Aerobics Spring Challenge!

We had a great weekend up in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland for the girls and their Spring Challenge aerobics competition.  Pictures at the end of the post!

Alex and Annika have been doing aerofit aerobics this year.  This is coached by 2 of the teachers at the school as an after school activity that is independent of the school but allowed to use school facilities.  Alex did the school version of this March-July and enjoyed it, and had been doing this version purely as a way to keep up her fitness for swimming, but ended up getting into it more than she had expected to.  She was placed on a 6 person team that did their routine for the judges and they got 2nd place!  Annika's team also got second!  Both have informed me that they will be continuing this activity next year-which I told them both that they have reached their activity limit for my budget for both time and money.  What will I do when Ian starts up with either Aussie rules Touch, or God Forbid, Rugby!  He wants to be a ninja-still-so karate lessons after the new year will most likely be in our future for him as well.  You should have seen him with the christmas paper cardboard tube-using it like Little John's stave and wacking the heck out of everything until it fell apart.  Boys!

Ok, so here are the pictures!

 

Annika stepping out!  Yes, this is supposed to happen!

The awards presentation

Our pre competition line up!  Maddie, Annika's friend and her mom joined us for the weekend as well. Ian also had to get in the picture!  I told Alex to smile and that I'd use the pic even if she didn't.  Hah kid!

Alex is second from the Right.  They're all together!

And the big finish!  On her knee on the left of the picture.

Whoo Hoo!  All done and medaled!  Big smiles girls!

This is where we headed after the competition.  Flat and empty all to ourselves for the most part.  Light breeze and perfect waves to play in.

We were super lucky to have Bronwyn and Maddie join us for the Friday overnight before the competition.  It is a 2 hour drive out of Brisbane to Noosa and we did not want to do that early on a Saturday!  So we got a great holiday apartment with an extra bedroom and friends to share it with!  The kids had an awesome time and so did we.  Lyle had just literally gotten off the plane from Gladstone and I had packed his stuff and we rolled him into the car and took off.  He was still suffering the after effects of several days hovering over molten aluminum pots in hot summer weather, so he dozed and drank a LOT of gatorade and water on the way up.  Tucked him in the same time as the kids!

After the competition, back to the apartment for a change into swim togs and off to the most wonderful beach ever!  Soft fine grained sand, tide was out so the beach went on forever, breezy and still warm.  The kids played in the waves for over an hour and then we met up with other Camp Hill families for fish and chips on the river in town.

We enjoyed it so much were were able to book 3 nights over the Christmas break in the same apartment!  Looking forward to going back and enjoying the summer sun and waves.

It's Been Awhile!

Hello all!  I am sorry this has been awhile since I wrote, but things do get busy (and alternatively lazy!) around here!

The school schedule has settled in.  The kids are super busy, which means mom's taxi is running overtime and sharing rides on Friday is the only way to keep our sanity and everyone where they need to be on time.  Thank goodness for friends with kids in the same activities so we can juggle them all around!

We hosted Julie and Paul from Wenatchee for a couple of nights and gave them the grand tour of Brisbane.  We all took the bus into town to do the weekend markets at Southbank and enjoyed shopping, a swim at the lagoons, a ferry trip around town via the river, and a walk through the botanic gardens.  It was a nice day capped off with an Aussie BBQ!

Annika has decided to start swim club as well and has enough skill, albeit barely, to get from one side of the pool to the other.  She did all 4 strokes last week and the pictures below are from her first night of swim club 2 weeks ago!

Annika did a great job and we are so proud of her!

In more swim news, Alex is now swimming the 50m for all of her strokes!  She hit the breaststroke AND the butterfly on the same night and was so pleased she leapt out of the water at the end!  Despite having her goggles get knocked around her neck she finished her breaststroke and totally drove herself until the end for her fly.  She is amazing!  She also got moved into the last lanes for her practice time-which is a huge deal as that means she is nearly ready to train with the high school aged and very fast 7th graders.  I won't go into the complications THAT would do to my after school taxi schedule!

Ian LOVES swimming now and is working to get his arms and legs all moving together.  We still need to keep a hand under his tummy, but he is churning away and blowing bubbles like mad to swim.  It helps that his private lessons are with a buddy from his class and his class does lessons weekly at school.  What a nice change from the wailing fits we would endure last year!

The wet season is trying to get a toehold here as well.  The humidity is inching up as are the temps.  So far, so good though and the fact we have AC in the upstairs will make sleeping so much better this year during the hot, sticky yuck.

Love you all-until I write again!