Another Update

Well ... now we know why Maddison had a fever for 4 days!! When I went to the Dr's on Tuesday night she said to come back on Thursday afternoon if she still had a temp and she'd do some blood work (Dr's words) as Maddison could have Dengue Fever. But her temp had dropped on Thursday morning so I didn't bother. But on Friday morning I noticed a rash all over her tummy and on one side of her head! Great ... did a google search and dengue has a rash, so when Lyndon got home I took Maddison back to the Dr.

Result ... relief it's not dengue ... she has measles instead! Ahhhh ... anything else anyone wants to throw at our kids?????

She hasn't had her MMR vaccination yet (too young), Aaron has though so will be interesting to see if he gets it. Dr said there was a lot of measles and rubella going around at the moment! (Nice ... wonder who breathed all on her at Aaron's school!!)

Aaron's got holidays all next week, so will be an interesting week as Dr said I wasn't to go anywhere with Maddison as it's contagious. Lyndon flies to Japan tomorrow morning till Tuesday the following week, so I think I might go a little stir-crazy!!

So that's what's happening at our place ... not much! :-}

Couple of LO's

I have been fiddling with these 2 LO's while my brain has been elsewhere thinking about rubbish!!

Pohutukawa is the other LO I was doing from an advertisement ... not sure if it's finished yet though ... think I need to put some journaling on it, but not sure.

Frangipani is for a sketch challenge at The Scrapbook Store in Nelson.



Think I have sussed out what I am going to do with the rubbish challenge. Just need to take a photo or two! :-)

"People of the World" Concert

Well the concert was great! The kids were so cute. Each class had a song/dance routine from a different country ... here's a quick run down of the programme:

- Welcome, speech from Director, etc.
- "Hello to all the Children of the World" song with representatives from all classes
- Olympic 2008 (toddlers morning class)
- China - "New Melody of Souna"
- Malaysia - "Wau Bulan"
- Central America - "Tingalayo" (this was the song "ride little donkey ride, the donkey walks, the donkey talks" you know the one!)
- Egypt - Arabian Night
- Australia - Kookaburra
- India - Colours of Bollywood (Aaron's class and another afternoon session class)
- USA - Cowboys and Cowgirls
- New Zealand - Hakka Dance
- Children of the World
- Gym Performance
- Finale -1) "I have a Dream" and 2) "Geylang Si Paku Geylang" (all the kids up on stage mainly just staring at the crowd!)

We can order copies of the DVD so think we may do that as we were at the back and kept having heads pop up in the way. So here's some photos, no editing done sorry, might see if I can order some photos of Aaron's group as well.

This was the Australian song. And Aaron frowning and staring at the crowd and sort of shaking his rattle,

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Aaron's class singing and dancing and shaking their rattles! Then notice that little boy in the dark blue costume to the left of Aaron, well he was at the back and came right to the front of the stage and just stood there staring at the main video camera.

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Aaron decided he needed to be there too, so went one better and actually stood on the top step to the stage. Then of course when the curtain was pulled he was on the wrong side of it! haa haa

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Here's the "Maori's" :-) Spot the tongue's poking out.

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And the Maori's again and then Children of the World. The little guy dressed as a tree did an excellent job. He stood there really really still and stared at the crowd while the hunters and tigers pranced around him. :-)

And here they all are for the Grand Finale. The little girl in pink to the right of Aaron is in his class, she's from Holland.

The display of NZ stuff at the school (most of it loaned by us). Discovered a beaver of all things amongst the plastic animals!! All labeled and everything! Might need to tell them we don't have those in NZ! ha ha

Great fun, and the poor kids have to do it all over again tomorrow!

Challenge #2

Check this out ...

• 'So for this challenge, participants are to create any LOs (no restriction to size) using ONLY {SCRAPS} found around your household, they can be food wrappers, old receipts, anything...so let your imagination RUN WILD!!! THE ONLY SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES allowed will be your CARDSTOCK + PHOTOS!
  WAIT! THERE'S MORE
  For this challenge, you are advised not to use any recognisable photos of yourself or your family. Our TWIST will be revealed in a few days time!'

RUBBISH!!! Right up my alley (not). Needless to say I will not be scaving through public rubbish bins or the wheelie bin that serves the floor in our apartment!! I am going to be VERY selective! Haven't got an idea yet though ... maybe something will come to me during Aaron's concert! :-)

Woo Hoo & general ramble

Janine's Woo Hoo Wednesday already! Man the weeks are flying past ... halfway through the year next week already!

Well I have some BIG Woo Hoo's for this week :-)

First would be making to the 2nd round of the Scrap-n-Crop contest. And having Rhonna Farrer judge my LO. Phew! Woo Hoo ... Woo Hoo ...

Next would have to be Aaron's school concert tomorrow ... really looking forward to that! (Woo Hoo for Red Headed Indians!!) (Penny thought that rather funny!! But I will say he might be the only one with red hair up there dancing, but not the only pale face!! :-) There's a couple of others in his class with 'white' (if one is allowed to put it that way) skin and blonde hair. They are going to look so cute! :-)

Woo Hoo for Lyndon being in town all week this week, and bigger Woo Hoo for "working from home" tomorrow (yeah right) so he can go to Aaron's concert in the morning. :-)

Woo Hoo for Aaron for doing wees in the potty every night after his bath for 7 nights in a row ... might as well woo hoo about the little things since there's no thought on his part allowing me to woo hoo about him doing big things on the pot - or doing wees at any other time of the day for that matter!! (I live in great hope and expectation of being able to woo hoo about him doing either of those!)

I can officially say that Maddison is "cruising" around the furniture now ... she started last Friday night and has got quite skilled at it over the last couple of days. If you hold her hands and walk with her though she's very random, so don't expect her to be walking by next Wednesday (snigger snigger!!) :-)


General Ramble ~

One of the little girls in Aaron's class had a birthday today and she gave out "goodie" bags to the kids. So cute :-) They were Winnie the Pooh bags, so went down very well with Aaron! He just about spazzed out with his happy dance when I went to pick him up ... waving his Pooh Bag and backpack and just soooo excited. Apparently the teachers had managed not to let them open them, so he was nearly beside himself! Such a cool idea, he got a Transformer CD case, 3 winnie the pooh pencils (which he's eaten the erasers off the top already!), a winnie the pooh face cloth, snack bag of cheezels, bee chocolate, lollypot (not that's not a typo that's what Aaron calls them! haa haa), jelly cup thing, another chocolate and a lolly. So very spoilt. I heard all night about him needing his lollypot! (I might seem mean, but it doesn't take much sugar to wind him up - especially after a long day!! He was allowed the bee choc though.)

Took Maddison to the Dr's last night, she has had a temp on and off since Sunday afternoon. Dr said she seemed fine, must be some "wirus" (love how they say virus over here!). But if she still had it on Thursday afternoon to come back and they would do some blood work. Right ... fingers crossed that won't be necessary. She's seemed better today, but when I feed her again a while ago she was warm. Oh well ... we'll see what the morrow brings.

Okay, better go and tidy the bench and head to bed. Oh and charge the camera and video for tomorrow :-)

I made it ...

As they say in Bob the Builder "Unreal Banana Peel"!!!

I can't really believe it ... I made it to round 2 of the Scrap-n-Crop Contest. Check out their blog and if you click on the brick coloured box on the right side that says "Challenge 1 Creations" you get to see all the entries.

The celeb judge for this first challenge was Rhonna Farrer and here's what she said about my LO:

Great layout to showcase such amazing photos! Love it!

WOW ... how about that huh! :-)

Here's the ad I found:

And here's my LO (I did a double ... as I do!):

Photos taken from a holiday I had with my parents in November 2004 (just doing a little catching up!!).

So off now to do the mundane task of feeding the kids lunch and getting Aaron to school! :-)

You're Beautiful!

I took some photos of Aaron today and when I had down loaded them we were looking at them and he giggled and said "you're beautiful"! :-) I had to laugh.

He had dress rehearsal at school today for the concert and had to be there at 9am - we made it on time!! But Thursday and Friday he has to be there at 8.30am! Yikes. I found out today that the kids in his class are all dressing in Indian costumes and they are dancing to Indian music - hee hee should be a right giggle. By what I saw this morning I think each class will be dressed in a different country's costume and they do some performance.

Here's Aaron's "beautiful" photos - when he came back from school he had a red dot on his forehead. So funny watching him trying to pick it off.



I have finished my LO for the Scrap-n-Crop competition and sent if off. Didn't get them both finished, decided yesterday which one I really wanted to do so concentrated on that. Will get round to doing the other one in the next couple of days I hope. I'll post pics on Wednesday or Thursday of what I did once the judging has been done.

Here's the vase that Lyndon bought in Vietnam. Okay better scamper off now and do something about tea.

General Catch-Up

While I am enjoying strawberries and ice-cream with chocolate sauce I will attempt to do a catch-up on here. Bad blogger ... 3 days and no posting! {And before you ask, my diet is going real well thanks ... if you want to know about Lyndon's you will have to ask him yourself ~ snigger, snigger! I am now 7kg lighter than what I was before I got pregnant with Aaron, so I could say I have lost over 40kg! HAAAA HAAAA ... true, if I count the weight I put on with both babies ... they were nearly 20kg each (how disgusting is that!). You want to know my secret ... well you have to eat chocolate, preferably every day :-), move to a HOT climate (sweat it off), and breastfeeding really helps, particularly if the little rascal wants feeding every few hours at night!!! Not sure how successful this diet plan would be for the blokes though!}

So where did I get up too ... oh Thursday - the hell day! Well Friday was similar, not as bad, but similar! AND you won't believe this ... I can hardly believe it myself, but every night since Thursday Aaron has done wees on the potty after his bath!!! Woooo Hooooo. Now I just need to work on him doing it during the day!

Lyndon got home from Vietnam Friday night. He had an interesting time, lots of stories to tell. He had tea on Thursday night with 3 friends in Ho Chi Minh city, they went to a 'local' wet market for their meal. So now he's thinking of starting a blog to tell of his adventures! Will let you know when that happens. (Won't be tonight!)

He bought me a really neat pottery vase (?). Forgot to take a pic of it today, so will tomorrow in the light and post it.

Yesterday was busy, I decided I needed some alpha stamps for my LO's for the competition, so while Maddison was sleeping I dashed out after lunch to a mall close by and got a Hero Arts clear set :-) They are great ... wish they were out last year when I could buy wholesale!!! So I am hopefully all set to finish one of the LO's tomorrow. After I got back and Aaron woke we went to the Curve, a big mall not too far from home. I stocked up on photo paper for the printer, brought some books for the kids on sale to put away for their birthday's, a scraping magazine, a new skirt and Lyndon got a special cleaning brush with a kink in it for his coffee machine. Think that was about it! We had tea at this restaurant called Dragon-i. Very nice. Lyndon has been telling me about this place for a while ... hee hee (he quite likes the food over here!!). So we had pork steamed dumpling/dim sim thingys, a fish dish and a chicken and cashew dish, little spring rolls and rice. Kids were shockingly behaved ... but think Aaron was crazy because he had a whole pile of little teddy gummy lollies about an hour before! Maddison was just tired and grumpy!

Lyndon is home for this week, well he'll be working, but he'll be home in the evenings. So looking forward to that. Aaron will be back at school this week too - school has been closed for a week - so not sure how he's going to get on going back there after the last performance we had! On Thursday and Friday it's the school concert, they do it twice as they don't have room for all the parents to come to one session, so we go on Thursday morning. Aaron has to be at school both days between 8 and 8.30am! Yikes, not sure how I will manage that!!! The kids are going to all be in Indian costume I believe. Will have to learn how to do the video clippy thing so I can post a little bit of the concert. He's been singing the last couple of days Baa Baa Black sheep, and I can understand that line and have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, 3 bags full, but the rest I am not sure exactly what language it's in!!! Doesn't sound anything like what it's supposed to be in English!

Maddison is really cute when Aaron and I are singing, she squeals and claps her hands furiously (no sound with the clapping though ... all squeal!).

Well that's about it. I need to head to bed I think.

Scrapping Catch Up

Okay ... here's some LO's I have finished over the last couple of days ... and no I still haven't finished the ones for the competition!!! Working on them though :-) I can't show you pics of them yet till after the judging, which I think is Wednesday, so maybe Thursday I can blog about it.

This one of Wairo Church is for the Friday night challenge at the NEW forum called The Sketch Book. The challenge was actually 2 challenges, but you got brownie points if you used all the 'ingredients' ... so that's what I did. (Ingredients were: Create a layout that uses the colour scheme of the home page of The Sketch Book (Green, Blue, White). You will also need to use polka dots and stripes. Alternatively - create a layout or card that uses the bird theme, so it can either be birds/owls etc. You also need to use the following: Photo Corners and Brads.)

I need to add in here that credit goes to Jennifer McGuire for her video tip (see here at Hero Arts) on how to make 'blossoms' out of the prima flowers. So cool. And also to Beverley (Fifiscrapz) for her idea of cutting out the branch from a patterned paper in the April Paper Pesto kit, although she left the flowers on. I didn't want those flowers for this page, so cut them off and made my own! ;-)



This next LO was for a challenge at Scrap-n-Crop and you had to use the quote "There is no measure greater than this: the joy that comes from a child's happiness". I scrapped pics of Aaron mucking about in the bath with a flannel. (Photo credits to Lyndon!!)

Last night Scrap-n-Crop had an on-line crop - 3 hours and a challenge each hour. 1st challenge was to do a LO from a movie poster ... there were 5 to chose from and I chose this one.

And here's my take of it ... and guess what. I won a RAK for the best take of this challenge. :-) I hand cut the petal shapes and inked the edges - I've had this patterned paper since I 1st started scrapbooking I reckon! (probably about 8 years ago!) Used the whole sheet! After searching my files for a photo for this take - I decided that I really need to take a nice photo of Lyndon with Maddison as the only ones I have of them together on their own are new born ones and Lyndon's hands are so big they cover up most of Maddison!

2nd challenge was a LO from a lady on the Scrap-n-Crop design team and we were to 'scraplift it'.

This is my take of it.

3rd challenge was "come away with me to either PARIS, CHINA or INDIA or you can even bring me to your HOME Country! Choose a country :

le Paris - la ville d'amour PARIS - The City of LOVE! Mention Paris, romantic notions instantly pop into the mind!Create a Layout solely about/on ~ LOVE and title it "AMOUR"

CHINA China with its continuous Mystical, Modern and Unique civilization. Create a Layout with Chinese elements on it (eg. wordings, pics, stickers, embellishments etc)

INDIA - A land for all seasons. Just one Word comes to mind - BOLLYWOOD! Create a layout with a min of 5 Happy & Bright coloured PPs or CSs and layer them behind your photos

If you do not wish to go anywhere, then you can also choose to bring me to your home country instead. Create any layout using only the colours of your country's flag and title it in your own local language/dialect.'

Well ... I wasn't in a soppy mood so scrapped these photos of Doubtful Sound taken in Nov 04 and local language was easy! I will do another LO to go along side this one with other photos and journalling ... couldn't be bothered journalling at 10.40pm!


So that's it. Now I really really need to get these other LO's completed for the competition so I can chose the one I like best to submit. I'll blog about both them on Thursday.

A 'wee' star at the end of the day ...

I won't go into details of the rest of the day ... you have read the worst (although it didn't get much better!). Anyway tea was a very noisy affair - we'd been down to the market and got tea and Aaron threw a spaz because it wasn't 'chippies Donalds' (he managed to guzzle half my frozen lemon tea though the little rascal ... he's as bad as his Father!). Things improved half way through bath time ... after they were all soaped up, I turned the shower on over the bath and the squeals and giggles. I'll have to get Lyndon to video it when he's home. Maddison gets sooooo excited, she tries to catch the water, very cute. Aaron just sticks his head under then tips his face up and drinks it! Ewwwgh

Anways I was dressing Maddison and Aaron was twirling his thingy-me-jig (! - I wonder if it hurt, it was being fair twisted!) and I said 'don't do that - do you need to do wees?' And wonder of wonders he said yes! So I told him to run and get the potty. Well he scampered off to the bathroom and comes back carrying the potty like it's fine bone china (!), does a slow perve past the full length mirror in their room (and I was thinking hummm don't tell me he's going to park it there and watch!). But no ... he puts the potty down right in the middle of the room, sits down (bit like a dog that goes round in circles a couple of times before they lie down!) and YAY he did a very long woozle. When he'd finished I got to carry the potty to the toilet and he got to flush!

It's rather sad really when one feels so proud of their child over something so basic! But I am, I can't help it. Tomorrow he will have probably forgotten all about it, but for now it was a little star for me at the end of a trying day!

On a different note, I am 70% through one LO for the contest ... have 2 ads and I can't choice between them, so I am going to do both and then decide. Lyndon might have the deciding vote! I ordered some scrap goodies from Scrap-n-Crop on Tuesday and they were couriered on Wednesday and I should have received them that afternoon and they still haven't arrived ... grrr. Hopefully they will be here tomorrow because I need the alpha stickers. :-)

Okay, I'm off to bed. For some reason I am exhausted!

Down hill ...

Well the morning started off okay ... but after breakfast things went down hill fast! While I was having my shower and Maddison playing in the empty bath, Aaron was very quietly playing under the dining table and upon closer inspection found he'd drawn all over the tiles and floor. NOT IMPRESSED and Lyndon will be even more so when he gets home. So short of throttling the little pet I sent him to his room to sit on his bed ... and what does he do? Empties 2 shelves of books from the bookcase onto the floor and empties the toy bin on top of them. (I'm pulling my hair out by this time!) So get that cleaned up, comfort Maddison because my voice has risen several octaves (!), give Aaron a stern telling off and settle him on the couch with a book while I do my hair so I can put Maddison back to bed. So, Maddison playing in bath again while I do my hair and I hear this crash from the lounge, then another one ... dash out to look and he's moved over to the arm chair, pulled out a tray of cars and is throwing them across the room! I think I may have lost the plot there for a while.

Ahhhhh ... what to do. He must have know I was extra specially mad, because he actually picked them up (with several prompts and threats from me) while I fed Maddison and watched him! Ole Eagle Eye!

So now all is peaceful, Maddison is sleeping, Aaron is watching a Winnie The Pooh dvd and I'm about to start on the first challenge for the Scrap-n-Crop contest. The first challenge is = 'participants are required to draw inspiration from an advertisement in any magazine or newspaper for their layout'. Well ... I decided I couldn't use my substantial pile of scraping and card magazines for inspiration, so hunted around and found several car magazines, a watch magazine (yeah, one of Lyndon's little hobbies ... checking out watches!), an Expat mag and a Malaysian Airlines mag. All are at least 3-8 months old :-) But they have ads, so that's what I am off to do, narrow down my short list ... I've got 5 to study :-) Oh I also have to write why the ad inspired me. Humm ... one of them is a booze ad (snigger ... my strongest drink I have is Frosted Lemon Tea so it's not the product that's inspiring!!). Writing why might sway my choice and what photos I'll use.

p.s no photos shaking too much to hold camera steady!

Woo Hoot

Well, it's Thursday in NZ now, but still Wednesday here, so I hope this still counts Janine! :-)

First up would have to be a BIG Woo Hoo for making it to the finalists for the Scrap-n-Crop Contest. (I still can't believe it ... starts tomorrow ... might need a paper bag to stick my head into I think!) ... oh and for those that asked, I entered this LO here.

Two more sleeps till Lyndon's home.

Aaron's played really nicely with Maddison yesterday and today! Sharing his toys and offering her things - this is major I tell you. Long may it last! :-)

Going to see the Elephant Orphanage on Monday. Fantastic day ... we want to go back and get there early enough to get one of the "yellow" stickers so we can ride on one of the elephants ... don't think I will be doing the swimming thing though (have you seen just how big an elephant's #2 is??? It's longer than Maddison and nearly as wide!!! Quite a sight to see it floating past in the river! You can probably tell it made rather an impression on me!).

Ordered some scrapping stuff yesterday ... should arrive tomorrow. Woo Hoo I ordered some new Prima stuff to play with ... hee hee. (will post some pics tomorrow for those that are interested)

Okay that will do for now. I really need to get to bed. Big day tomorrow you know ... 1st challenge comes out for the Scrap-n-Crop contest.

too-roo

Some Lists

Penny's celebrating her 2nd 'blogaversary' with a giveaway or 2! :-) And the deal is you need to complete some lists ... you only had to do one, but the list of lists made me chuckle, so I decided to do all of them:

Splendid Things ~

• Rainbows
• Hugs & sticky kisses from the kids
• Hugs & stuff from Lyndon ;-)
• Hearing Lyndon's keys opening the door, especially when he's been away for a few days
• Aaron telling Maddison to come and play
• Chocolate, most particularly the dark peppermint kind
• Ice cream
• Autumn colours (haven't seen that here and doubt I will!)
• But ... plus side is the hibiscus have been flowering ever since we arrived ... interesting to see if they do all year round
• Getting more than 4 hours sleep at one time during the night
• Getting a Skype phone :-)

Things that make one's heart beat faster ~

• Lyndon
• Aaron telling Maddison it's "awright" (makes me very suspicious!!)
• Aaron standing on window sill leaning out window of our apartment (we are half way up a 32 storey building!)
• Feeling your baby move for the first time when you're pregnant (no I'm not today, but thanks for asking!)
• Hearing the words "it's a boy" or "it's a girl" - or in the case of Aaron "look at his RED hair"
• Lyndon telling me we are moving to Malaysia when I'm 8 months pregnant!
• Spending more than I should on scrapping stuff (hee hee)
• Making the finalists for the Scrap-n-Crop Contest
• Getting a RM1,000 plus phone bill (*gulp* ... yay for Skype, now that doesn't happen!)
• Mice

Things that should be large ~

• Hugs from the kids (and hubby)
• Holidays
• & Paychecks so the Holidays can happen!
• Frosted Lemon Teas from Secret Recipe!
• Airplane seats
• Mice (if they were bigger my phobia wouldn't seem so bad - would it?)

Awkward things ~

• Getting 'dinner' and 'tea' mixed up for an invitation to a friends house ... here dinner is the evening meal! Not lunch time!!! :-}
• Aaron staring at someone who doesn't need staring at!
• Really wanting to go to the toilet when someone is in the middle of telling you a LONG story
• Manoeuvring pram around streets in Malaysia (so not pram or wheelchair friendly)

Okay think that's about it ... for now!

Hello Daddy

"Hello Daddy, ummmm, I know, ummmmm, I know, Hello, Maddison talk now, say hello Maddison, good girl, it's okay, say hello, no not eat, I have it now, ummmmm, I know."





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Aaron seems to know rather a lot at the moment! Especially when he's talking to his Daddy! Hope you made head and tail of the call Lyndon! :-) After each "ummm" and "I know" there was a fair bit of gibberish. The pic of the big board game book, he was telling Daddy all about the lions and dogs. Such a hoot.

Oh My ...

I can hardly take it in ... I am one of the finalists for the Scrap-n-Crop Contest. Help us! I honestly didn't think I would have a chance. The first challenge comes out on Thursday and we get 5 days to complete it. Hummmm ... wonder if I need to get more scrapping supplies? :-)

Right ... now I need to get my head out of the clouds and think of mundane things like getting breakfast and sorting the washing!

Elephant Orphanage

Well ... we had a terrific day today. After a very late night last night (went to Simons for tea, Willie & family were there too - we took some food we got from the wet market). Kids were in bed probably about 10.20pm I suppose. Maddison woke a few times in the night and decided at 6.50am that it was time for her to be up. So her and I mucked about quietly for an hour before Aaron woke, then we woke Lyndon so he wouldn't miss out on all the noise & fun!! :-)

Maddison was back in bed at 9am and we got ready for our trip to the elephant orphanage. Simon & Willie came with us (well to show us the way actually!), we had lunch and left about 1pm. This pic with the golden statue in it is going to be one of our next trips! Batu Caves - it's a limestone cave in this hill and there's a Hindu temple in there.

We also passed this on the way into the elephant orphanage ... it's a native house. I took this photo on the way out, but on the way in there were about five children (that I could see) playing just inside the door! There were quite a few places like this there. Very interesting - no air con in there!

Got to the elephant place about 2.30pm, but didn't realise that on public holidays it opens at 10am. What they do is they have the first however many people in get a "yellow" entry sticker which enables you to do "activities" with the elephants. Because we didn't get there till mid afternoon, we weren't able to do the rides, but could get up close. 1st pic is showing the main area and people queuing to have a ride on an elephant. 2nd pic is Lyndon and Aaron in line to have a ride, but being told they didn't have the right coloured sticker!

3rd pic is Aaron "feeding" an elephant. The elephant had tossed a bit of food over to where we were standing, so Aaron chucked it back (his chucking is pretty random, so didn't go very far!) 4th pic - us with the elephants, 5th pic Lyndon and Aaron "talking" to the elephant. hee hee

Here we have a pic of "sweetie" Maddison. It was sooooooo hot there, sure appreciated the shade. Not sure exactly what the temp was but it had to be high 30's.

And next pic is self explanatory! :-)

We could have got in the water to "swim" with the elephants, but couldn't ride on the elephant into the water. But since Aaron gets bugs from the water in the local fountain (which is treated), I decided it wouldn't be the thing to have him in this river!! It was very brown and the elephants were doing #2's in there and all these people were down stream of it ... ewwghh. Anyway these pics show some people getting on the elephant, riding out to the middle then the elephant rolls over and they all completely disappear under the water! I was quite happy to watch :-)

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We watched a video in an air conditioned room which was a lovely respite from the heat. It showed a couple of wild elephants being caught, transported and released into a different "jungle".

Coming home these pics of the kids are about 4 minutes apart! :-) I think I might need to get them little inflatable neck pillows!

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And these two are of the country side. Not flash pics as I just took them out the window as we were zipping along. On our travels today Lyndon said "nice to be out for a drive and see all this bush". Willie says "that's not boosh, that's jungle"! (Sorry I can't put exactly how he said "bush", but it made us laugh!). Back home about 6.30pm ... an exciting day for us all ... got to see elephants and jungle! :-)

Right ... I am off to iron some shirts for Lyndon as he's off to Vietnam tomorrow for the rest of the week.

All Good

Been to the Dr this morning just to make sure!! and it's all good, Maddison doesn't have any bugs. So VERY pleased about that.

I'm exhausted though as she was up between 3.45-5am playing! So I am off for a snooze now.

Strawberries

Strawberries and ice cream for dessert tonight. Maddison was chatting away to me and pointing and squealing, so I gave her a berry ... made sure I had the camera ready first though! :-)

Pretty quiet day today. Maddison up at 5.45am so I let Lyndon sleep in till 7am! Aaron was up by then and I couldn't let Lyndon miss out on all the noise and fun! (ha)

Maddison was back in bed by 8.40am and she had a really good sleep - 3 hours. Then we walked down to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for lunch. After we came home and put Aaron to bed, Lyndon went into work to catch up on his expense claims and print out his e-tickets for his trip to Vietnam next Tuesday. Discovered though that the secretary hadn't emailed them to him ... glad I am not in her shoes!! Managed to sort it out though by phoning the airline.

Kids activities this afternoon have involved spreading 2 entire packets of new nappies all around their bedroom (no photos ... I have enough of them doing that!), all cushions off our bed chucked all over the place, wooden train track and trains all over the lounge, then if that wasn't enough half a shelf of books ended up in a pile on the floor in their room! The pair of them are right little monkeys. Aaron knows he's not supposed to be doing it, but he goes ahead anyway and when I walk in, he says "naughty boy Maddison!" (I struggle not to laugh sometimes.)

They had their bath after tea ... Maddison had strawberry smeared everywhere! She was in bed about quarter past 7, Aaron went down about 8pm. All quiet soon after that and at 9pm Lyndon went to check Aaron and found the light on and Aaron frantically wiping the toybox and floor looking very guilty! He'd got into the wardrobe and got a packet of wetwipes out of the nappy bag and pulled at least half the packet out and squeezed all the sudsey water out and had several soapy puddles on the floor and over the toybox! Lyndon turned round and walked out to get me and Aaron just burst into tears. Very major sobbing going on I tell you and when I came in, he was trying to climb and hug Lyndon through the sobs! What is it with our kids and nappies, wipes and toilet paper??

Just a little side note - we are just wondering if Maddison has picked up Aaron's bug he had a couple of weeks ago! Will know for sure tomorrow. *sigh*

Monday is a public holiday here and we are hoping to go to an elephant orphanage. We're really looking forward to it. It's about a 2 hour drive and we are going with some friends. So hopefully we are wrong about Maddison and she's fine, otherwise we won't be going (well her and I won't be anyway).