Year 12 Stress!

Having a Year 12 student in the house leads to an increased number of stressful episodes and this week has seen a little bit of that! The ACT has a continuous assessment approach to Year 11 and 12 and it seems that this term the peak of assessment tasks are happening in Week 4 (this past week) and Week 5 ( next week) so we are half way through it! Last week Amy had an in class essay on Tuesday and Thursday for English and an in class essay for History on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! With a Chemistry Prac on Wednesday that needs to be written up by Week 6- the write up is the assessment task. We survived it just- but we did have a few of these moments.

Next week we have 3 assessment tasks due- A Maths assignment Monday, a history oral presentation on Friday- ( read major stress item!) and a Biology Assignment on Friday as well. So should make for another interesting week!

Certainly a week to practice my patience skills!

Dogs and Chooks

It is a bit of a giveaway when I feature the dogs and the chooks on my blog- it means it usually is a slow news week in the Frost household- and seeing as though we had a big weekend in Adelaide last weekend there is nothing much to report on this week!

We did see the arrival of three new chooks this week though- in order to try and boost the egg laying capacity of the current flock- it seems to have fallen to about 4 eggs a week! It is always interesting when we get new chooks, you feel sorry for them as they seem so timid and scared of the other chooks, the older chooks are a bit mean to them, but the irony is that in about 6 months these newer chooks will be at the top of the pecking order! We always get them in threes, so they have someone else to hang around with!

As for Benji, he has decided the green chair in the lounge room is his new favourite spot- it is not supposed to be! We usually have a chair in place to stop access to this spot, but the moment that chair is moved or forgotten to be put back and alarm must go off for him and he finds his way there!

Adelaide Buildings

I just love the houses in inner Adelaide, beautiful sandstone buildings. I took some photos of some of them as I went for a walk each morning.

We certainly had a wonderful time in Adelaide. It was great catching up with Bill's parents and it is great for our kids to spend time with their grandparents.

Haigh's Chocolates

Before flying out on the Monday we managed to squeeze in a tour of the Haigh's Chocolate Factory, sample a few bits, and make a few essential purchases! We left Bill at his parent's place to clean the gutters! He was given an option.

First Time to the Opera

Sunday night we went to the Opera! It was my first opera and I wasn't sure how I was going to go. Marian had assured us that the Co Opera Company put operas on for people who hadn't been before, one of its aims was to make opera accessible to all, so it goes on tours to lots of country areas and puts on operas in a relaxed and informal manner. They also sing their operas in English-so that helped a bit! We had a program that explained the story and we managed to follow that and enjoyed the music and singing and fun, it was a good experience!

Birthday Lunch

On the Sunday we went out for a birthday lunch- it was a buffet at the Intercontinental Hotel in Adelaide. It was a cold, wet, windy day, but we were in such lovely surroundings it did not matter.We had a lovely meal, ate so much we did not need any dinner that night!

Wicked in Adelaide

Bill, Amy, Lachlan and I all went to Adelaide for the weekend to celebrate Bill's mums 80th birthday. We flew over Saturday morning and that night we had a girls night out at Wicked which was on at the Festival Theatre in Adelaide. We had a wonderful time. We left the boys at home to look after themselves- they had a boys night in!

My Beer of Choice

For the first time ever I purchased a six pack of Melbourne Bitter Beer. It was for a friend who was going to be house sitting our dogs and would not accept payment. I knew this was a favourite of hers. After I brought it home Bill informed me that this was an occasion of significance and that I needed to take a photo of it and record it on my blog. He said that Bindi, my sister in law, would be most interested! So I could not avoid it as I would have been subject to all sorts of comments. I still am regardless- over the weekend there were continually comments such as - Sue's beer of choice is Melbourne Bitter. When Sue buys beer it is always Melbourne Bitter. So I thought I better put the record straight!

First Time in 8 Years!

I had to do something I had not done in about 8 years- buy eggs from the shops! It has been a very cold May, with a number of minus overnight temperatures and the chooks have stopped laying eggs probably because they are moulting. In previous years I have brought a new lot of chooks around spring and when they are young they tend to lay through the winter months, but these chooks are older and have stopped laying. I brought some free range eggs from Woolworths and took them out to the chooks to explain to them what I had needed to do and that I was not impressed! In the process of doing so I did find the spot they had decided to lay their eggs and found one dozen stashed away! I am probably only getting one egg a day from 6 chooks but I have ordered some new ones so maybe I may not have to buy any more eggs just yet! One of the chooks is looking very weird, it lost a lot of feathers, it did this last year and we thought it was being picked on, but we never saw any evidence and it did grow its feathers back eventually!

Secret Womens Business

The call came out earlier this week- Secret Women's Business at Honeysuckle Creek on Saturday morning. I tried to ignore this email and pretend I hadn't read it, but the pull of Secret Women's Business just wouldn't go away- I could not push it aside. I wanted to ignore it because I didn't want to be riding the 8km or however it is up to Honeysuckle Creek on my bike at 2 or 3 degrees, riding up one of the tougher climbs in the Canberra Region, but I had too!. So I donned my cycling gear and rode up the hill- at times I am sure I would have been quicker to walk, but I did make it up there and have decided that once a year was enough. Secret Women's business was discussed and then we rode back down!

Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder Cheese Shop

Lachlan and I went to Melbourne this weekend to visit my mum. After picking Lachlan up from the airport on Saturday morning we were on a mission to visit the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder Cheese shop. Friends of mine had been for a visit and had a wonderful time, so I thought it would be a good bribe for a teenage son who was in Melbourne with his mother visiting his grandmother! We were not disappointed- we spent a lovely 1/2 an hour in the shop sampling a variety of cheeses- including a Holy Goat cheese! We tasted some lovely cheeses, then called in and saw Stuey, Hilary and Tommy ( Bill's sister and her family) and we had a cheese sampling with them, it was a lovely way to while away a Saturday afternoon!

Later that night we went out to dinner with 3 of my brothers and their families as well as my mum, so we had a great weekend catching up with family. However I forgot to take photos, too busy talking and eating!

Haigh's Chocolates

Bill had to go down to Melbourne this week for work and brought me back some chocolates from one of my favourite chocolate shops- Haighs!

Ginger Beer

Lachlan and I have been feeding our little ginger beer "plant" for the last fortnight, it was time to make it up and store the bottles of ginger beer for 5 days before they will be ready to sample. We did make some years ago but the kids didn't like it then, it wasn't sweet enough, it tasted really authentic to me, but anyway we have attempted it again, so will be interesting to see how it tastes. We have it stored out in the garage just in case it explodes!

Lemons on my Lemon Tree

I planted a lemon tree in a pot earlier this year and I have about 6 lemons on my tree and they are nearly ready to pick! Most exciting!