The rare African Trampoline Lion attacks!

Well, heading says it all, really. That, and this video...

Out with the old...

So, among many other cool and awesome presents that Santa dropped off for us in Wodonga, it appears that he still had one thing left over to surprise us with when we got back home.

Uh-oh, what's this? Three enormous (and quite heavy) boxes? It turns out that Santa had noticed that our old trampoline, which was OK for when the kids were six and three, wasn't really cutting the mustard for today's modern eight-and-five-year-old lifestyles. So, he replaced our eight footer with a twelve footer instead!

It's a pity that Santa didn't assemble the darn thing while he was there, but I guess delivery is his specialty, and the elves aren't really comfortable with any assembly work outside the North Pole. So, after a bit of disassembly, disposal, sorting, inventory, and finally assembly (interspersed with the odd bit of sotto-voce cursing), here we are with a brand new, monster trampoline hulking in (and pretty much dominating) our front yard!

Christmas in Wodonga

This year the Bird family popped up to Wodonga for a nice quiet Christmas break. We celebrated the occasion with Phyllis, John, Fiona, and her boys Seth and Ty.

Some highlights of the day included: Alicia's lion costume and Lucas getting inundated with LEGO (again), but nonetheless managing to build it all in the one day! A personal highlight for Dad was locating a quiet, shady spot outside, grabbing a book, beer and bowl of chips, and having some quality "reflection" time.

Also, Lucas finally got a copy of the Skylanders game, so now he actually has a use for the figurine that he bought weeks ago. Many thanks to the Hohwy-Barclay boys for providing us with their unwanted Wii (plus a bucket-load of games) at a bargain price, so that Lucas has a platform he can play the game ON. (Playstation 2's are so last decade, after all...)

Anyway, after Christmas, we stayed there for a few days, hanging around and taking it easy. We went swimming (more than once), paddling at the weir, and just generally taking it easy. A marvellous time all up, and thanks once more to the Matthews clan for having us over!
 

40th birthday party

Some of the more palatable photos from my 40th birthday party last weekend. Many thanks to Jules, whose tireless efforts made all this possible; to Mum, who stepped in and relieved me of cooking duties on the night so that I could resume drinking and chatting to the guests instead; and to Dad, who had the presence of mind to actually take these photos in the first place!

A very important delivery

Nanna arrived last Thursday, to a great deal of excitement. Aside from the usual excitement that a visit from Nanna normally entails, this time she was bringing something of significant importance to Lucas.

It was, of course, his first quilt! Nanna absolutely outdid herself on it, and we couldn't be happier with the final result. But why read these boring words, when you can judge for yourself. Observe:

For those not in the know, Wizard 101 is currently Lucas' favourite computer game. The picture is of Headmaster Ambrose, who heads up the school in Wizard City, and his pet owl, Gamma.

From Swamp to Garden in two gruelling weekends

Whoops - forgot to add the "after" pictures!

After all that hard work clearing out the swamp and shovelling a truckload of dirt into it, all that remained was to head to the garden shop and grab some nice plants.

A little bit of planning and careful shovelling later, and voilà, we have our garden:

Much nicer too look at, and nowhere near as many mosquitoes!

Bittersweet memories

Some photos of Uncle Pat visiting. Happy times, before that terrible, fateful day...