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Day 13: “Push in the Shoe Basket”

Here we have Naughty, and Naughtier (am unsure which is which), playing a game of their own invention (as all the best games are). The title of the game is exactly as described above. In this game, they place the basket (which is used to store all our shoes) in the middle of a room, and take turns to push each other swiftly in. Now and again they mix it up to leap in simultaneously. Nothing in this photograph is staged (as you maybe can tell, very few photos in this summer series are staged),  this is actually how they look at each other, with all that love pouring from one set of eyes into another, right before it all ends in a giant shrieking punch up.

Day 12: The Pony Cave

Sorrento, where we spend January, is below Melbourne at the southern tip of the Mornington Peninsula. A pretty seaside town, it aspires to better weather than it actually has. It’s not unlike an English summer resort, except that we at least have a beach made of lovely soft sand in place of rocks. Anyway, particularly over the last few cooler summers, we have devised many ways to pass a weekend while waiting for the sun to stay out long enough for us to actually swim at the beach. The pony cave, which is its official moniker as given by my girls, is a cluster of tea-tree (or moonah, I am not crash hot at telling the difference) located right next to The Baths cafe/restaurant on the Sorrento Bay foreshore, (in case you go looking for it and have a grander vision in mind, possibly one involving real ponies). The girls can spend hours in there pretending they have ponies, or are ponies, and then that game morphs into other games of make-believe scenarios all of which allow my husband and I to sip our take away coffee in relative P.E.A.C.E.

Day 11: What did you say they call this thing?  Mango?

Self explanatory.

Day 10: Happy Birthday.

Today, miracle girl turned 7 (you can read her pre-birth story here). Thankyou, my sweet angel, for sharing 7 wonderful years with us.

Day 9: Just like Wet’n'Wild….

Only cheaper, and much easier to get to.

Our backyard waterslide has the added benefit of comprising both an afternoon activity, and a bath. We just squirt washing liquid down it, and hey presto! Everyone’s clean! You guys all do that too, right?

Day 8: More calamari and chips, anyone?

Soooo, from February to December 23rd, I am a painful food nazi. There; I’ve said it. I know my friends and family all roll their eyes when they think I am not looking. Generally, I think wheat is a weapon of mass destruction, I like all the food groups to be represented at dinnertime, I don’t think plain pasta with no sauce or salad constitutes a meal, I don’t feed my kids oven fries/nuggets/fish, or anything else from the supermarket freezer section, and we absolutely don’t eat frankfurts, skin on or off.

But in January, I conveniently forget all of the above. This year the pub/restaurant/cafe food of choice is calamari and chips. I sometimes supervise long enough to make sure everyone has a squeeze of lemon. You know, just to keep scurvy at bay. In summer, we often hang out in large gangs with other families, catching up with friends that we sometimes haven’t seen all year. To the many squid and potatoes of Australia who facilitate all this, I say thank you.

Day 7: Midnight Trampolining.

Whenever we have guests over, which is reasonably frequently in summer, the kids all inevitably end up jumping on the trampoline in the dark. They put a lantern under or next to the in-ground tramp, just to add a little drama and safety to the arrangement. And then, breaking only to eat massive quantities of dinner and dessert, they jump. Until around midnight (or whenever the wine runs out).

This tradition will absolutely be one of their, and our, fondest memories of our little beach house.

Image above  taken with a Canon 5DII. Image shot as raw file, with post production.