Once again we went down to Gippsland for a few weeks over Christmas. The weather was not as hot as we had hoped, but we did get a few 30+ degree days which we used to explore. Eddie struggled with being able to play as generally the places we went had rocky grounds around and he couldn’t walk. He liked the beach, though not as much as Maggie did.
Highlights of the outdoors trips was watching Eddie play with waves for the first time (he was a bit uncertain), Maggie try to bodyboard, Eddie have some chicken nuggets with his fish and chips (which went down very well) and mostly, for me, it was freestone creek as below.
Echuca has reliable weather, some nice natural areas around, and the discovery park is perfect for the kids with the water park, pool and general games. As such, as covid died down we decided to head there for four days. It was lovely, though most of the time was spent entertaining the kids.
We went away for 3 nights to a cabin in the Discovery Caravan Park. Gaga & Pa decided to come up with us in their caravan. We weren’t camping because of the difficulty with Eddie being 10 months.
The first morning we went to my old camping spot – or at least we tried to find it. It was some fun bush bashing but eventually I gave up – however the spot we found was fantastic. Had a great picnic on the side of the river with a lovely little campfire. Maggie decided she wanted to host her own kids show called “Maggie’s Amazing Picnics”.
Otherwise most of the time was spent in the actual Caravan Park itself. Such is the fun of Kids.
Ed was only 8 months for this Easter so Claire decided to take him up each day. We arrived on Friday and left on Monday. The weather was wonderful, around 25-29 each day. The kids spent most of the time in the water and it was freezing – they all shivered but claimed not to notice.
It was an amazing holiday, the kids all played really well together. They invented a game called “Touch Mouse” which one would shine a touch on the ground and the others would pounce on it. They went on a “dunny run” in the ute and as Lindi drove them away they all chanted “dunny run, dunny run” and Claire pointed out they probably didn’t know what it was. When they arrived back Maggie said to Claire “We went to the toilet!!”
Maggie loved handing out the chocolate brownies and birds nest she had made with Claire so much that when the Easter Bunny came and left her a humpty dumpty she decided to give out the smarties to everyone.
Another funny comment was because Maggie was having difficulty telling “Tony” and “Uncle Brian” apart and she said to me on the last day she kept “getting confused because they have the same head”.
As always, these trips tend to be the hardest to write up as they are just made up of many little moments. I doubt we will get weather this good again for a while – but hopefully we can all camp as a family next year!
Maggie outlasting everyone in the water, chanting “Canooooe”Ed very happy eating mud
We went down to Phillip Island with the Lewis’s for Isla’s birthday weekend and shared a house. Maggie was in heaven being able to play with the girls for the whole weekend. The weather wasn’t great (and Ed wasn’t sleeping) but otherwise it was a fun time.
The highlight was the walk to the beach caves – lessso for the caves themselves and more because Ed was loving the baby bjorn (so much that he passed out towards the end) and Maggie was in her element exploring and getting wet – even though it was 19 and windy, and she was clothed, she went all in.
