Science Scramble 2012

Last year we did the science scramble with Aunty Teesh and had a blast! This year Teesh is too busy gallivanting around Europe with her parents to do it so I dragged Nathan along instead!

 We jumped straight into it this weekend, starting at the Canberra visitors centre, with some swimmer dude in the background. Maybe next year he can come down and do the science scramble with us instead of playing games in London!

 The first stop was Parliament House to answer a question about a female engineer! Talking about females we saw they had portraits up of the first female politician, first female senators etc. but as yet hadn't added the portrait of the first female prime minister! (Unless it was somewhere else and we didn't see it!)

 We had a quick look around and added it to the must come back and do properly list!

 We whipped around The Old Parliament House Rose Garden to answer some horticulture questions!

 From there we listened to our own echoes just down the road at the Magna Carta Monument. Three little boys did not enjoy that at all! Shouting out words like penis! And poo! And boogers!

 A very quick stop in at  the National Library and Questacon. Did you know the National Library has a globe that spins all by itself!

 We lifted the marble ball outside Questacon ourselves and found it weighed 633kgs!

 A short drive away was the Galleries where we got to have some fun with my favourite sculpture. Ryan is spinning it on his finger!

 Ben is holding it with his fingertips.

 But Mummy made a spit bubble! Gross!

 The next morning it was up and at it again early. Only this time we took our bikes and rode to all the points along the lake.

They tried to weigh anchor but it was waaayyy too heavy!

 At the Captain Cook Monument they answered a question on astronomy and then pondered the great waters of Lake Burley Griffin.

 Nice Bums!

 Along the foreshore of the lake is what is called the Australian of the Year walk. The bollards that the boys are standing next to are placed on musical stave lines and all the bollard read as a musical note that makes the national anthem. Cool hey! I learnt that when we did a cruise on HMS Jenny at Floriade one year.

 Now you may think this is just a photo of boys in silly poses but this was a question about the War Memorial in the background. Which means that this is the boys posing as soldiers! Ryan is throwing a grenade, Matthew is shooting a rifle and Ben has a bazooka! Of course! Only mothers of three boys would be able to decipher this photo!

 We had a quick stop for smoko! Thank goodness Nathan had thought to bring a hot chocolate because the breeze on the lake was chilly!

 After a little rest it was back on the bike for a beautiful ride through the sculpture garden. One of my favourite places in Canberra. Nathan tested the boys by asking how many cones they saw. Matthew counted the correct number of cones where as Ryan and Ben counted the number of shapes, which was two cones together, so they were half right!

 Last stop was at the site of their future tattoos! A southern cross at the Munnari Artwork.

Once again we had a great time doing the science scramble. It felt like it was heaps shorter this year, which Nathan was very happy with! If you live in Canberra get out and do it you still have time left, entries close on the 15th October!

The Middle Child

Poor Ryan really is the forgotten middle child. I really wonder if his personality is really moulded by his birth order or if he is the way he is because of nature! Because as a baby he was full on! I breastfed him the longest and he also was the longest to learn to sleep through. (Surprisingly enough I felt I coped the best despite all this!) As a toddler I seriously thought he was headed for military school. For a while we thought a life of crime was his calling! But in the last two years he has really calmed down! Or passed on his hyperactivity and naughtiness to Ben threefold! He seriously gets overshadowed by that big personality. And the bigger other one competiting to the death to be the winner! Not that Ryan minds being in their shadow. Ryan's covert, sneaky ops go undetected in that situation!

Lately I have really been noticing how hard Ryan tries to do the right thing. When we go to the mall I never have to remind him of appropriate shopping behaviour. I never have to chip him on his behaviour anymore. When Matthew and Ben are winding each other up and feeding off each other, Ryan is quietly observing in the wings (or dobbing, one of the two but usually the former!)

He is doing really well at school. He recently got an A for science! He quietly plods along, doing what quiet achievers do. Sometimes I feel really sorry for him. A teacher once commented that he forgets that he is there. He said he didn't notice how well Ryan was doing until he looked at graphed results! It was even more surprising for me because I found out how well he was doing when a classmate of his pointed out how clever he was at maths!

He is my no means perfect but he is well on his way! I still have to rev him because he can be amazingly lazy. He is completely absentminded. I can tell him to put his reader in his bag and he will pick it up, put it on his bed as he picks up his bag, take his lunch box out and walk away leaving his reader behind, never to be thought of again! He is completely obsessed with technology, computers and tv. These three things are his currency, therefor making him easier to punish or motivate, depending on the situation!

I am super super proud of his efforts in saving. Last year we were at our wits ends with Ryan stealing money. Seriously, I marched him down to the police station and they showed him through a cell in the hope of scaring him out of stealing money off us! That didn't work but what has was giving him a savings goal. He is saving up for an iPad. He is nearly there! He knows that if he steals money that entire amount he has accumulated is gone! No second chances. He also knows if he doesn’t do his chores he won’t get paid! Nathan has a graph where he puts in his pocket money, where he is at with his savings and how much longer to go. This has worked wonders as both Nath and Ryan speak the same language....numbers!

Anyway to cut a long story short I just wanted to share with you what a sweet, lovely, kind and generous boy Ryan William is growing into!

40 years is a very long time!

 My Mum and Dad have been married for 40 years! I am sure they could tell you more than I could how trying it has been at times but yet here they are celebrating 40 years of being happily married.

To celebrate Nathan and I shouted them lunch at the Stamford Plaza's seafood buffet.

 It was a very posh restaurant. It even has tiara's for sale in the foyer!

 And a massive staircase and wooden banister. The boys would have loved to have slide down it but they were on their very best behaviour!

 How good are seafood buffets? We stuffed ourselves silly! All that lovely food matched the beautiful view of the Brisbane River.

 This is what good manners looked like. They were so well behaved and their table manners beautiful. I am so glad they know how to behave in public because they don't usually look this good at home!

 Nanna Bev with her favourite course. A plate FULL of dessert!

 Ben's favourite course was the prawn course. Of which there were several! He ate more than 20 of which he peeled all by himself! He then moved onto the meat course,then the salad course, then the veggie course before moving onto dessert.

 This is what full Matthew looks like!

 Ryan with his favourite....... chocolate. A child after my own heart! By the way how good looking are my kids!!!!

 Nanna Bev believes Ben's fruit course was a waste! Who goes to nice restaurants for fruit but those who know my kids know they always make a bee line for the fruit, even in nice restaurants too apparently!

 A beautiful, beautiful day. Can't you just see the good behaviour emanating from the boys in this photo!

 Tweedle dee, Tweedle dumb and Tweedle dumber with their toothpicks after lunch!

 After lunch we went to my little sister place to celebrate with cake! We had strawberry cheesecake cupcakes.

 Red velvet cupcakes

And the kids had rainbow brite cupcakes. Funnily enough I couldn't get a photo quick enough! And they were the colours on the paper. Sooooo much food colouring. Thank goodness 40th wedding anniversaries don't come around ever day!

Cousins

My kids have spent very little time with their cousins. Unfortunately we all live so far away from each other there are very few occasions when we are all able to get together. Recently my big sister was in Qld for her husbands work, while we were there for Mum & Dad's 40th wedding anniversary and my little sister lives there so we took the opportunity to get the kids together.

I was amazed at how innately my children love their cousins. Matthew, Ryan and Ben have met my big sisters kids a handful of times in their whole lives but yet they LOVE them!

 When I was putting the boys to bed after seeing them I asked them all whether they liked cousins or brothers better and they all agreed cousins were better. Matthew's theory was you don't fight with cousins but you do with brothers. I didn't want to tell him that I fought with my cousins constantly, often with kicking, biting and scratching! 

I think because they see each other so infrequently the use their rime wisely. I watched Matthew quizzing his oldest cousin in a desperate attempt to get to know her. He already loved her but he really wanted to get to know her!

 Nanna Bev is happiest when she has her Grandchildren around her. Usually we can never get her in a photo but when her grand kids are involved she is first in!

 This photo is even rarer than the cousins together! The last time all of my siblings were together must have been Jackie's wedding in 2006! Add Aunty Leeanne and Nanny Walker in and we haven't been together since my wedding in 2003! Don't we all look nice!

But this is what we really look like!

Fishing

Grumpy and Uncle Noddy have been planning this fishing trip since our last trip in Brisbane in April! So when it finally arrived the boys were super, super excited. Just quietly so where Noddy and Grumpy. Nathan was just praying he wouldn't get sea sick....in the Punicestone passage!

 In the beginning they started out with life vests (at Nanna Bev's request) and if you look really closely you can see Matt and Ben holding onto the table for dear life!

 But they soon relaxed!

 I had worded the boys up that fishing requires patience. It appears Matthew has patience in abundance! Meanwhile Ben was running around in circles, almost wetting himself exclaiming "Fishing takes patience! Fishing takes patience!" And Ryan was anxiously worrying about not catching a fish!

 Uncle Noddy caught the first fish...... Not sure how canned Atlantic Salmon made it to Bribie!

 But Benny caught the first real fish!

 Cousin Eli got one too!

 Ryan practise with barnacles first....

 Before snagging a fish!

 Matthew's patience lasted the longest time with him being the last to catch one. Now just between you and me each child caught 3 fish each and the total of fish brought home was 6. 3 X 4 = 6 is only a reality when Jenni has done the math! Turns out Uncle Noddy was re-hooking the fish and chucking them back in when the boys weren't looking!

 It certainly looks like he didn't enjoy himself at all does it?

 Grumpy certainly didn't enjoy quality time with his grandsons either! Is he giving my eldest son rabbit ears???

 Nathan had the biggest catch of the day.......it was a big stick!

 By far and away the hardest job was filleting the fish. Winter whiting has not minimum size and the boys were very insistent on eating their catch. So poor Grumpy had a go at making fish fingers! Thankfully he had been on a real fishing trip recently and had caught enough fish to feed us all!

 They LOVED them! Ryan was absolutely convinced the fresher the fish the more brain food it contained and insisted on being quizzed on multiplication at dinner. Funnily enough he thinks 4 X 3 =12!

Looks good doesn't it!

Essentials for Fishing! - Guest Post by Nathan

So we took the boys fishing whilst we were up in Brisbane.  Uncle Noddy had been extremely excited by the idea and bought the boys some rods for the occasion.  The boys were equally excited by the idea too!!

But there is one thing you must know about Uncle Nod.  He loves a joke and a good prank. So of course as we drive up to the marina, he points out every multi-million dollar boat in the harbour and says to the boys "You see that really big, flash blue boat, well..... that's not our boat. Oh! Oh! See that other sleek fast looking one over there..... that's not our boat either."  Of course this went on for another dozen or so boats because it was equally funny the 12th time as it was the first - or at least for Uncle Nod it was.

So we had our safety brief for the boat, and the boys got their life vests and finally the owner gave Nod a lesson on how to operate the boat, with particular attention on the ignition system and a special safety catch that needed to be hooked in for the boat to operate.

Finally, we head off with Nod at the wheel, putt-putting our way out of the marina - past the really expensive boats.  Just before exiting the marina the engine konks out and of course everyone was eager to point to Nod and figure out what he was fooling with now - Nod was looking as surprised as everyone else.... After judiciously checking the safety system, key, and then tracing everything back to motor at the back Nod stands up with the fuel line...... And nothing connected to it.

Apparently one of these red things are important. Who would have thought it??? So embarrassingly we had to row our boat along side some of the expensive boats and call back to the owner asking if the fuel tank was extra?????  Needless to say, however embarrassed we were paddling our boat along side the other boats, it was not nearly as embarrassed as the owner was when she had to putt-putt her own way around to find us and give us our fuel tank...... An important essential for fishing!!