Happy New Year!

Can you believe, here in Australia, we're halfway through the Christmas/Summer holidays already?  It has come as a big surprise in our house, more because it feels like we haven't done much yet.  Why is it every year we tell the kids we'll make the effort to do heaps of fun stuff on the holidays and then we never seem to get around to doing anything we planned?

These holidays our plans included: at least one day-trip to the beach, a movie at the local cinema, a few days visiting family in Brisbane and a camping trip.  You would think, with six weeks available, this should be easy!  But we haven't managed any of it yet.

We spent the first week getting ready for Christmas - shopping, cooking, etc - and sorting through the piles of books and papers sent home from school at the end of the year (I can imagine the teachers chuckling with glee when they saw all the full backpacks being carried out the door on that last day).

Then we had the "between Christmas and New Year" period - those lazy days filled with leftover food, floors covered in new toys and, being a cricket family, lounging around in front of the telly watching the Boxing Day test match (actually, I read a book).  Of course, it was a sad time for cricket fans with the death of Tony Greig, whose voice we all grew up hearing on the cricket coverage every Summer.  We also had a tragedy in our own house a couple of days later when one of our guinea pigs disappeared without a trace.  It was an awful way to end the year.

Naturally, we decided this must be a sign that the new year would be fantastic, so we celebrated by staying up for New Year's Eve.  All five of us.  Even the five year old.  It was fun, but made us all tired.  What were we thinking?

After a few days of not functioning properly (obviously none of us are very good at staying up that late), we got back on track and dealt with some appointments and catching up on a bit of essential shopping as the leftover food was all gone.  We even bought a new guinea pig.  Now, all of a sudden, we are a week into January and wondering where the holidays are disappearing to?  So, with three weeks of school holidays to go, the revised plan is to cram in a quick camping trip - our first as a family! - then head to Brisbane to catch up with loved ones.  That should lead quite nicely into the "before school starts" rush .. covering books, buying shoes and lunch boxes and making sure the uniforms are ready to go.

Don't worry kids, maybe we can fit in a trip to the beach and the movies at Easter ;-)