geelong for Christmas. It has been very hot.
Just before Christmas it started raining and became lovely and cool.
We had a Christmas Eve party at Cat’s house. She made Shirley Temples for the kids. They played twister and watched Elf.
We made pavlova when we came home.
After the storms the ground was covered in Poincianas.
We have been picking asparagus spears from our garden. John made a delightful breakfast with them.
Varsha and Thiango went to the swing dancing Christmas party.
We went to the last Tablelands Homeschoolers gathering for the year at Malanda falls.
John started making a summer house for some shade by the dam on the hot days. Varsha helped him concrete the posts in. It started raining and he had to take a break for a while.
Varsha started making dolls and earrings for Christmas presents and cards too.
Laxmi has been exploring using a compass.
Varsha and I went Christmas shopping.
It’s been super hot.
Varsha and Laxmi put decorations on the Christmas tree.
Varsha has been watching lots of Dr who and Laxmi has been reading Harry Potter and watching Stampy play Nino Kuni, a game animated by Studip Ghibli.
We watched Thor Ragnorok and another movie by the New Zealand director, Tyko Waititi called Hunt for the Wilderpeople. They were both good.
Then it started raining. So nice and cool and the plants are so happy.
It’s been really hot. Laxmi’s been reading lots and looking up some good words.
A big thunderstorm blew in. We took a frightened dog inside. He was running around panicking. It took a while to find out where he came from afterwards. We walked around town and saw a funny Halloween hand sticking out of the boiler ruins.
We tried a game we hadn’t played before: living landscapes. It is about the connection of all the things in a garden or farm. It was pretty complicated but fun. We liked the illustrations on the cards.
Dakoda came over for a play. They started making fan fiction based on Harry Potter.
We have been making with clay quite often lately.
Varsha’s been working hard on completing things for the opening of their Hydra performance at the Cairns Art Gallery with the Young Creatives. She and Marley gave one of the speeches. We alll went down for it.
Cat and Will and Thiango and Cosi have come home from Indonesia. We had them over for dinner and they told us all about what they did.
We camped at Big Crystal Creek on the way home. There was a beautiful swimming spot.
Laxmi finished The Goblet of Fire in the car before we got home. They didn’t have The Order of the Phoenix in the library so Laxmi has started reading the PDF on the iPad. We watched The Goblet of Fire movie too.
When we got home the poinciana had really come out.
Varsha made peach pancakes. She has been working on another Hydra head and made a cloak for one of the dolls she has painted.
We had a lovely time at the beach house with Grandma and Grandpa and Stu and Stephanie and Katie. There was a pool table. We played lots of games on it and games like articulate and Uno.
We made a mango ice cream birthday cake and went out for a lovely lunch for Grandma and Grandpa’s birthday.
The pool was lovely too. Laxmi and Katie spent hours and hours in there.
We drove to Ingham and camped at the same campground we stayed at on our road trip last November. We read Finding ones way with clay in the car. We had dinner at the pub and the train went past close to our tent 3 times in the night.
We discovered Otto’s in Townsville for breakfast. They had really good sourdough bread.