Strike #2

Public school teachers across the ACT have once again had to go on strike to send the clear message that a real investment needs to be made in real terms for the ACT's public schools.

1500 teachers chanting and singing. Was noisy and huge.



A real pity that we had to resort, once again, to industrial action.

I'm hopeful Andrew Barr got the message today!

Canberra Times write up is here.

Photos courtesy of The Canberra Times.

Cool Dude!

Here is Squealy, the cool dude. Crusing around the house wearing two tails and sunnies. He even has cool moves. What a little cutie. I think we are going to be in trouble when this boy is a teenager!

A Catch Up

String Bean and Freya.

We had a lovely catch up today at Adore Tea with friends who recently moved up to Brisbane. We haven't seen Freya or Kay since January. They moved up to QLD just before the big flood hit. In fact they just missed the wall of water at Toowoomba by 2 hours!

Pity the weather turned yucky yesterday as it was bitterly cold. We sat outside and thankfully Adore Tea provide blankets. Once we were all wrapped up and chugging tea we were quite warm :)

Master Chef in the Making?

Squealy informed me the other night that dinner needed milk, concrete and grass to make it tasty. bahahaha will have to keep that in mind next time I make stir fry and noodles.

Father Daughter Camp

Mr Bump and Little Miss Sunshine.

Our lucky little girl was able to attend a fabulous district camp for Guides. So being a district camp just girls from our Guide hall attended, which meant an age range of 5 - 18 years old!

L: Little Miss Splendid challenged the Dad's to dress up in different themes: Husband Deluxe scored 'Fairy tales'.
R: Oliver and Fuzzy doing the Mr Bump challenge.

The theme was Little Men and Little Miss, as it is the 40th year anniversary of the books. The other unique part of this camp was that it was a Father Daughter camp. So special because Dad's usually would attend camp. There were so many excellent activities and many of the fathers were so grateful for the bonding time with their daughters. The wide game included: making birthday cakes for dessert, making sock puppets, making mini Mr Tickle and Mr Giggles, wrapping each other in bandages etc.

The Mr Fussy challenge had the girls pick 3 random cards. String Bean ended up with a baked potato, fingers and custard. I scored fruit cake, chop sticks and gravy. mmmm tasty!

Was easily the BEST camp String Bean and I have been involved with and we've been to a few over the years. Even the campfire was brilliant fun with one of our senior Guides teaching the younger Guides a new song.

Transforming our 'Garden' #1

Before and after: front garden.

Since our move, we have been busy transforming what the house's previous owner thought was a nice garden. His idea of gardening was to cover everything in pavers and pebbles. He also enjoyed planting succulents and Japanese box, what a contradiction!

So far we have blitzed the front yard, as it is much smaller than the backyard. We had to start by lifting pavers and moving pebbles.








Before and after: front garden.

We had to demolish a wonky mailbox that had been run over and rebuilt twice. We replaced it. The top garden bed is now pebble and paver free and mulched. We've planted a Nandina hedge along the front and have continued the box hedge around the retaining wall. The living mulch is spreading nicely and hiding the creative retaining walls :0

This will be the first in a LONG series of posts (you should see the backyard!)

Minecraft Craze

Squealy and his beloved Minecraft!

Has hit our house. Squealy wandered into the lounge room with a deflated red beach ball as a helmet and a wooden axe we brought back from Fiji.

When I asked him what he was up to. He replied he was playing minecraft. He thought he was the bees knees. I thought he looked adorable and struggled to keep a straight face :)

Georgia's Birthday

The kids were invited to their friend's Birthday party today. Georgia and the kids all had a great time. Was loud and crazy but fun :)








Can just see the birthday girl: front left.

New EBA's...

... are never smooth sailing.


I spent 4 hours today fighting the good fight for better conditions for students and teachers.

Over 2000 teachers from across the ACT public education sector held a stop work meeting this morning at the AIS.







There are further rolling stoppages planned over the coming weeks.

For a write up click here.

Photos courtesy of The Canberra Times website.