Visiting friends, lighting fires, throwing things at Max's head

We took Jay home after a play at our house...

He's got tadpoles!

George, don't catch the tadpoles.

We went to a bonfire at Pete and Leanne's place, for Leanne's birthday.

Happy Birthday Leanne

 Here is George with his new socks.

Max's old shoes.

Max's new shoes.

Toni, Choo-choo (who is pregnant) and Milo. Our remaining guinea pig herd consists of the 3 females. The 3 males, Max, Spot, and Joel Corey Enright, have gone to live with Jack and Andrew.

Playing with Connor and Kodi at their house.

As a special treat Max is allowed to indulge in some neurotoxin (Diet Coke).

Connor's dad can't resist patting George's head whenever he sees him. This week it was payback time.

Max trying to remember how to do that martial arts thing that Rob taught him.

 Backyard hula hoop vs. broom.

George is now nit-free and he needs a haircut because he's starting to look like Justin Bieber.

"La tigre"

 

At Cubs this week they learnt how to safely light a fire. There was a cleared area, a little ball of newspaper for firelighter and some tiny twigs. If you got your fire going you could roast a marshmallow otherwise you had to eat it raw. Max was one of the unfortunates whose fire kept going out. They learnt that it is not enough to just put more newspaper on top of the dying fire, you have to make a little teepee of sticks. 

 

Here is cousin Pia when we saw her at Bunnings Warehouse this weekend for a kids DIY workshop.  

  

This is how Max eats apples these days. Very little is wasted. Just the seed case remains when he is finished. 

You might be able to see the bruise over Max's left eyebrow where George threw a dog toy and hit Max in the face, or the black mark on the right side of Max's forehead where George threw a chunk of charcoal and hit Max in the face the following day. Poor Max!

They fell asleep while I was reading a joke book: "Waiter! Waiter! there's a fly in my soup!" "Sssh be quiet or everyone will want one." "Waiter, what is this fly doing in my soup?" "It seems to be doing backstroke."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sock worms and head lice

The children are growing more beautiful every day.

Pass the Pigs is the newest addition to Royce's game collection. Rubbery pigs are thrown as dice and the highest score wins. The kids love it. 

It was pretty rainy this week. George and I went for a walk in the rain.

George participated in a few Cub Scout activities while I was painting the kitchen window of the Scout Hall.

It was Mon's birthday, and we had a puppetry performance and cake. Max made the sock puppets by sewing a piece of cardboard into the sock to make a mouth. He learnt how to do this at school. The two puppets seen here are both worms.

George's head was itchy. It turned out that this was caused by lice. Many thriving generations of lice, it looked like. George has cheerfully tolerated much combing and nit-picking. Luckily Max had somehow not caught any. 

Party at Aunty Shani's, Trip to Melbourne and Leopold

On the 9th of July, 1942, a little cherub was born in Racine, Wisconsin.

We had a birthday party for him on the 9th of July this year.

Uncle Kim cooked up a feast, lamb and chicken on a spit.

This is at the Mitchell River, behind Picnic Point Hall. Jack taught us a thing or two about fishing.

We didn't catch any fish, but then we didn't stay for long because Max fell in. Lucky he had been brushing up on his survival swimming skills recently with the school swimming programme.

Isabella came to play. She is George's friend from school. Some say she is his "girlfriend".

She was quite taken with our guinea pigs. Her brothers were visiting us too. They all wanted to feed a carrot to a guinea pig. Then they got sick of that and played dress up.

 Lindenow area landscapes.

Max and George on a city bus going to the Melbourne Aquarium.

Talking to the penguins

Murray Cod (the one on the left)

Lion fish

Sneaky hiding fish

Fish viewing Max and George

Glass fish

Children visiting the Melbourne Aquarium are justified in handling this starfish, an invasive species from the Pacific Ocean that has moved into Port Phillip Bay and is eating the local ones.

A stingray swims past Mitchell, the grey nurse shark. Scuba divers came and fed the shark, rays, snapper, sea turtle and others by hand. We were told that the divers are only scared of the sea turtle, not the shark.

Later that day, these strange aquatic mammals were sighted at Sandra and Jim's place.

Then the kids spent a couple of days at Nanny and Gramps' place at Leopold, being spoiled! Nanny said both kids were very well behaved.