Tropfest 2011

One of our favourite things to do each year is head down to Stage 88 with beanbags and esky in tow to watch Tropfest. There's such a nice relaxing vibe and the short films are always excellent. Despite forecasts of storms the weather couldn't have been better this year. You can check out the films on the Tropfest YouTube channel. Three of them bought tears to my eyes (I don't think this has happened any other year) and the winner, Animal Beatbox, was different, catchy, clever and deserving of the title.

Recommended watching...

Animal Beatbox
Missing Her
Bird Therapy
Silencer
Maestro

And of course the three tear jerkers (don't say I didn't warn you)

Things To Do
The Unspoken
A Desperate Deed

Looking forward to 2012 already!

I survived year 7 camp!

Phew. What a week. 5 days of camping with 25 year 7 students. It was fun, kind of. We canoed, abseiled, hiked, camped out, built rafts (which fell apart fairly quickly), played games, rode mountain bikes and roasted marshmallows. It was fascinating standing back and watching them interact, try to make sandwiches (seriously parents, please teach your kids how to make their own sandwiches) and ride bicycles (yep, 3 out of my 25 could not ride a bike).

I also learnt a bit about myself - I have little tolerance for homesickness - I feel like such a meanie but in the end I just had to say in not so many words, "get up, get on with it, it's the only way the end of the week will come quicker" and on the last night when there were still sniffles, "go to sleep, you're going home tomorrow, toughen up". I may not have actually said 'toughen up' but boy I thought it. Home now though and just working on catching up on sleep.

Think we might be finally getting carpet in our bedrooms next week sometime. Yay!

Oh, and that adventure race we went in for A's birthday...our team came 3rd in the mixed category and 11th overall. Not bad huh? I am still covered in bruises from tubing down the river and the bike riding was super hard and we got lost once but it was so much fun and A loved it. Result!

Hope all is well!

Happy Birthday Husband!

It's A's birthday today! I have such trouble thinking of presents for birthdays, christmases and anniversaries and get a little stressed about it sometimes. Especially Christmas, when A will tell me weeks and weeks in advance that he's got everything sorted for me and spends the next weeks and weeks asking if I've worked out what it is! Often I do work it out but when I do I pretend I haven't!

Anyway, I think I've done well this time. There is an adventure race on this weekend in Canberra and I've entered a team. I know he'll be stoked because he's mentioned it a few times in previous years and normally it's not something I'd put my hand up for so he'll like that I'm going out of my comfort zone a bit! That is one of the downsides, the other is the forecast of rain but can't help that and we are going to get wet anyway, I believe it involves some kayaking and tubing down a river. I did only enter us in the novice race so the notes say it should be only about 2 hours long. 10km of biking, 3 of running and 3 of paddling. I thought the 5-6 hour version might have been a bit much for a first go!

I went to get a card and realised that, for the first time, I could buy one that said 'husband'. They were all so terribly soppy that I worried I'd need to buy a bucket to go with the card. But, I bought one anyway. Why not?

Off to cook birthday dinner - roast tandoori chicken, hope it's yummy. Luckily A wanted a cake from a particular shop that doesn't open work friendly hours so he went out specially to buy his own birthday cake. He won't tell me what flavour it is but boy is he excited about it!

Hope you are all having a lovely week!

Some people are so clever

Like my aunty for instance. This was her wedding present to us. It's so beautiful. I love it to pieces!

So clever.

Just a short post today as today was my first day back at work and I'm a bit brain dead. Oh how I wish out school had aircon.