A series of firsts.

Our first Australia Day celebration was last Thursday. We arrived at the start of Feb last year, having missed it by not much more than a week. This year it dawned hot and proceeded to get ever hotter. 42 degrees c was the highest that our car thermometer registered in fact. We were going to a party in the afternoon/ evening but, having Daddy home, the boys were keen to get out and about -and we were keen to stay inside in the cool! So in the end we took refuge in a fantastic city centre science museum/ interactive centre called Scitech which had the advantage of air conditioning but still meant we were "out". This place is unlike any museum I've ever seen before. It's totally interactive. You can practise hang-gliding on a simulator, get a robot to take a picture of you and then draw it into a sketch before your eyes, use your body weight to launch canisters along a tube, wind up spirals to push balls to the top of a roller coaster run, climb a climbing wall, Cycle a bike which loops the loop due to centripetal force etc etc...

Alfie loves climbing it seems.

Currently they have a special exhibit all about "Rescue" as well, so the boys got to try out a helicopter 

simulator too. 

How cool is that!! 

After buying a family annual membership, we did eventually leave and head off for the second half of our day, a fabulous party with friends from the school.  A few beers, some sausages on the barbie, good company -what more could you want? They have a view of the city from their first floor balcony so we hoped to see the "Perth Skyworks" firework extravaganza. What we hadn't counted on was the 40-plus-degree weather breaking at almost exactly the same time and the man-made display being given a run for its money by incredible forked lightning. It was truly spectacular, but I'm still twisting Brian's arm to get a camera that might capture such a sight!!

Then today was another first. Alfie's first day in uniform at big school. A year later than at home, and with his same classmates, but still feeling quite nervous. He has practised tying buttons and shoelaces 'till he really is very proficient and was very excited at the prospect of being a "year one".

Getting it right :o)

And not to be outdone, Ru also had his own first day. He has moved from a local 3-year-old kindy to the 4-year-old Kindergarten at Alfie's school. This means he'll actually know many of the other kids as several of Alfies class have siblings in the same group.

They only had a one hour session today, just to get them used to being left, and all seemed to be going well, until I went to collect him. He burst into tears at the door when he saw me, complaining loudly that he hadn't got to eat lunch ( he got a new lunchbox specially so was keen to get cracking) or play outside! Tomorrow is another day, hopefully it will meet his expectations better!

And finally this coming Saturday will be another first. The first anniversary of our arrival in Australia. We will of course be having a barbie, although Brian is only due back from Singapore at about one o'clock that morning. After the trials and tribulations of his last trip, lets hope he gets back in time to attend his own party!