Jen - Off we go

Bags are packed (Thanks, Dan!), taxi's booked and will arrive in five hours to take the lot of us to the sunnier climes of Cairns and the Torres Strait. The kids are ridiculously excited. See you in a couple o' weeks!

Jen - I runned it!

Amazingly I managed to complete the City2Surf today! I jogged the entire way - took about 103 minutes I think. So very tired now.

Jen - school holidays again

Half the year's gone by - the kids are in the mid year holiday break now. Boy have they needed it. Last term (Term 2) was 11 weeks long and they were absolute wrecks by the end of it. Slowly recovering now. As are their parents.

Jen - Portable computing

iPad iPad iPad.
It's good. Money well spent.

Jen - Bespectacled

Age is catching up with me. That plus too many hours in front of a computer screen and a tiny, tiny iPod screen (where's my iPad?!). Just for reading and computer work, mind you.
Pics to come when Dan wakes up and can take them.

Jen - Long weekend

There used to be a time when long weekends were cherished, especially ones that coincided with the end of daylight savings! Sleep-in heaven! Not any more. Now it's four whole days at home with munchkins. Four very long days.

Thanks for a wonderful diversion and an excellent evening at your wedding, Red Bec. It was such a happy occasion and I'm glad it all went well. It was fabulously organised and ran super smoothly (from my view, anyway)!

Jen - Nine years

On this day around this time, nine years ago, the Hive was meeting Dante for the very first time. How time flies.

Jen - students are back

Today I was horrified to find that the new student cards double up as VISA debit cards.

Jen - Year of the Tiger

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. The weekend was spent, first cleaning then eating (big family dinner on Saturday night), then relaxing, with a spot of sorting and shopping on Sunday.

Also, I can't believe that I didn't write about Atticus. The last week of January was a big one for us. He had a hair cut! And turned 5! And started Kindergarten! All in one week (or thereabouts).

And he's doing great, by the way. Settling in, starting to actually join in and listen to his teacher. He's off the Epilim now too. We think that's probably helped a lot with his behaviour. Yay!

Also... Dante is finally in his permanent class for the year (Week 4 already and they're still stuffing around... but at least he's not in a class of 42 anymore. Back to a reasonable 31). Now he's been moved to a 4/5 class. Not with last year's teacher anymore but hopefully one that's just as good, and back with his good friend Will (who's in Yr 5 this year). He's already got his first homework sheet and excited about learning.

Jen - First week of 2010

A full week has passed. The year is moving forward. Back to work - it's like we've never left. Child care has started up again, next week Vacation Care begins for the boys.

Jen - Musical Education

The kids are getting edumacated this evening. Dan downloaded some old music videos and played them for the kids at dinner time...

Charley Lownoise & Mental Theo - Wonderful Days
Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
Apollo 440 - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Dub
Underworld - Born Slippy

Some old favourites.

Jen - Present giving

Had a great Burn Family Xmas late lunch yesterday - piles and piles of presents. The kids were reasonably well behaved and not too ridiculously spoilt!

This morning has been more relaxed. But now we are off to my side of the family and I'm sure it will be chaos and bedlam.

Merry Christmas folks.

Jen - End of Year Festivities begin

Went to a Golf Day this afternoon. 18 holes at Marrickville in 4 hours. We didn't win but had lots of fun. The winning team got 3 below par.

Next up - lawn bowls.

Jen - Holidays over

Jaime and Shannon came to stay and it was GREAT FUN! The kids loved "Jaime-n" (as in Jaime 'n' Shannon) and Shannon and Holly, of course, and miss them lots now that they're gone. School is well and truly back - second week of term 4.

Jen - Apocalypso

The world is bathed in sepia tones this morning. What an incredible sight it was, the red dust blown in from Central Australia by gale force winds and blanketing the entire city. Stuff you, sunlight! Very apocalyptic.

Pics on flickr.

Jen - Dinner and Peas

Dan's cousin and her husband visited from Brisbane this weekend. Always lovely - my favourite of his extended family. Tonight we had them over for dinner. The kids fought for their attention by seeing who could be most charming or cute. It was a nice change. As we were cleaning up I found a packet of defrosted peas which we forgot to put away earlier. I had a good laugh as I remembered Brian's stir-fry that time. Anyone else remember those weekly dinners?? We did a roast. What did you cook? I can't remember!

Jen - up early

I was going to go in to work early anyway today, but I got woken up half an hour before my alarm clock this morning... by the rain! Not just the sound of the rain against the window, but by drops of rain actually falling upon my face. The window is about a 1m away from my side of the bed, and was open about 10cm. Obviously more than enough. Heh.

Jen - Long day

Spent 10 hours at work yesterday... 11 including travelling time. Blargh.

Actually, it was quite fun. There was a scheduled power outage. No-one allowed in the building. No computers. No printers. No network. No pressure! I spent the time weeding a network cabinet, stopping regularly for cups of tea and the occasional game of Zuma (we had one computer hooked up to the generator). I wish all work days were like that.

Came home completely exhausted, of course. Poor Dan had all three kids all day... and then I was pretty much asleep by 10pm. On a Saturday night! How times have changed!

Jen - It begins...

Dan and I were cleaning off the whiteboard a bit tonight whilst the littlies played around our legs.

Suddenly, Elora holds something up to me and says "What is it, Mama?"
I look down and she's holding up a plastic card. Dan's corporate card, no less.
"What?" exclaims Dan. "How did she get that?"

She'd managed to reach into the leg pocket of Dan's cargo pants and sneakily grab it out of his wallet all without him noticing.

It begins. The daughter raiding her father's wallet. We just didn't expect it quite so soon!

Jen - Cubing it up

Lawrence Leung has a lot to answer for. I spent all of last night and this morning figuring out how to do the Rubik's Cube. With help from the internet of course. And I still haven't broken the ten minute mark. Grr.