Rye Jan13-20 2007

We have just spent a fantastic week down at Rye with our very good friends Wayne & Kim and Andre & Kylie and their kids Simon & Emily and Dillon & Ashley (aka Basha/Mr Harris)! About 3 months ago we booked a beautiful house which has 5 bedrooms (sleeps 15 people) and 4 living areas, a great deck area with 8 seater spa and plenty of things for the kids to do (playstations, dvd's, videos, table soccer..) While we were there we spent our days at various beaches, from Rye back beach battling the waves with boogie boards and our bodies, to building sandcastles at the front beach-Stu built the twin towers, an ode to his lovely wife (me!) and Kimmy and I built Poo Poo Palace with help from Jai!!

We went to Sorrento backbeach while the tide was out and explored the rock pools. Jai searched high and low for "sharks and crocodiles" but could only find lots of "fishy grapes" (that kelpy stuff!!) the boys, both big and small jumped from the cliffs whilst the women watched in both horror (at their take offs!) and sheer delight (at their safe landings!). Andre, Dillon, Simon and Bryce also went snorkeling.

While away, we ate very well as you can imagine!! Andre and Wayne cooked a gorgeous homemade spinach and ricotta ravioli with a creamy mushroom and prosciutto sauce-divine!! The kids had fun making their own fettuccine with bolognaise sauce. We visited the Rye Carnival where once again, the big boys showed the younger boys how it was done by braving many rides, including the Zipper! Jai and Leith had great fun on the elephant and swan rides, the big slide and Leiths favorite was of course, the kiddy dodgem cars! He loved them so much, Stu took him on the big dodgems-he smiled the whole time!! Bryce and Jai got airbrushed tattoos along with Emily, Basha and Kimmy. It was a great night!

It really was a great week away and everyone coped really well with 13 people and so many different personalities and habits!! We look forward to doing it again and hopefully it can become an annual holiday to look forward to! Thanks Wayne, Kim, Simon, Emily, Andre, Kylie, Dillon and Mr Harris for a holiday to remember!!

Splish Splash......

Here are the boys playing in their toddler pool that they got from my brother John and his partner Julie, for Christmas. They had a ball!

Clowning Around....

It started with Jai wanting to be a clown...Leith woke up and wanted a clown face too...Stuart got home from work and didn't get a choice-Jai took to him with a paint brush!!! I fixed him up a little as Jai got a bit carried away with the amount of paint he used!!! They had a ball playing 'circus', though Stuart actually started to frighten them when he played "Evil clown"!!! I think I'll leave taking them to the circus for a while....!