No first day here...

This week held special meaning for us. Many of our 5 year old friends and a couple of nieces started school. All those First Day photos on facebook and in the media brought into focus the fact that we weren't experiencing this significant milestone, in the conventional sense at least.

While we don't have a First Day photo to share most of our regular homeschool activities resumed this week after the summer break. It felt like the start of the homeschool year for us. Last year, while involved in our homeschool community, we were just a family with young kids who weren't yet of 'school' age. This week we're proper homeschoolers. It's a milestone for us. Minus the uniform, packed lunches and school-run traffic.

So in lieu of that first day moment snapped in front of the school gate, here's a little wrap up of what our not back to school week looked like.

On Tuesday Dexter enjoyed a special day with his Granny Kim which included a double-decker bus tour of the city no less. We visited the library on Wednesday morning where we borrowed, among others, his favourite bridge book. Only the 3rd or 4th time we've borrowed it I believe?! (Should I just buy it for him do you think?) The afternoon was spent at the PHM, one of Dexter's favourite places in the world. And yes, it was mostly spent in the Space section. Yesterday we enjoyed our SHRIMPs (homeschool) meet at the shiny new pool (pictured above) up the road instead of the usual park. Because if you hadn't noticed folks, we're in the middle of a heat wave.

Moments after our return from the library Dex and Hugo got to work on a project to build their own cottage from a book we borrowed - Building Houses. Here's the finished cottage below. I only helped with the occasional steady hand while they applied sticky tape. Lots of sticky tape.

Remember the reading area we set up last year? It comes and goes but has made an appearance again this week, by the fish tank this time.

Another library score - Clifford Phonics CD-ROM. He enjoyed the change from Reading Eggs. Got to mix up this learning to read business!

Here are the kids as we were about to ride home from our SHRIMPs meet at the new pool. Do they look tired and hot? We're experiencing a heat wave in Sydney - and have been car-less all week. Biking everywhere we need to go. It's been 30 plus degrees each day. Seriously. We ARE hot.

We took a different route home from the pool, zig zagging back and forth in the back streets of of South Newtown and Erskineville. Truth be told I was avoiding the hills - best way to do that in our area is to stick close to the train lines. Of course train lines equal underpasses. We hung out in the deep shade of this one for a while to cool off.

The boys were excited to discover the acoustics inside were seriously awesome. So we stayed a while, shouting and singing. We were loud. Several pedestrian's and drivers turned our way and smiled. It was fun!

Echooooooooo!

Today we had ourselves a bit of a nothing day. If it had been a school day you could say we 'chucked a sickie'. (Oh, that's such an awful saying isn't it?!) We had lunch with Will at our new cafe. Cleaned the kids craft tables. Rearranged some stuff, including a fair whack of strewing (mwahahaha). Ate ice-blocks. Did NOT get on the bike. Dressed up as I don't know what.

How great is homeschooling? Or bus-, library-, museum-, pool-, bike-schooling as it were!

Wow, nice one if you read all of that! I'm done waxing lyrical about our school-free life now. We're a little bit excited. Thanks for bearing with me.

No pocket? No prob.

Hugo for some months now has been extremely into his little Lego people figures. Many of them are called SuperGuy. Two SuperGuys in particular travelled all the way through Central America last month.* In and out of his pockets (or mine) depending on his attire that day.

Today he found an alternative place to stash his little man. It cracked me up big time. Especially as this undie wearing business is still fresh - although nappy free for months the boy refused to wear undies and has been free-styling under his shorts/pants until now.

I asked if this one had a name. He replied with a look of surprise on his face - 'I don't know about it'!

*And yes, I promise the rest of the trip is coming soon soon soon, if the photos weren't so time consuming to trawl through - and I could make a decision about which to include - and if uploading them wasn't so painfully slow I may have had it done by now...

this moment

In the tradition of soulemama, here's this weeks moment. No words, just a moment from our week that we'd like to remember...

Our Great Adventure - Part 2

Costa Rica via New York.

O.k. So New York was really just a stopover, barely 24 hours. But long enough to see a serious amount of snow. The airports had only just opened after the huge snow storm at Christmas time, we were lucky our flight wasn't cancelled. That and the gale force winds Bermuda was experiencing that day - talk about an interesting take-off.

We of course hadn't packed for such cold weather and we dressed ourselves in half the contents of our suitcase -layers layers layers. Dexter wore a pair of Granny Kim's tights under his pants, Will had his flannelette pj's under his! Hugo was probably the best dressed with a woollen thermal undershirt on as well as a woollen vest (being the smallest has it's advantages - size 2 clothes take up so little room in a suitcase). Our layering didn't stop New Yorkers stopping us in the street to comment on how poorly we (and our kids ) were dressed. They shook their heads and tut-tutted like we were abusing our children by not having them in snow boots and coats. Hey, possibly we were a little but it was only a couple of hours and we did buy beanies and gloves off a street vendor for them at ridiculously inflated prices!

Although it was freezing cold, the ground was slippery and wet (in our non-waterproof shoes), and we stood out like the silly tourists that we were - we still managed to achieve our modest goals for New York: See snow. Tick. Touch snow. Tick. Walk through snow. Tick. And buy a winter wardrobe in the end of season sales from The Gap. (Hmm, yes for moi! 8 items of clothing for less than a hundred bucks!) Tick!

Our flight to Costa Rica was delayed because of the backlog of rescheduled flights due to the snow storm and we didn't arrive in San Jose until 2 am. The late night meant that the (grumpy) kids and I missed out on our first "trip to origin" - the La Minita coffee plantation. Will went by himself while the children and I spent the day relaxing in the hotel jacuzzi. He has posted photos and the story of that day on our company website. (As well as the home page, check out Updates from HQ in the Campos News section).

We spent the next 2 nights over NYE in a resort near the town of Jaco. It was a great little surf town, a little like Byron Bay. We enjoyed delicious local food and spent NYE boogying to a live Santana-style band. Pretty fun. Dexter discovered the deliciousness of virgin pina colada's and continued to ask for them whenever we found ourselves near a bar for the rest of the trip.

During our 2 days in Jaco Hugo became the master of sleep anywhere anytime! Check it out...

He crashed out in the hotel restaurant one evening BEFORE his meal had even arrived at the table. And the poor little chicken stayed asleep all night, missed his dinner entirely and woke up ravishing for breakfast.

He crashed out on the bus ride to our rain forest canopy tour and didn't wake until we were swinging in the breeze 50 meters above the ground in our little chairlift-like carriage way up above the rain forest.

And another meal slept through - this time on my back - when we ate lunch in Jaco.

The kids fell in love with our rain forest guide, Alejandro. He had 2 little boys himself and it was obvious from the easy way he engaged these two. Hugo was even holding his hand at times and letting Alejandro carry him. Super cute.

Even though we only had 2 days of free time (this was a business trip after all folks!), we found time to relax. Costa Rica is fantastically beautiful. We knew little about it as a tourist destination (all our intimate knowledge of the place is coffee-related of course) but it far exceeded our expectations.

We took a mini bus back to San Jose and the next morning flew to El Salvador... details to follow in Our Great Adventure Part 3!

Our Great Adventure - Part 1

Alrighty. Blogging simply didn't happen while we were overseas these past weeks. But we're home, the usual classes/play groups/activities we attend are still on 'school holidays' and our relatively free schedule should allow me to make up for lost time in blog-land.

Part 1 - Christmas in Bermuda.

We arrived 2 days before Christmas and spent the next 5 days enjoying the company of our Bermudian family and the beautiful surroundings.

Hugo crashed out by the tree 2 nights in a row in the early evening. And woke in the wee hours full of beans. Sweet jet lag!

Dexter took his first scooter ride with daddy (well, since he was in utero anyhow). It seemed to meet his expectations, he loved it. And I think Will had as much fun being back on a bike. Everyone rides motorbikes in Bermuda - in part due to the one car per household law. Will started riding a moped when he was only 16.

We tried to get outdoors whenever it stopped raining or blowing a gale. Which it did more than these photos suggest.

Whenever the opportunity arose we ate Bermudian Fish Chowder, with lashings of hot sherry pepper sauce and a drizzle of Goslings black rum. Worlds fussiest eater Hugo surprised us by enjoying the chowder too - we omitted the rum of course. The kid wont eat any fruit other than apples or banana's and pretty much lives on scrambled eggs alone - but he loved the full-on fishy spicy flavour of chowder. I will never understand.

The weather was by and large awful while we were there. Cold, raining and blowing a gale. We didn't mind too much, it felt like a proper Northern Hemisphere Christmas. The fire burning. Eggnog in the evenings. Cassava pie. But look at Christmas day! We even splashed about in the water a little and if not for the chilly wind could probably have swum good and proper.

On Boxing day we had ourselves a 'crystal caves' adventure near Tom Moore's Tavern. There's a small conservation area riddled with limestone caves - a place full of childhood memories for Will. We wandered through the woods exploring for an afternoon and dared each other to enter little caves by the light of a mini Lego man torch.

(Part 2 - Costa Rica, coming soon!)

this moment

Hey, we're back!

In the tradition of Soulemama, here's this weeks moment. But breaking with tradition this week I simply can not go word-less on this post. Nor can I settle on just one photo. Today we bought Little D a bike. His first. He rode it without training wheels right off! Just got on it and off he went. Oh man, he thought it was the bees knees. It was fantastic to watch. A real milestone. I am so happy for him.

And check out Little H, cheering him on from the door stoop. Awe!

Back here soon folks!

We're about to fly to Nicaragua, the final destination of our coffee business/family holiday trip. It's been a wonderful experience with highs and lows and everything in between. Not a lot of time online though thus this poor neglected space. I have however been uploading a few photos to my flickr account in an attempt to join in with January's Photo A Day challenge. Have a look-see if you care to...