The last couple of weeks have only been four-day weeks for us in Queensland.
Tuesday 25th April was ANZAC day, which commemorates the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in 1915 during the First World War. The day is about remembering those Australians and New Zealanders who have fought in the First World War and in wars since then. They are also known as diggers. At Isla's school they held a special assembly for ANZAC day. The children all took branches of leaves or flowers in to be made into wreaths for presenting at the assembly, and the Last Post was played. Some children sang 'In Flanders Fields', which Isla has been learning in choir. On actual ANZAC day, remembrance services are held including dawn services. Everyone can go and attend, and school children are invited to march together. We went down to the river, where lots of people had gathered. There was a flypast of a FA18 Super Hornet jet, which was amazing, and very loud. We stayed at the river for a while.
We also went to the beach that week and Evie had a morning at Noosa main beach. She showed Isla the crocodile and other animals exhibition at the art gallery and they followed a treasure hunt there, adding to some of the art work too!
Evie making shapes from salt dough as decorations:
Isla's first grown up tooth!
The first Monday in May is also a day off here. It is called Labour Day in Queensland, to commemorate an 8-hour working day being established in the 1800's. The weather was great so we went to Noosa main beach and doggy beach.
This looks a bit familiar:
Evie is really good at making pizza! Bored with making sandwiches that don't get eaten for lunch boxes, we've been making mini pizzas. I used a great recipe from a website called Picklebums. There are no free lunches or school dinners in Aussie schools, just packed lunches or the tuck shop where parents order food for the kids to have. We can order food from the tuck shop online this term, and the kids take it in turns to collect the tuck shop orders for their class at break time. Last term, we had to put money in a paper bag for ordering from the tuck shop. Isla likes having a cheese toastie from the tuck shop. They also sell sushi, wraps, pizza and pasta and ice blocks (ice lollies) and cool drinks.
This weekend we went camping! It was a campsite called Cobb and Co near to Gympie. After about 50 minutes in the car we arrived to set up our tent. Evie and Andrew had a tractor ride there. There was an amazing pirate ship play park and also a fort with a flying fox (zip wire).
The Mothar Rock Pools were nearby so we had a look at the pretty creek and mini waterfalls.
Pretty yellow Easter Cassia flowers at the campsite. These are dotted around the bush but are invasive from north Queensland:
At the campsite there were some friendly goats and a chicken for the children to pat:
There were carriage rides and horse rides at the campsite, as well as a guy randomly riding around every now and then waving Aussie and Queensland flags!
Wow this is going on a bit isn't it!
Back home, Isla and Evie made some potions. This reminded us of halloween parties at Daisy and Gus's house. Isla has been learning about mixtures in science at school so they made some crazy potions with oil, coffee, water, vinegar, bicarb, flour, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), rice, food colouring and whatever we could find.
Fruit bats have been visiting our garden! There are lots of melaleuca trees flowering behind our garden which have been attracting lots of flying foxes after dark. Isla and Evie (and me!) have loved watching them fly about and land in the trees to drink the nectar from the flowers. They are really difficult to photograph but were brilliant to watch. Monty was a bit unsure about them: they make chattering noises and look about the same size as him!
