Garden invasion

Simon found thousands of these beetles in our back garden one day after Christmas. They were everywhere - all over the grass, on tree branches, bushes and in the air. Everywhere! I didn't witness this personally, I was too scared to go outside! A 'sample' was taken and we were going to take it to the garden shop and find out what we could do but google saved us a trip. Apparently, these are 'green soldier beetle', they can form 'mating' swarm in large numbers in a short time but tend to move on after mating. And they are harmless.

True to their words, the number f beetles in our gaden decreased in the next couple of days and they are all gone before the new year. We have our garden back!

Holiday swimming lessons

I am so proud of Sam. The 40 minute lessons were a little long for him but he didn't cry at all and seemed to enjoy himself. He didn't put his head in water yet but I'm sure he will soon learn if we continue the lessons.



Lara learned breast stroke during the holiday swimming lessons and seemed to be more comfortable diving from the deep end.


I got Lara and Sam swimming at the same time. They were in lanes next to each other. (Lara'se swimming in the left lane and Sam's on his back in the right lane in the picture). They often waved and said hello to each other mid-lesson. I'm sure Lara provided the extra comfort that Sam needed to be at the pool without me.

Christmas break

We didn't host Christams this year (only hosted a smaller family meal on boxing day) so there were minimum grocery shopping and food preparation during Christmas for me (yeah!). Chrsitmas was spent at brother-in-law's new place (he moved in 3 days before xmas) in Collaroy. It was a little different to the other x'mas we had as there were people from his girlfriend's family whom we did't know, come and go. Sam and Lara had lots of fun running around with another kid in the apartment, which already had over 20 people in it. It was raining so we couldn't spend time at the beach as planned. We did manage to go back to the beach a couple of days later and spent a nice afternoon soaking in the beautiful sunshine and breathing in the fresh sea breeze. We also spend a nice afternoon at this little picturesque beach called Bilgola and two other afternoons at swimming pools. When the days are hot, there is nothing better than spend it near water.

Ballerina