Kiddliwinx

Miss A having a ride on "Empress", a friend's miniature horse

*Sigh* Usually in the shopping centres I take an alternative route rather than having to deal with the endless stream of child photographers, pay TV representatives, etc., however, a few weeks ago, despite my many protests (it must take a "special" kind of person to be able to approach someone and ask to take their kids' photos so insistently and not take "NO" for an answer :@) I was convinced to have some photos taken of the children, these are the ones I ended up with.

No, they weren't dressed in jeans and underwear whilst shopping, the clothes were supplied by the photographer since Miss A was in gymnastics clothes.

Just a Little Stuck

Miss A turns 4!

She now feels confident that she can do almost anything, now that she is "a big 4". She opened her presents in the morning -
I took her to the local leisure centre for a game of bowling and fun in the play area with some of her young friends. The quality of photos is a bit poor, because they were taken on my camera phone, but they will have to suffice. At least you get an idea of the fun she had!

The happy birthday girl, at the top of the slide

The view from the top

Two friends on the jumping castle
So much fun in the ball pit!

Water, Water, Everywhere!

For those who don't know, we are currently experiencing "the great wet of 2010". We are 8 days into the month of March and have already received more than double the monthly average rainfall for March. During February we had over 18 inches. L has been frantically pumping and siphoning water out of his fish ponds and into the big dam, which has been well and truly overflowing for weeks now, in fact, the bottom end of the dirt road that runs down the side of our property is underwater.L taking the kids for a walk down the road

At least Miss A was wearing her gumboots :) even if they are full of water
Nothing to do with the water, just a snap we took when we came back from the walk of Master B's big cheesy smile

That night, L had to go and help some friends who needed a back-hoe. He contacted some friends who own one and borrowed a truck to go and pick it up. However they didn't even get the truck out of the driveway before getting bogged.I guess it's no wonder with 8 tonnes of back-hoe and a very soggy driveway

And then on Sabbath morning, L went down to the shop, only to discover that the dining room area was flooded. Then he came home to see if we would be able to get the car out of the driveway to go to church. Alas, we pushed it through the mud for 20 minutes, before it finally succumbed to the mud and became thoroughly bogged. These photos are from a few days before, when we could actually get up the driveway.

L pushing the car through the mud

all that way, took about 15 minutes + to get there (and that's only half of the driveway)

We spent the remainder of the morning siphoning water from ponds.

On Sunday morning L spent a few hours desperately trying to stop the shop from flooding. These photos show the amount of water around the place.

L and his dad spent hours on the dozer trying to drain the water away from the shop

L's dad reckons the last time he can remember there was this much water was in '74, and before that, in '42
We are "over" the water and mud!