Flooding

http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm

Thanks everyone for all your concerns. The Loves are safe and well. The flooding is happening to the States north and south of us.

Check out the linked photos of the affected areas.

Love to you all.

Kids screaming about spider

Coming home from the movies we have picked up a hitchhiker. Imagine this spider circling the outside the car while you are driving.

See posted video of kids screaming.

Dec 8, 2010 Year 10 Formal

Tim and his date, Alissia at the pre-formal gathering at Alissia's grandparents house.

High Schools here have a formal in year 10 and year 12. These are similar to our proms back home. The main difference is here the students can only ask other students from year 10 from their own school to be their dates, so on the night only the year 10 students from their school attended. The exceptions are of course if you go to a private all boys or all girls school.

The reasoning behind having the dinner/ dance in these years is because a fair number of students would leave after year 10 to pursue a trade.

Recently the laws have changed and students have to stay in school till at least 17 years of age.

Alissia and Tim are not dating for any who may be curious to know. They are just very good mates.

Dec 10, 2010 Graduation Dinner/ Dance Ceremony

Erika and her friends looking beautiful for their Graduation Ceremony.

Nikki, Abbey, Hannah, Erika, Jaime and Hayley in order from left to right.

Talent Quest 2010

This is Aimee and her friend dancing to Pump It. This is their 3rd year in a row entering a dance they have choreographed themselves. Jaime is a year above Aimee so for 2011 Aimee will have to find a new dance partner as Jaime will be starting high school along with Eri.

Presentation Day December 8, 2010

What a great awards ceremony.

Erika:
Academic Achievement (2 awarded/ class)
Sports Representative (10 awarded)
Citizenship Award (2 awarded)

Aimee:
Academic Achievement (2 awarded/ class)
Top 25% Math Olympiad
2011 School Captain (2 captains; 1 boy, 1 girl)

November 2010

Tom Jordan, one of the stars of "As the Bell Rings" similar to the US show "Saved by the Bell" is one of the singers in Schools Spec 2010. Tom made their day judging from the huge smiles on all the faces.

School Spec 2010

Erika and Aimee are pictured here outside the Sydney Entertainment Centre, aka SEC. Their school dance group audition and 12 of the 26 dancers were invited to participate in Schools Spectacular. School Spec comprises of 3000+ students from public schools in NSW.

These students showcase the talents of singing, dancing, acting and playing instruments. Our group was part of a larger group called "The Dark Side". They wore white jumpsuits and had a fleuro greenish yellow backpacks and represented the ghostbusting crusaders from the movie Ghostbusters.

You know you are old when your kids have no idea that "Ghostbusters" is a movie. We bought the movies to educate our kids.

Maths Camp - November 2010

This is not really the picture from Maths Camp. I did not take one so here is a substitute picture from a few years ago.

Every year, 2 students from 5th grade are chosen to go to Maths Camp. It is a 3 day, 2 night trip where 80 5th graders, who have shown an apptitude for maths, gather and do fun math-y activities.

The children are put into groups for most of the activities and Aimee ended up with 3 boys and 1 girl, Olivia. Their group was called Fibonacci. Olivia got sick, threw up, and went home. At the next group activity, Aimee was excited to hear they were going to be joining groups together to form bigger groups - yay, more girls, she thinks to herself.

Her goups was joined with a group consisting of 5 boys! She is too young to appreciate it now; however, their group was the only one to successfully complete the assignment.

Halloween 2010

Halloween Down Under is much different from Halloween back home. You have just as much chance of receiving blank stares as you will of getting some candy. It is a very, very, very small community of children who practice this "pagan" tradition. It is starting to become a more accepted tradition, meaning the candy companies are jumping on the chance to advertise and sell more candy. Unfortunate for the people who live in the nearby housing development as the annual Halloween tradition of candy collectors has congregated pretty much in their area. No one comes to our house or the houses on our street.

Here is Aimee (center) and Erika (right of center) with a few of their friends about to try their luck.

Some unusual items the kids have received are: granola bar, can of coke, apple juice, chocolate coins, packet of chips and the ultimate no no - candy that is not individually wrapped!

And would you believe we even let the kids eat them.