Epiphany on the Beach

It is Epiphany. Imogen, Charlotte, Gemma-Rose and I are all sitting in Mum and Dad's room talking.

"We have two options on what we could do today," Mum says. "We could stay home and have cake or we could go to the beach?"

What is Mum thinking? Of course we want to go to the beach. We grab our swimmers, towels, something to do in the car and water bottles.

Soon we are in the car. I settle down for the long drive. I have a favourite book on the go and I am listening to the Frozen soundtrack on my MP3 player. It doesn't seem to take very long before we arrive.

Immy

We head over to the changing rooms. We all change as fast as we can, put on our sunscreen and then meet Dad outside.

He leads us over to the beach and to a good spot on the sand.

"Can we go play in the water?" Gemma-Rose asks.

Me

"Come on," Imogen agrees and we run into the waves. The water isn't half as cold as we thought it would be and soon we are jumping waves. We call ourselves the Ninja Kipper Fish.

Gemma-Rose and Charlotte keep getting carried back to shore, but Imogen and I soon pick up how to jump a wave and then dig our heels into the sand.

After a little while we all decide to go make a sand castle. It is a tradition to make a sand castle every time we go to the beach.

"What should this one be like?" Charlotte asks.

"How about we give it two towers?" Imogen suggests.

"We could give it a tunnel all the way through," Charlotte adds.

"Come on then."

Soon we are digging and piling sand up. It is looking really impressive. I smile as I look at our handiwork.

"Lets call it the Two Towers," Imogen says. I giggle.

Gemma-Rose and Two Towers

"What should we do now?" Gemma-Rose asks.

"Well I have seen all these amazing pictures of sand mermaids. Does anyone want to try making one?" Imogen asks.

We all do. We have never made a sand mermaid before.

Charlotte and Imogen start by drawing out the shape and then we begin on the building.

The mermaid

"Try to stay in the lines," Charlotte calls.

It is a lot of fun. I get given the head to do. I build it a bit out of shape and Charlotte has to fix it for me. She and Imogen are good at doing things like this.

Mum comes over to have a look. She is soon off for her camera. She takes photos of everyone and, when we are finished, the mermaid itself. Dad comes over too. He takes the camera and takes a lot more photos. It is the most amazing thing we have ever done!

"Time to go and get some dinner," Mum says.

We go to the change room and have showers and get back into our clothes. We are all hungry and so we hurry. Dad is going to buy fish and chips.

Once he has bought them, we find a park and sit down to eat our dinner. Seagulls crowd around in hope of something to eat, but they are out of luck. We are too hungry to waste anything on birds.

When we have finished eating, we climb back in the car and go home to bed. It was a great day! I really enjoyed myself.

What did you do on the Feast of the Epiphany?

Zoo

I love going to the zoo. I like walking around taking photos of all the animals.

We don't go to the zoo very often. I only remember going twice. A family as big as mine can't go too often because it is way too expensive.

It is always fun to try and take a photo of an animal in a tank. It is so hard not to have a reflection in the glass.

I like watching the bird and seal shows at the zoo. The seals are very well trained and often do funny tricks. The birds are very interesting.

One of the highlights of the zoo is the elephants. They are so big and strong. I love elephants.

When we go to the zoo it is always a whole day trip. We get up early and get home late. That means we have lunch at the zoo. We have a special picnic of ham and potato salad and rolls. Somehow the rolls taste best there, eaten outside.

I like the giraffes with their long and beautiful necks. They suit long necks perfectly. I think I would look ridiculous with such a long neck.

Last time we went to the zoo we saw three almost grown tigers. One of them was trying to eat a flower pot. He was so cute.

It was at the zoo I learnt a very interesting fact about koalas: They are bouncy in the morning and sleepy in the afternoon. I have only seen koalas bouncing about once. It was very hard to take a photo of them.

There was a fishing cat at the zoo, but it was hiding so we couldn't see it last time. It was a big pity because I really wanted to see it.

There are three Tasmanian devils at our zoo. They are so cute. They run around playing with each other. They were also hard to take photos of.

I love going to the zoo. I hope we get to go again soon.

Restaurant Dinners

I have been to a restaurant  twice. Both times were for very special occasions, birthdays. We went to an Italian restaurant both times. It served wonderful food.

The first time was for Imogen's eighteenth. We decided to eat pizza.

We sat at our table talking and laughing while the chef made our pizzas. After a little while heaps of lovely smells came out of the kitchen and over to my nose. It was delightful.

It took quite a while for the pizzas to cook, but it was worth it. The pizzas were yummy. Callum and I ate nearly a whole prawn pizza between us. Everyone else was too busy eating the chicken pizza. I didn't like that one quite as much as the prawn one.

The next time we went to the restaurant was for Callum's twenty first. Mum said we could have either pizza or pasta. Callum, Duncan and I went for the pizza. Everyone else had pasta.

Once more wonderful smells came out of the kitchen. I could not wait.

Once more we talked while we waited for our pizzas and told stories until the waiter served us. It felt so strange but royal to be served.

The pizza was once again delicious. I could have eaten three times as much as I did, but I didn't. I saved myself for the lovely dessert that was to come.

I love going to the restaurant, but with a family as big as mine we don't get to go too often. It is all the more fun when we do go though.

The good thing about the Italian restaurant is that if you don't eat all your pizza or salad before you want to go home, you can take it home with you.

The next big birthdays are Charlotte's 18th and Imogen's 21st in 2015. Will we have to wait until then for our next restaurant dinner?

Have you been out to dinner?

My Mum

I love my Mum. She is so kind and loving.

My Mum unschools me at home. She never gets upset or angry. I think she is the best teacher in the would.

Mum likes reading to me and Gemma-Rose. I like it when she reads to us. She is a good reader and makes the characters in stories come alive.

Mum is always willing to help people out. She helps me knit, helps Imogen with her uni work and helps with so many other things that I would have to sit here for a year to list them all. Mum never gets upset when I ask her to help me with something. She just puts down what she is doing and helps me.

It was Mum who taught me to knit, it is Mum who taught me to sew and it is Mum who is now helping me learn to sew on the machine.

Mum is a good knitter. She enjoys knitting cardigans for me and Gemma-Rose. She will go down the shops and come home with heaps of balls of wool and then for the next few weeks she will knit away. The cardigans I own that she has made for me are my favourites.

Like me, Mum likes to blog. She writes wonderful blog posts. She can make even a boring subject interesting. I wish I could write like Mum.

Mum is always listening to my novels and giving me praise. She enjoys helping me out of sticky spots when I don't know what to write next in my stories or when I don't know how to add a character. Mum is really good at giving advice like that because she also likes to write stories.

What would I do without Mum? I have no idea. I would probably go mad. I am so glad I have her.

I want to be like Mum when I grow up. 

Running and Breakfast

The car stopped. We all hopped out. All eight of us. We were all going for a run around the lake. It was only about seven in the morning. The perfect time for a run.

We all put our bottles down on the table and took off our jackets. We would not need them. Then we all took to the path.

We ran off, around the ladies running up and down and doing stretches.

I was happy. Normally it is just Imogen, Mum, Charlotte, Gemma-Rose, me and sometimes Dad in the holidays, running around the field at the end of our road. But not today. Mum had arranged for us to have a big breakfast down at the lake after a run.

Callum said he would come too and Duncan decided to come for a walk, but soon Gemma-Rose got him running.

One, two three... the laps were just whizzing by, I was on a roll. I did not want to ever stop, but by ten laps I was getting a bit tired. I decided it was time to finish. Ten laps is a long way, about 5.25 kms.

Everyone else had the same idea and soon we were all tucking into coco pops, crumpets and yoghurt. It was the best breakfast ever and I felt like I had earnt it after all that running.

Everyone was laughing and talking. I smiled. I was so happy I could run another ten laps. Maybe not. Anyhow I had a crumpet to finish.

Do you like running? I think that having an early run is a wonderful way to start a day.

Meet the Limes

I am writing a story about a homeschooling family called 'The Limes." They have four children: Liz, Kate, John, and Tom. I drew some pictures of them. I like my picture of Kate best.

This is Mr Lime. He is a primary school teacher and is very funny. He loves to spend time with his family. He likes to play board games and cricket. He also likes to watch cricket. His favourite food is chocolate.

This is Mrs Lime. She is a very pretty lady. She's very kind too. She has a lot of work to do looking after the house and children. She likes to knit cardigans for the children and watch saints movies. Her favourite food is Pavlova.

This is Tom. He is ten. He likes to play indoor soccer with his friends. He's the best in team.He also likes to read adventure stories. He wants to go camping someday. His favourite food is oranges.

This is Kate. She eight and is very thin, tall and pretty, just like her mum. She loves to read saint books,  Enid Blyton stories and princess stories. She also likes to write stories and cook cakes and dinners. Her favourite food is chocolate cake.

 This is Liz. She is six. She loves to play with her dolls Amy, Sunny, Jonathon and Peach. She also likes to watch movies. Her favourite movies are: Inspector Gadget, Barbie, especially A Fairy Secret, and Herbie. Her favourite food is yogurt. Her favourite flavour is strawberry.

This is John. He is three. he likes to get messy by playing with mud and playdough. He likes to make playdough farms. He also love to have his dad read him bedtime stories. And most of all he likes to be loved. His favourite food is mandarins.