More picnic photos

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Picnic

We went for a bit of a picnic by the lake yesterday. Weather was very pleasant – 31, but enough of a breeze to make perfect weather.

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Banana splits

James was out last night playing little boats, so the boys got the special dinner treat of bolognaise and banana splits…

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Zac discovers the Wii Zapper

Stuff 1

I'm not quite sure how it works, but everyone else sits here on the table with it. That's right, isn't it? Now I'm like the rest of my family…

Stuff 3

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My creation

Stuff 4

Here is the final product of my glass manipulation activities!

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Our Sunday

We had a busy and exciting Sunday. It started with Zac getting up way too early.

Atlas Japan 5

And then complaining incessantly if I didn't sit with him while he ate his breakfast.

We then headed off to see a friend of ours' graduating exhibition.

Stephanie's photos were very impressive. And the boys behaved themselves well – they even resisted the Tim Tams for quite some time and asked. The exhibition did have some challenges though. How do you explain a lesbian transexual to boys who still think that gender is defined by the length of your hair (ie Zac is a girl because he has long hair).  Answer: you don't, you just discuss how gender isn't absolute – not all girls like pink, we all have different sounding voices, some boys have long hair, and some men have men as partners, some women women and that everyone is fabulous no matter what these differences might be.

Then on to brunch:

  Brunch was part one of Jasmin's birthday celebration. Always popular with small boys who especially like their french toast and banana. Zac had raisin toast and managed to eat a small bowl of jam with his spoon. The rest of us were a little more civilised.

Then time for part two of the birthday celebration: hot glass activities.

This was not a boy-friendly part of the day, so James took the boys home for naps while I went to the fabulous Canberra Glassworks with Jasmin, Rachel and some others to do a bit of hot glass related activity. Rachel and I opted for the hot-shop where we got to make paperweights out of glowing hot glass. Above you can see me manipulating the glass to make my bird shaped paperweight. Fun! I think the bead making course would be great, but perhaps I will wait a year or two til I'm no longer doing my PhD and have a little more time…..

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Atlas Japan

Last night we had our Atlas Japan dinner. Featured courses were sushi and two types of gyoza for openers (Rachel), followed by pork skewers (me) and teriyaki beef (Kellie) then sukiyaki (me) which we even managed to cook at the table. All very yummy. For dessert Cat had whipped up wasabi ice-cream and black sesame ice-cream – odd taste experiences, but quite nice. As we decided, probably not the ice-cream you'd choose to eat a tub of while watching tv.
Kellie had discovered through internet research that fortune cookies were actually invented by Japanese immigrants to the US, so Reg and the kids had made a batch of them, complete with fortunes. I had also discovered Pocky at the Asian supermarket where I was buying mirin, so we had both chocolate and strawberry Pocky. very natsukashii.

We also drank some Kirin beer – whcih we discovered was actually brewed in Australia under licence – good for the carbon footprint I guess, but less so for the authenticity! And some sake was drunk, but we avoided the tradition of drinking ourselves stupid and vomiting in the street.

And I finally used the (disposable) chopsticks I had been given as a gift when leaving Japan – had been saving them up for a special occasion, and finally …here it is was…

…..next culinary adventure is the highly antiicpated Iron Chef Mushroom which will occur on 2 February. And the next Atlas dinner is Southern USA.

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My Polo Boys

January 1

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So, Zachary STILL needs a hair cut

….and now they are doing strange things to his hair at childcare  – apparently to keep it out of his eyes….

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Big boy now

So today was Sebastian's last day at childcare. He had been long thinking about this day and planning it. Well, mostly he had been planning the cake. a tradition seems to have developed that the children bring cake on their last day to celebrate, and this was one tradition Sebastian was very keen to celebrate. Little cakes. So last night we made two batches – one plain, one chocolate – which I then iced after two episodes of Deadwood.

January 31

January 27

January 33

So the cakes were made and apparently met with approval. Red and green icing and a jelly bean on top were the mandated requirements.

January 34

Here is Sebastian as we left him this morning, doing one of the things he has spent doing while at childcare – constructing!

And here he is saying goodbye to Verney, one of the staff in the pre-school room

January 35

For Sebastian (and for us) it isn't a complete goodbye to the centre – he will continue to be there for Christmas parties and to accompany us to drop off Jude and Zachary, but after five year it is time for him to move on to bigger and better things. But first he gets a holiday!

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