Second week at our new house

Eli's New Mountain Bike

Well it was 4 months in the coming but Eli finally got his bike we were going to get him. After a fun morning trying out bikes and getting new helmets we headed off to Lysterfield Parks for a test run. Charlie loved riding up with Daddy, hopefully we can get him a trailer soon.
Charlie loves his new helmet, and he's sooooo cute in it.

He's sooooo cute not in it too of course.

We found a great place to stop for a rest and watch the kangaroos and give Charlie a run around. Of course a few modifications needed to be done as well.

The boys on their bikes.

Charlie on Daddy, on the bike

The big man with his flash new bike.

Collecting fire wood and BMX

We found a spot tucked away in some trees for the boys to practice their jumps, they rode there for a couple of hours and loved it. So did Charlie, he was being very adventurous.

Collecting firewood to warm our home.

This is a coral fungi I found when we were out collecting fire wood, very cool.

This is the most unusual fungi I have ever seen.

Charlotte Came to visit

It is always lovey to have Charlotte come to visit us. Cute cousins!!!

Chuckles loves the Garden

It's wet, it's muddy, of course he loves the garden...

Last week we attended a "Day of Knights" with some fellow home schoolers. It was heaps of fun, the kids really enjoyed it. I didn't get too many photos though as I was busy chasing Charlie around and trying to keep him out of trouble.

Josh tried his hand at "medieval writing" and making maille (chain-maille, however we learned that "maille" means "chain", so technically it isn't "chain maille"). We learned that it takes about 4 months to make one set of cloths and that a set of knights armour is about equivalent to owning an million dollar house these days. All very interesting, and right down the boys alley, they came home and made new swords.

Eli was practicing being a court jester.

A 4wding Trip to the snow

Well yes your first question might be "so wheres the snow?". I can tell you where it isn't. It isn't where we went last weekend. The kids were rather disappointed by the whole affair, they were all kitted out and had removed the wheels from their skateboards and packed in the backboards ready for some fun...damn that global warming!!! What we did find was plenty of mud, the most beautiful forest in the Yarra Ranges (and of course new fungi!!!). Not to mention an enforced lunch break at a fallen tree which proved somewhat difficult to conquer. We got there in the end, hopefully not permanent damage has been done.

First they tried to move the tree...that didn't work.
While all this was very interesting (not) I went bush in search for fungi. It was so beautiful in the forest, I would have been perfectly happy to be left there for all of the day.

The trees were tall and beautiful.

I found this fungi growing on a tree.

I'm sure we were stuck for what seemed like hours... and disappointingly we found no snow what so ever, but we did find a nice stream to stop at on the way home to cook snags for dinner and a cuppa tea. Good day regardless.

Lesson for the day: don't ever tell the kids we are going to the snow, until we are certain that we can acctually see snow.