Dress Up Days

Our school had two dress up days in the last week. The first was a Crazy Hair and Pyjamas day. With the cold weather we've been having lately, this necessitated track pants under the pjs and dressing gowns over them:

The second dress up day was space-themed to celebrate the end of Book Week. Anna was the only one who deliberately chose to dress up as a book character, perhaps because she's the only one who has yet read any science fiction. In the last month she has read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (equal tie for my all time favourite SciFi book with Anne McCaffrey's Killashandra) and the Ender's Shadow series that follow after. She made her own costume and went as Ender Wiggin in his flash suit, with a Dragon Army logo on her shoulder and his transfer orders in her pocket. Abigail went as a "green headed alien", which Anna and I reinterpreted as a Formic/Bugger from Ender's Game. Samuel went as Darth Vader, along with approximately one fifth of the primary school population.

Bushwalking in the Great Southern

With our friend Gerard visiting, we decided to drive out to the Stirling Ranges and check out the Mt Trio hike. It is definitely not for the faint hearted, withe the trail heading straight up to begin with. The view was spectacular, but we didn't have the time (or the energy!) to complete the whole hike. This is the view back down the trail from our turn-around point:


Back at the bottom we spent some time allowing the kids to clamber over some boulders while we followed at a rather slower pace:


From the top of these boulders Jeff spied the endemic, elusive, Cranbrook Bell:


Later that day we headed further south to Albany and wandered over the granite slabs around the top of Mt Clarence to admire views of Albany township, Lake Seppings and Middleton Beach, Emu Point and Oyster Harbour.