Back to school

I have been so slack with blogging lately. There's plenty to write about, but I've been busy and just haven't had the time or motivation to sit down and write.

Anyway, first things first. I'm officially enrolled as a Student Nurse. I'm still disappointed that it's not midwifery, but I'm just going to have to suck it up and move forward from that. I'm slowly getting excited about actually starting this journey, whilst quietly crapping my dacks about how I am going to manage. I'm kinda in denial about the enormous school load that I will have and the huge learning curve as I embark on tertiary study. I haven't studied for 10 years and that was a nice cruisy Tafe Diploma of Tourism. I can't even remember how to write an essay, let alone all the other formats for assignments and exams. To make it even worse, when you enrol in your classes you also have to enrol in your exams, so sitting nice and prominent on my Uni timetable is the days already blocked for exams. That's what really scares me. I remember the intense lead up to Exam time, full of late nights and junk food. I remember that being stressful without kids and no other responsibilities, throwing kids and a house into the mix is surely going to be C.R.A.Z.Y!

Also because I've only just enrolled, I was left with all the scrappy times for tutes/labs. It means I'm back and forth from the uni a bit, but it should work out ok with the kids. I go from 8-9 of a Monday morning and then again in the afternoon from 1pm-2pm. Although that sounds so spaced out and crappy, it's not too bad. I really wanted to keep going to the craft mornings up at the school, so having those hours means Wendy can come up of a morning and watch the kids, then I can come home and we can head up about 9.30am. After craft we will come home for lunch, put Xav to bed and then I'll head back out. Duane's home at 2pm, so he'll take over the kids and Wendy can head home. Tuesday I'll be at school from 1-4, and as Grace will also be at school I only have to work out Xav. I'm hoping that I can drop Xav at the Il's for a few hours which will give me some study time before uni and then once again Duane can pick up the kids after he finishes work. There are lectures on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday which are only for a few hours each day. I'm in the process of finding out if I can just watch them online, which would be awesome as I could be flexible when I watched them.

I've still got a fair bit to sort out between now and the start date of 1st March. Blue card, police check, needles and CPR. I also have to organise books and stationary and might even treat myself to a special stethoscope! All nurses need one right?

~~Beautiful sunrise at Lennox~~

Apart from spending the last few weeks bitterly disappointed with missing out on Mid, We've been having a great time with Mum visiting. We spent 4 nights camping down at Lennox Heads which was fantastic. There were lots of lazy, hot days spent floating around in the tannin stained lake.

Our camp site this time was in a nice little corner, between plenty of kids around for Grace and Xav to play with. They spent most of their time scootering around the park, doing chalk drawings on the concrete and generally running amok during the day and crashing in exhausted heaps of a night.


They made friends with the kids in the caravan beside us and spent most of the time playing in their caravan and annex. Good choice of friends too, they were in luxury in a massive air-conditioned Van with all the mod-cons. A bit of a novelty and step-up from out modest little tent set-up.


We spent one day up at Balngalow visiting the awesome markets and the beautiful park by the river. It was a stinking hot day though, so only enough time for a quick look through before buying a homemade icy-pole and heading over to the cool, shady park.



The weather was beautiful, but hot on some days so we set up on the lake and spent the hottest part of the day down there. It's a lovely shaded spot, perfect for the kids to paddle in the water whilst the adults took turns watching and reading books. The kids also had their sleeps down there, on little made up beds inside the shade tent. Gave the adults time for a snooze and time to read or tackle crosswords.

We had a delicious and decadent breakfast one morning over at the surf club. Duane had a big hot breakfast, whilst the rest of us had a feast of banana pancakes with ice-cream and maple syrup. YUMMO!

On the way home, we stopped at Brunkswick Heads for THE best calamari and chips in the world, serious. It is just divine and Duane and I have even considered taking a day trip down just for lunch.

~~Yummy calamari and hand made chips~~

Mum's heading home tomorrow morning, so no doubt it will take a while for me and the kids to get back to just us again. It's been great having an extra pair of hands to wrangle the munchkins. on a daily basis. Duane and I have also made good use of the in-house nanny service, managing to go out for dinner one night and the movies another. I'm not sure it's been much of a break for Mum though, she's been dragged around to all our daily activities, which usually incolve more noisy children! She'll no doubt need some kid-free time when she goes home to recover!

The kids are going to miss her though. I've been able to get back to Tassie at least once a year for the last 4, but I'm really not sure when I'll next be able to get down. Time wise it's hard, but it's also getting hard financially considering we have to pay for both kids now. It's an expensive trip for all of us to travel down, much cheaper for me to just pay for Mum to come up. I'm not sure when she'll come up next though, hopefully with not too big a gap!