MS 24 hour Mega swim

I was asked by a friend to join the school team competing in the MS 24hour Mega swim. Being school P&C President I couldn't say no could I! Add onto that being Nathan Rickard's wife and Brenton Rickard's sister in law, people had expectations!

Now I am pretty sure I haven't swum a lap since I hung up my togs over 15 years ago. I hadn't even had a pair of togs on since I finished work just before Matthew was born nearly nine years ago! So I went out an bought myself a fair of big girls togs and got on with it. I didn't do any training (it would have interfered with my 15 year taper!). I ended up swimming over 5kms! Our team was divided up so that we had a little team in the water at all times. I swam with two other swimmers and we swum a relay. We started out swimming 20 minutes sessions. At our midnight session we cut back to 500 metres each and by the final hour we knocked it back to 200 metres and finally 100 metre stints. I conned Nathan into joining the team that swum straight after us. They only had two guys and one of them had only just started swimming. So Nathan came in to add some experience! He was happy to do the 4pm til 6pm stint but a little less enthusiastic about the 2.30 til 4am one! So to all the people that sponsored me you actually got more bang for your buck by knowing that both Nathan and I killed ourselves in the pool!

I told everyone in the beginning we would all do 1 lap of fly as our last lap. At the midnight session that changed to the first lap of the final session, by the final session there was no way anyone was doing any butterfly! I did however raise a cheer on my final stint when I dove in and broke out the fly. It didn't last long though! I threw out the challenge and it was accepted by a few with a couple of wonky fly strokes thrown in randomly!

I even managed a smile after my last lap! It happened just after the swearing and rude gestures made to my husband when he suggested I do some more laps! By this stage I am not sure I was even capable of getting out of the pool!

Lego Legend

Nathan can make anything out of Lego. People test him all the time. Some recent requests were a tiger, a dinosaur and a hippo, complete with opening jaw! Well it turns out Matthew has inherited his talent! We were woken one morning with a presentation of this....

 Yes it is Mario and his mushroom thingo!

Brilliant isn't it!

However, brilliance comes at a cost.........

The usual state of my floor when a Lego spree is in full flight!

Cross Country

It all started with the school Cross Country. All of the boys had been training with their classes.

 In Kindy it is all about participation. In fact, the serious racing doesn't begin until they turn 8, so Ryan is still yet to compete for a spot on the school team. Despite the "non-competitive' nature Ben still ran his fastest and informed me he came 2nd! The boy that beat him had been tousling for the first position for weeks with it being fairly even. I can see a very competitive "friendship" for these two boys in the future. They are very similar and currently it as a very friendly rivalry.

 The winner of the having the most fun race was absolutely Ryan!

 He was very impressed not to have come last this year. I very much think for him it is a case of the race being just a little too short! This kid is full of slow twitch muscle fibres. He certainly didn't get them from his father. His Grumpy ran a marathon so perhaps he inherited it from him......

 Matthew placed a lot of expectation on himself. He knew he came third last year and he wanted to equal or better it this year. He came third again! Which once again meant he was off to Districts. Do you remember what happened last year? His shoe came off in the first 100m and he ran most of the rest of the way in one shoe! Anyway so after last year we thought we had better have a practise to boost his confidence.

 So the weekend before the race we went out to Mt Stromlo forest where the carnival is held. Nice view hey! The little ants in the centre of the midground are Nathan and the boys.

 Funnily enough Ben won the practise. Although we did tell Matthew to not go flat out or he would be too tired for the real race! Daddy came last. He tells us his is NOT a land animal!

 The big day came around and Matthew was very confident. He took off like a bat out of hell and was coming fourth for the first 800m until he got tripped over! I'm not sure who I was prouder of, the boy who tripped him and stopped to see if he was ok or Matt who got back up and kept going even though he was definitely out of the places!

 In the end he came 16th. So very proud of him!

Now we only have to wait two weeks until it is athletics carnival time! Lets see if Matthew came make the treble, the swimming, cross country and athletics district carnivals? Good thing he is a sportmans because he told us after his writing NAPLAN test this week Sportstars dont need to be able to write expositions and when he grows up he is going to be a sports star!

Bolt...

The wonder soon to be homeless dog!

 Puppy's are hard work! We did know this before we got him but the reality is, well real! We love, love, love him to bits. But he is very good at making bits!

 Not only do we have cabbage moths inside our cabbage moth net but we also have Bolt! He actually chases the moths and ends up in the veggie patch with no idea how he got in there. He has exactly the same expression as Ryan when he finds himself in the same situation! He also likes to "garden" and can be found in there just digging! We are however very thankful he only digs in the veggie patch! He loves wrestling with ice cream containers of all things. There are three in this picture! And several tomato stakes. Notice there are no tomatoes! I put the kitchen rubbish bin out under the outside tap to clean the other day and then walked away. Bolt thought all of his Christmases had come at once! Massive ice cream container and I now need to go and buy a new bin!

But at the end of the day Bolty is very, very sorry. He doesn't mean to be naughty. It just happens. And that is how we know he is a Rickard!

Box Construction

From time to time on here I have posted pictures of various monstrosities that the boys have made from boxes at preschool. They are usually captioned with a comment about how they will make awesome engineers just like their father. Times have changed however, but box contructions are still apart of our schooling landscape.The big change as I was informed today by Ben is now there is a process involved! Now you need to "D, B, A". That is "design", "build" & "appraise"! I checked Ben even knows what appraise means! So now apparently whacking a bit of masking tape on a box is a thing of the past! Bring on the "D,B,A"! He even knows that part of the appraisal process is thinking of two ways you can make it better!

The past

This great looking young man is Nathan Rickard, 19 year old Nathan. He is very different from the Nathan currently lounging on my lounge tapping away on his laptop! 15 years ago Nathan Rickard was a very different man but I was just as in love with him as I am today. Nathan Rickard version 1.0 was the Australian 50m Freestyle Record holder (his children would come to believe he was the fastest man in the whole wide world ever until the end of time but that's a different story!) He was self-centred (He needed to be). He was single minded (again essential). He was young and immature. He was gorgeous! He was a student caught between his education, his sport and the desire to be young and all that entails! He was a son who desperately sought his parent’s approval.  He was at times socially awkward. He was young and in lust and we made everyone we knew vomit! (Right Jackie and Brenton!)

15 years later that young man is still in there somewhere (I suspect under many kgs of fat!   ;-) ) But that was the foundation of the man he has become today. The building blocks upon which 9 years of marriage, 3 kids, a puppy, a mortgage and a career sit.

Nathan Rickard is no longer self-centred. He is the opposite. He gives all of himself to his kids, his wife, his friends and his work. He is no longer single minded but he is driven. He is mature and steady and capable (except with a chainsaw!) He is still at times socially awkward but much improved!

15 years ago people thought we would never make it. There were times in the first 6 years I didn’t think we would make it! In fact our “courtship” was infinitely harder than our marriage. The challenges, disappointments and traumas we faced in the years before we got married, I think, paved the way for a smooth marriage! Since that day in May 9 years ago we have both been certain. Nathan Rickard has been the most awesome husband and I can’t wait to see what the next 90 years has ready for us!

We agreed our 9^th anniversary would be all about looking forward but I couldn’t let the date pass without some reflection on the growth of my husband from a hot young boy to an amazingly beautiful husband!

The future

Nathan and I have been married for 9 years today. Usually on this day we give ourselves a high five for how well we have done. This year however, our eyes are firmly looking towards the future!

I can't remember whether it was actually before our wedding or soon after but for a very long time we have talked about how we would renew our vows on our 10th anniversary. It was a goal we set ourselves. To firstly make it to ten years and secondly still be in love enough to want to reaffirm what we feel for each other.

I know so many people that think vow renewal are silly. However there were so many things about our wedding that weren't perfect. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't the most perfect day or that it wasn't what we wanted. In fact it was the most suitable occasion for where we were at the time. It just so happens that we had SO much going on at that particular point in time. Firstly, I was pregnant with Matthew, secondly Nathan was graduating from his undergraduate degree and finally and probably most importantly we had NO money. Nathan and I are completely opposite from the rest of our generation. We didn't both have established careers and money in the bank and knew exactly who we were before we got married. I just heard audible gasps from my readers! Oh no that is a recipe for divorce I hear! We are different however because we wanted to be married the actual wedding day mattered very little to us. For me definitely it was something I had to do to get to what I wanted and that was to be Nathan's wife. (Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the hoopla of the wedding it just wasn't the be all and end all for me)

Now nearly 10 years down the track we have the funds to be able to do the bells and whistles wedding with the added benefit of knowing exactly what we expect from marriage. This time I get all of the things I had dreamed of as a little girl. And it's not the princess fairy dress of most girls, for me it is the bikini on the beach. Our plan is to renew our vows on the beach in Fiji. And whilst I no longer see myself in a bikini at the ceremony Pamela Anderson style because that ship sailed soon after Matthew ruined my waistline! There will still be the romantic setting, there will be Van Morrison playing, the waves, the sand and something even more special.... our children to witness how much their parents love each other. (And all before the age where kissing is gross! Although it is touch and go with Matthew!)

This time we will be writing our own vows. Really only because we still stand by the promises we made to each other 9 years ago in my family’s church. However now we know there are added promises that happen every day that are just as important to surviving marriage. For example, Nathan now knows he has to provide coke and chocolate at stressful times. This makes being married to me easier! I know now I need to let my husband stay up till all hours of the night watching formula 1 even when he is super tired and stressed and has a long day of work tomorrow. Nagging him to come to bed will only result in an argument! These things didn't exist 9 years ago (well the chocolate thing did!) so I couldn't promise to do them because things were different back then. Just as the promises we make to each other over the next 10 years will be different. For example, Nathan I promise at some stage over the next ten years to will return to the paid workforce.....maybe!!! Love you!