Letter No. 219
Dear AllOn 31st May we went to the engagement party of one of my work colleagues Darren. Jessica had a St Aidan’s school dance on the same night. We had a nice time at the party but were still a bit jet-lagged from our American trip so were really flagging when we had to leave at 9:30pm to pick her up. It seemed a bit indecently early to leave a party but it was a 30-minute drive from home so not worth going back.
The local shopping centre has been undergoing major renovations for several years, or so it feels. It has been very inconvenient as stores keep closing and relocating to different floors. It was a big shopping centre but now it is enormous and in the final stage a whole load of new restaurants opened up. Matthew was ridiculously excited to discover a Japanese Gyoza restaurant so we had to go there for lunch almost as soon as it opened.
Matthew and I went to Suncorp Stadium on 7th June to see Australia play France in the rugby. I had only decided two nights before and was quite pleased to get reasonable tickets that weren’t in the nose bleed section! Australia thrashed France so we had a good night. Matthew ran into a friend of his on the train on the way there and despite there being thousands of people there catching the train he bumped into the same friend again on the way home! Quite astonishing. The next day the kids and I went and did the Queensland Adventure Trail to celebrate Queensland week. It is a treasure hunt around the city with lots of activities to complete along the way, and you have to do it within four hours. Not all activities are compulsory but we always make it our goal to do every activity and find the answer to every question. We finished just before the cut-off time and had a relax in bean bags in the sun while we waited for the prize draw at the finish. Sadly we didn’t win an i-pad again this year but we had a really fun day. That evening we went to my brother-in-law Andrew’s birthday party. Lisa did a fantastic Thai soup dinner, where everyone could fill their bowls with their own choice of vegetables, noodles, chicken, pork, prawns, herbs and spices, before filling with the soup base which was spooned over the top. It was a really fantastic idea and we all went back for seconds.
We all went to Jessica’s Australian Girls’ Choir Winter Showcase on 14 June. The choir does three big concerts every year and this is the first one. Jessica had a major role in one of the dance routines. We had front row seats and she was performing to an audience of about 1000 only a metre or so in front of us. Matthew was embarrassed being in the front row as he said it was too showy-offy. Anyway we had a brilliant view of Jessica but as we were so close there was no opportunity to look at anyone else without being caught out by Jessica for not looking at her 100% of the time!!
Matthew had a training weekend for his Antipodeans Abroad trip to Vietnam. It was at Lake Moogera on the way to Warwick. Molly and I took him up on Saturday morning to drop him off and dropped in at Mum and Dad’s for morning tea before driving back to Brisbane. Molly was a bit shocked to see their puppy Kimba. Just three months ago they were the same size and played comfortably in the garden. Now Kimba is about six times bigger than Molly and kept bowling her over and stepping on her. We had to separate them quite quickly. Poor Kimba just wanted to play but didn’t realise her size or strength.
Katie had another two days’ work at BBC on 23rd and 24th of June just before the end of Term 2. She was assisting in another student conference at the University of Queensland. She was pleased to be asked again. She had the same desk as last time and her water glass was still on the desk!
On 26th June, Jessica set off on a two-week National Choir Tour with the Australian Girls’ Choir. She had to miss the last day of school which she was quite pleased about. I took her to the airport for 6:30am and she flew with 15 other girls to Hobart, Tasmania. The National Tour started with a 3-day residential music school, where the girls rehearsed their tour repertoire, and then they went on tour to Hobart and Launceston, then flew to Sydney and finally on to Canberra.
Jessica here – I had an amazing time on choir tour! It was such a great experience. We stayed with host families for a few days in each location and did lots of music workshops and performances at host schools. I met so many lovely, generous people and got to know them and their children. We previously had learnt a repertoire of songs in 6-part harmonies, some classic and beautiful and others cute and childish. We even learnt 3 songs in other languages, another AGC challenge! We had a 3-day music school in freezing Tasmania, making us performance ready, and we staged and choreographed our 50 minute show. I was selected for a special dance group and we were featured in two songs. The best part of the tour was performing with people of all ages. I made some awesome friends and we became a sweet little family. At the beginning of the tour we were equipped with a performance costume complete with pink hair ribbon, tour dairy and a group with leaders. During the tour I had an amazing time and there were some fantastic highlights –singing in Parliament House in Canberra, performing at the Last Post Ceremony at the Australian War Memorial, the steps of the Sydney Opera House and at various shopping malls, old people’s homes and schools. In Tasmania we went to Cradle Mountain and we sang at Port Arthur Historic site. We also went to the Cadbury’s chocolate factory and I’m proud to say I only spent $25 dollars on chocolate! Trust me, I had to use a lot of restraint! It was a constant life of fun, excitement and PERFORMING! By the end we had all exchanged emails and were bawling our eyes out when we had to say goodbye. It was a fab tour!
While Jessica was away, Katie, Matthew and I went to Sherana the first weekend to see Mum and Dad and drop Molly off. Then on the second weekend we went to the Bunya Mountains with five other BBC families. There were mainly boys in Matthew’s year at BBC so Jessica was not at all bothered about missing out. We drove up on Friday. It was a three-hour drive into the hills. On the way we stopped at Savages Crossing on the upper reaches of the Brisbane River. It was the middle of winter but was a warm sunny day so Matt went for a quick swim in the river. He has never been deterred by cold water. We stopped in the little country town of Toogoolawah. It was not exactly hip hopping but we had a nice pub lunch. We drove on to the Bunya Mountains and arrived about 2pm. As we were driving into the village we saw a few cute little wallabies and stopped to watch them. When we drove into the village we realised wallabies were a pretty common theme and there were hundreds of them hopping around everywhere, with lots of babies as well. They were so cute. We had three little holiday houses between the five families, all next to each other. We put all the five boys in one unit and the adults and the two girls shared the other two houses. We unpacked, lit a fire and drank mulled wine while the sun went down. The mountains were quite high and it was pretty cold up there but we were toasty inside with our warm fires and sweaters and Katie had even taken our faux fur throw for our bed. Everyone came to our unit for all the meals so it was a bit chaotic always cooking for 16! The adults watched movies after dinner and the kids all retired to their units and watched movies as well. We had three nights and went for beautiful long 10km walks in the rainforest each day. The second night we decided to walk to the top of a mountain to watch the sun go down. It was spectacular but very cold.
On the last morning we were just about to leave when Matthew complained about his eye hurting. I discovered that he had a tick on his lower eyelash, right in the hairline. I tried to get it out but it was too small and in a very awkward place. We decided to drive to the nearest doctor in Oakey about an hour’s drive on our way home. We were in the doctor’s surgery for quite a long time. The doctor was a nice young man who said he had never seen a tick in such a difficult position. They used the most expensive machine in the surgery and eventually he got it out without the loss of too many eyelashes!
We went on to Mum and Dad’s to pick up Molly. As soon as we arrived Molly darted out of the house and jumped straight into the car and wouldn’t get out again. She was so excited about going home again after her holiday. It was quite funny.
Jessica came home on 9th July. We all went to the airport to meet her. Katie took her a big bouquet of flowers and we went right to the gate to meet her. She was so pleased to see us and thrilled with her flowers. It was the longest she has ever been away from home and it was really good to have her back.
There were still a few days of holiday left before we got back into the school routine. It was Katie’s birthday on 12th July and she managed to make it last all weekend. We had been invited to a Bastille Day dinner party that day with some AECOM colleagues. It was only a short walk to the dinner party as they lived in Graceville. We had quite a nice evening and it was good just to wander home down the road. Katie wanted to go to the Boatshed at the Regatta Hotel with the family on Saturday for her birthday. The Regatta Hotel was flooded in 2011 and took nearly 18 months to fully reopen. The restaurant is so stylish and modern now, and the food was fab. On Sunday afternoon we went to see Maleficent as I had won some free movie tickets at work that were close to expiring and then went for a Chinese meal with Lisa and Andrew and the cousins.
Jessica was singing with AGC at the Lord Mayor’s Australian Citizenship Ceremony in City Hall the next night. Katie had to drop her off at 5:00pm and she had to sit through the whole ceremony before they sang their usual two songs (I Still Call Australia Home and Advance Australia Fair). The choir performs regularly at these events and Jessie will get more gigs in the future.
We had another Garage Sale on 20th July. I set up on the Saturday and the sale went from 7am until 1:00pm when we were too bored to carry on with it. The kids made about $100 each selling their unwanted toys and we sold about $600 worth of junk we didn’t want any more. Afterwards I took all the left over stuff to the drop off point for the local church fête.
BACK TO SCHOOL – Term 3 kicked off with a bang and it was going to be a busy one – it was Jessie’s rowing season, Matt’s basketball season and Katie was in full planning mode for the BBC Fashion Parade coming up at the end of term. It was the St Aidan’s Twilight Fair on Friday 25th July. Students had stalls and could sell things for a flat $10 fee which went to charity. Jessica’s dance troupe STAGE was performing to entertain the crowds at the markets so Katie and I went along to watch. I am constantly amazed how good they are. They do such complex dances with all 28 girls perfectly in unison.
Matthew was at the BBC Senior Music Camp that weekend so he didn’t play basketball on Saturday 26th July, which meant that Katie and I could both go to watch Jessie’s first regatta of the season. Jessica is the cox of the Year 8 third crew. The coxes are rated during the training season and Jessica was the top cox but she was put into the lowest crew as there was a rule that if anyone didn’t attend the Rowing Camp they were automatically in the bottom crew. Jessica missed the rowing camp as she was on the Choir Tour which had been booked months before, so ended up coxing the thirds, but she said that the girls were nicer so she was happy. The regattas are all held up at Lake Kawana which is about 1½ hours’ drive north up on the Sunshine Coast. They had to be there at 7:30am so we were up ridiculously early and off before the sun. Regattas are much more organised than they were in the early 1980s when I rowed at BBC. There was a Rowers’ Tent complete with ergos and a Supporters Tent with food for parents. We knew quite a few of the parents so we had a social morning. Jessica’s crew raced at 9:30am and were delighted to come second. We stayed until about 1:30pm to watch the First Eight and then drove home. Jessica still had to go back to the rowing shed afterwards to de-rig the boats and put them back in the shed and finally got home around 6pm. Regattas are huge long and tiring days.
The next morning Katie and I went to Matthew’s senior music camp to pick him up and see the little concert they put on after morning tea. In the afternoon Katie and I played tennis. We told the kids we were going and they both decided to come as well. We played two double sets rotating partners each time and then Katie and I played singles while the kids played each other. It was really fun and we stopped for ice cream on the way home. An exhausting weekend and it was only the end of Week 1!
The following weekend Jessie’s STAGE dance troupe were performing again at a school MADD Night (Music Arts Dance and Drama). They do so many girly things at girls’ schools! On Saturday I drove up to Kawana for Jessie’s Second regatta, while Katie drove Matt to his first Basketball game. I had signed up to be the team manager again this term, so Katie had to take on the duty. On the way Matt gave Katie strict instructions to keep a low profile. As soon as they arrived, the coach asked Katie if she could help as they were short-handed and asked her to either score or run the bench. Katie ended up scoring the match, even though it was almost the first basketball game she has watched! She really enjoyed the game though and now there is a bit of competition over which parent is the best supporter and team manager. Matt is wisely refusing to enter into the debate!
That’s all for this quarter!
Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica & Molly
Australian Girls Choir at the Opera House
Bunya mountains.
A family of kookaburras.
Bunya mountains.
