The End of 2008!!

I'm not sure where the last month went but it disappeared as fast as the other 11 months.
Matt was free of school and had enjoyed his week at Leavers in Dunsborough. Amy finished off assignments and had a few exams and Jane had the usual panic to write reports and submit them on time!

Andrew had entered a competition on TripleJ and won tickets for Matt to go to the Bloc Party concert and meet and greet the band. As he was under 18 he had to take Ray along as a responsible adult! Matt really enjoyed the whole experience - not so sure about Ray!


We welcomed Luiz Veloso into our home till mid January. Luiz is a Rotary exchange student from Apucarana in Brazil and has been in Perth since February.

Luiz went with Ray, Matt and Will to Rottnest for a couple of days - staying at the Youth Hostel and riding lots of k's on their bikes.



Matt's 17th Birthday was a low key affair. He spent some time with friends and we had a chocolate cake at home.


Later that week Luiz went down to Busselton with Bill and Pat Young from the Rotary Club of West Perth. Ray met Luiz down there a couple of days later and showed him a bit more of the South-West. They stayed in Pemberton and Walpole and then after sightseeing in Albany they came home via Wave Rock in Hyden.


Matt attended his first meeting at the East Perth Rotary Club where he was presented with his blazer and some club banners.




Amy and I went for morning tea at Burswood Park so she could meet some of the others going to Gondwana in January. Here she is with Ariane and Georgina from Perth Mod - with the identical mobile phones!


Rather unexpectedly Christmas ended up at our house and whilst it meant a huge last minute run-around we had a great day.


Boxing Day saw Matt, Luiz, Will and eugene veging out in front of the tv watching the Boxing Day Test Match.



On December 27th we decided to go to Freo for some souvenir shopping for Matt and Luiz. It was not really the weather for trying on Ugg boots and other sheepskin products but we had a fun day.




The last event for 2008 was our annual street party which was held at our next door neighbours' and doubled as Steve's 60th Birthday party.

A Merry Country Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Matt's Graduation

Yesterday Matt left to go down south to Dunsborough for his Leavers' Week.
Friday evening before he left was his Graduation Night at the Perth Convention Centre.
Here are some pics from the night.

Amy's Concerts

Amy had her end of year concerts over two nights at the end of October. She played flute in the junior band and has sincefound out she will be part of the Intermediate band next year.


In November she performed in a dance concert at the Perth Concert Hall. Here she is with two of her dance friends.

Oscar

Gramps has a new companion - Oscar. When he got him he had very long matted hair and it was a few weeks before he had his haircut. Here are some before and after shots.
The photo with the firey eyes was when Oscar got really upset with Matt - we're not sure why.

Three More Months Have Gone By!

Another school term has been and gone and another term break! As usual it's been busy around here and also away.
Ray and I had a two week break in August firstly visiting Sarh, Kareen and the kids in Sydney and staying at their wonderful new house with harbour and city views.



Then we flew down to Melbourne as I was attending the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Conference. Neither of us had been to Melbourne in a long time so we did lots of sightseeing and walking and one of the days I was at the conference Ray went on a wine tour that also included a ride on Puffing Billy. In the evenings we mostly relaxed and watched some of the Olympics.



The next six weeks were much the same as any term time with Matt and Amy working hard at school and Ray and I working.

The October school holidays saw us each going our own way. I went to China with a group of students from our school and a nearby school. You see photos and videos from the trip here.

Amy worked several days in the first week at Subway while Matt was studying for his Mock TEE exams. Amy attended a Navy Cadet camp from the middle weekend. On that weekend Matt attended his orientation weekend for his RYE year which will be spent in Lohja, Finland. Week 2 of the holidays was time for Matt's exams which went reasonably well. He now has only ten days before the TEE exams start!

Where have the last 3 months gone?

It's a long time since I posted on the blog - I'm not sure where the time went.
During the first week of the holidays Amy was at her Navy Cadet ACT (camp) where she did the musician's course and learned how to drum.
Ray's birthday was during the holidays - another year older!
The rest of the holidays disappeared in a blur and it was back to school again.
Ray celebrated his birthday during the April holidays - another year older!!
There are lots of family birthdays in May and June - Henry, Jane, Tim and Claire. The family got together at Geoff and De-Ann's to celebrate Claire's birthday.
As you see in the photo taken at one of Amy's concert she had her wrist in plaster for a few weeks. She fell backwards playing team games and put out her arm to help as she fell and cracked a bone in her wrist. Fortunately she had the plaster taken off before her school trip to Sydney and Canberra.
Matt had this photo taken to put into his Rotary Youth Exchange application. For those of you who don't already know Matt is off to Finland in January 2009 for a year.

It's been a while

Hi everyone!! It's been a while since the last post and what with Rebecca staying with us,school starting and life in general the last 6 weeks have whizzed by.

We spent the long weekend at the beginning of March in Mandurah with Rebecca and another Chinese student and her homestay mum. They did lots of shopping, we did lots of relaxing and we had a yummy dinner out at Hogs Breath Cafe!
The final assembly for the students was on the Thursday before Easter and then they left later that night.

Ray had some of the Easter break off and has done heaps more work on the back patio and it is almost ready to have the roof sheeting put on.

The big excitement this weekend was Matt's Year 12 ball on Friday 28th March.
The day started with a Fancy Dress Parade at school which is used to have a fun day and donate to charity. Matt and his group of friends went as characters from the Star Wars movies.






















At 5.15pm Matt and I joined his group of friends and their parents at his partner's house for pre-ball drinks and photos. They all looked fabulous and after a limo ride via Kings' Park they spent the evening at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom.

See how the patio's going!

Ray has been busy getting the framework for the new back patio up. This weekend we were all needed to help get the side beams up with the wiring through them. We'll update the progress when there's more to see!!

Chinese Homestay Student

We have a Chinese homestay student with us for the next six weeks. Rebecca has been in Australia for 4 weeks. The first 3 weeks, the 48 students from Huijya Private School in Beijing stayed at Woodman Point in a camp setting and had intensive ESL lessons as well as sightseeing and fun activities. They did abseiling, kite making and orienteering, swimming, fishing and beach games, surfing, archery and lots more. They went sightseeing in Fremantle, visited Scitech, had a day trip to Rottnest and then had 3 days in Sydney before coming to stay with homestay families last Saturday. Rebecca 's English is very limited but is already improving so I am sure we will notice a huge improvement over the coming 6 weeks.
There are 48 students at 4 schools: Oberthur, Bateman, Nedlands and Mt Claremont.
These are the 4 girls at Oberthur: Ivy, Rebecca, Amy and Lisa

A Gift for Andrew

As we told you earlier Andrew, Amy has moved into your room as Dad will be renovating her room during the year. She decided to move now and let Rebecca, the Chinese student who will be staying with us for 7 weeks have her room. As you see from the pictures the room is quite different to how you left it. We will try and put it back to the way it was before you left after Amy's and our bedroom have been renovated (we will move into Amy's room once it is done while Dad does our room).

Andrew has arrived!!

We have just talked to Andrew after his arrival about 29 hours after he left here. He phoned to say he had arrived and we also had an email from his host father Karl take at the airport soon after his arrival.

Andrew's Farewell

Our day started very early at 5.30am and after last minute organisation we headed to the airport. Andrew was one of the first to check into the flight. After a bit of brekkie the next couple of hours were spent with family, friends and other exchange students who were heading to Europe via Bangkok. Once Andrew and the others had gone through to Customs and Immigration we headed upstairs to the viewing platform with some of the other families and waited for the flight to take off!! The adventure has begun!!


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We have started this blog so that we can keep in touch with Andrew who is spending 2008 in Sweden on Rotary Exchange.
You can find Andrew's blog listed in the links on the left.