About six months ago, my good friend Cal, who lives with her husband Nathan and three kids in Geelong, messaged me saying Nathan would be at a conference in Brisbane in the September school holidays and they were thinking about coming up to stay as well. Long story short, I told Cal they should stay with us here and after some meal and activity planning, we were super excited for them to arrive! They were here from Sunday afternoon until the following Sunday morning and honestly it was just such a blast having them here!!
We tried to have a mix of different activities to keep them entertained but not send us broke! Bowling was an absolute blast, with the main attraction being 3-year-old Arlo showing off his adorableness! The next day I took the older kids, as well as Quinn’s friend and her sister to the skating rink and most of the kids loved it! Darby gets bored pretty quickly with skating so it helped having Atti there to keep him on the rink. Julius skated then switched to blades which he LOVED (and informed me of his need for rollerblades for Christmas!!)
We had a huge day out on Wednesday heading to Cal’s friends place for a swim and BBQ lunch, then onto the CityCat (water transport on the Brisbane River) to Southbank for ice cream and tree climbing! We were pretty exhausted after sitting in an hour of peak-hour traffic on the way home (I always forget that peak-hour still exists in school holidays!) But my energy was revived when Marty arrived on Thursday morning with Thomas for three nights!
On Thursday, we also had Darby’s mate Claude with us for the day so we decided to take them down to the water in front of Gran & Grumpy’s place for some beach action. We were there for nearly three hours in the end! Grumpy outdid himself, bringing the big kayak down as well as the small blue one and a little surf ski as well! The boys had the absolute best time together. We got home close to 2pm and still in their togs, I got some water guns and water balloons out for them to have fun with. By 3:30 everyone was exhausted and I was more than happy to let them have some screen time after being out all day.
On Friday everyone came along to a surprise party for my dear friend Kate and had a great time running around playing Red Rover and kicking the footy, as well as frequenting the playground and snack table.
Then it was off to the movies to see Wild Robot which was pretty good, and according to Julius, “so sad”. Saturday was the AFL Grand Final, and it was exciting that the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions both got through to the big game!! All we really wanted was a close game, and after so many nail-biters leading up to the GF, our hopes were high! Unfortunately it was very one-sided from very early on, with the Lions absolutely mauling the Swans (though the scoreline at the end was VERY satisfying mathematically with all the scores doubled – 18.12 (120) to 9.6 (60))
We absolutely feasted on ribs and brisket for dinner (after having wings for lunch!) and enjoyed our last night all together after such a cracking week. It was really special having this family stay with us – there is so much history here, with all of us meeting back in 2008 when Frith and Nathan hit it off at Melbourne Uni at the start of their medical studies. Cal and I quickly became friends, and have remained close ever since. The house was very quiet on Sunday afternoon, once everyone had left. I LOVE having a full house of family and friends and love that, even though there are some things about my house that drive me crazy, the fact that we could sleep 14 relatively comfortably makes it the perfect house for me.
Until next time guys!