Welcome to a snippet of our world. We are a family of six, three teen boys and one 6yo girl, living, laughing, learning and loving in our own way via life learning, home education, unschooling, call it what you will. We have strong family values, are working towards peace and positivity, are constantly working on good communication, goal setting, healthy lifestyle and creating the life that we want. Please enjoy the snapshots of our life......







Saturday, March 27, 2010

Glenrock Lagoon Bushwalk

On Friday we organised a bushwalk with the home education group through the bush to Glenrock Lagoon. It is a small, popular, well-maintained section of the Great North Walk for 2.3kms alongside a creek down to a lagoon which meets a beautiful clean beach.
We stopped along the way to enjoy the natural surroundings and spend some time exploring the creek.
While it was cool through the bush and small section of rainforest, it was a 34 degree day so the swim, rest and picnic at the beach were very welcome.
K explored and collected a lot of rocks and shells to add to her collections.

It was a great walk with a lovely bunch of people, most of whom I hadn't met or hadn't had time before to get to know. Hopefully we will do it again soon.

Monday, March 22, 2010

How Quickly Life Changes

Last year, especially towards the end of it, I was so overwhelmed. It was an extremely busy year with M's commitment to trampolining - three or four training sessions a week plus competitions most weekends - D transitioning to more independence, cadets 45 mins drive away each way every week plus sporting commitments, one of T's employees passing away giving way to not only grieving for our friend and employee but increasing his workload again and K becoming more and more ready for more input with her education requirements and stimulation rather than being content to play for long periods of time on her own.

I took a long hard look at where I could make changes, visualised what I wanted more of (time, peace, less commitments outside the home) over the Christmas break and lo and behold we have naturally made massive changes. Both older boys are now working casually at a local fast food place, catching buses there and back and D is often catching the bus or train to his sports and cadets due to lack of time between work finishing and those starting (eliminating the need for me to take him). I am still very happy to take him but he organises his time and transport and calls on me as a last resort. M is still continuing his studes by getting up earlier, working several hours a day and training in the evenings. We are very aware of him burning out so are quite happy to reduce his work hours if this is happening. His trampolining and studies are the priority at this stage of his life. N is working with T one day a week doing odd jobs and taking some of his school work over there with him to do between jobs, reducing the need for me to be completely responsible for his education and leaving me time to spend with K.

We have also employed a young man to train to do sales and take the pressure of T with the business and he is working out wonderfully. We plan to look after him really well so he can remain a part of our small team. We have just been able to take a two week break after seven years in business without the phone ringing constantly. It was fantastic and we really appreciate and value how much that is worth.

So, visualise how you want your life to be and it will come to be in ways you can't imagine at the time. Take time out to reflect what you want, what's working and what's not and you will be amazed where your thoughts will lead.

Love Karen

Playing at Home


K will often go to the games cupboard and pull out a game to play on her own while I'm busy with the older boys. Yesterday was one of those days. She spent her time weighing her teddies and marbles and we recorded their weights, comparing their weights as well. She was surprised that some of the smaller teddies weighed more than some of the larger ones. She also played with the marble game, the louder the cascade of marbles the better.

Then she hopped onto the computer and played her favourite website at the moment, www.physicsgames.net. I often sit with her while she does it to help but I am amazed at how quickly she has learnt to navigate and work out the skills required to make the ball explode or wake the box up :)

We are reading The Littles at the moment by John Peterson along with lots of Dr Seuss. She often runs her hands under the words or asks me to and asks what a lot of the words say. She recognises a lot of letters now and can hear the sound of starting letters.

We are going to visit the Australian National Maritime Museum exhibition Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids in April so are working on a few resources and preparation from the American Museum of Natural Science education section. We played the map game and made masks and puppets using the website resources. We are going to watch Eragon (N, not K, she's a bit young) in the next few days and do more activities from the website over the next few weeks before we visit the exhibition.

Hamilton Island Holiday

We have just returned from two weeks on Hamilton Island up in the Whitsundays. We wanted to take one last family holiday with the six of us before the kids got work commitments, girlfriends and other interests to stop them coming (although trampolining and friends were missed terribly). To ease the friends issue with my eldest, we invited one of his friends for five nights and she fitted in so easily with our family, she was the perfect choice - easygoing, helpful, polite, funny, a joy to have with us.


We stayed in a fabulous house called Allamanda House. It was 3 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a large kitchen and living area, BBQ area, pool and very private. It really felt like home. Highly recommend it. The owners are just lovely, very accommodating, even providing us with a juicer and blender when we requested it.


The first week was really good weather, even though every day the weather bureau threatened rain. We had a day trip out to the Reef to go snorkelling among the coral and it was absolutely amazing. We had four hours out there, spotting Nemo and friends, with lunch included and T and I managed about an hour on our own as they had free babysitting on the pontoon as well. K did really well, took to snorkelling like a fish and really enjoyed herself. The three big kids - D, M and D's friend spent pretty much four hours snorkelling, absolutely loving it. N panicked about the stingers despite being fully kitted out in a stinger suit complete with a hood, all of us looking very much like brightly coloured aliens. He lasted about half an hour before it got too much and the rescue boat popped him back to the pontoon.


We also managed a day at Whitehaven Beach, one of the top ten beaches in the world (according to whom, I don't know but I'm happy to spout that statistic). It is absolutely sparkling white sand and pristine water with views underwater for a very long way. I mostly sat in the water chatting to other holiday goers including to 20 year old girls from America doing a year of uni over here and travelling up the east coast for a couple of weeks. They were so funny and so much fun, I spent the whole time in hysterics. At the end they took a photo of all of us with them and called us their second family - so cute :) The kids played volleyball and rubbed themselves with the sand which is so fine, it feels great on your skin.


For D's 17th birthday we gave him a quad bike ride up to the top of the island which he loved. We swam in our own playing Marco Polo and all of the resort pools, drinking cocktails and listening to live music, went out for dinner a couple of times with just the two of us and had amazing chats and buzzed around the island in the bright yellow (spotto) golf buggy. We had cocktails at sunset up on One Tree Hill which shows 360 degree views of the whole island and water and played racquet ball five or six days in a row - our new addiction!


The second week was a lot wetter and the two middle boys had ear infections so was much quieter. I completed a 2000 piece tiger jigsaw puzzle with help from the kids, we went out for coffee, out for pizza with the whole family and rode the glass elevators in the Reef View Hotel. We also played the iPhones a lot, read, watched DVDs and chillaxed. We had plans to go to bingo, trivia and a tennis lesson but didn't happen for various reasons. There is so much to do there, both active and relaxing.


We ended up coming home a day early as our flight for the Saturday was cancelled due to Tropical Cyclone Ului. We could have stayed until the Sunday but I'm glad we didn't now, apparently it was quite a bad night. Next time, T and I will go on the Sunset Kayak paddle, the Seafood Sunset dinner and do a bit more hiking and exploring around the island.

White Water Rafting


All kitted out!



I absolutely love providing different experiences for my kids. I firmly believe that the more life experience they have the better for helping them make decisions in the future. So I was absolutely thrilled when the three boys received gift vouchers for Christmas to Penrith White Water Rafting. They had a ball and loved being thrown out and under and were absolutely shattered by the time it finished. T & I wished we had had a go as well, we'll have to book in another time. It looked like so much fun.



Trying to get back to the raft across the very rapid rapids.





Dumped!!