Let's try something different

So, I decided that I would try something different today.  There are only so many times that I can say (or in my case yell) 'leave your brother/sister alone' or 'stop making that noise' or 'I am not your slave' or 'how would I know what you feel like eating' or 'don't think that you are bringing that into the house' or 'I just cleaned that room' - you get the idea - the list goes on.  So I decided that toady a day trip was in order.

We almost didn't make it out of the house.  Shoes that were difficult to find (disappearing shoes may be a future blog).  Arguments over breakfast (I'm not buying you food as soon as we get there).  Have you brushed your teeth?  Yes you need to change into clean clothes (no you can't wear the same t-shirt that you have been wearing for a week).  But leave the house we did and off we went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

Oh the excitement of sitting on a rock.  Son number 2 is being his usual charitable self to daughter number 2 and letting her share his rock.

The delight of eating ice cream.  Yes this is the face that she makes when she eats.  It is hard to capture in a photo but she always looks very serious, almost angry when she eats.

And yes he always poses for the camera.

The thrill of sliding down the slide over and over again.  You can see in the photo the coffee that I was trying to drink at the time.  Unfortunately she could not master scaling the mini rock climbing wall arrangement that they had going so after a quick wizz to the bottom of the slide I had to lift her back up to the top.

Did I mention the sheer pleasure of digging in the sand?

And the impossibility of getting four children to all look at the camera at the same time.

We gave up in the end.

By now you may be wondering where the 'wildlife' part of our day went.  You may be thinking 'surely they have rocks, ice cream and sand within walking distance of their house instead of having to drive for over an hour south'.  Well the kids did manage time for the kangaroos.  This actually was son number 1's favourite part of the day.  He loves animals and especially loved how soft their fur was.  Daughter number 2 was in 'monkey see monkey do' mode.

Daughter number 1's favourite part of the day was the high ropes (which were pretty cool if you were tall enough, of which only the two eldest children were).

Did I mention how exciting it is to climb on rocks while waiting for your brother and sister who are on the high ropes?