Sun, swimming and strawberries

October 11, 2012

Sun, swimming and strawberries

Back from holidays and straight into term 4 has been a shock to the system. I did a FB status update on Monday morning mentioning that we had a nasty case of back-to-schoolitus... just neglected to mention it was mainly felt by me! Second day back and I felt better but the kids felt worse. Jesse stayed home with a bad cough (coughing from 4am = a torrid time for all of us) and Mim decided to have the mother of all meltdowns in the car drop off line, that involved screaming, hollering, thrashing and being physically dragged out of the car by me, multiple times. All witnessed by a constant line of school cars/families. Not one of our better family moments. My face still feels flushed when I relive it (over and over) 24 hours later.

What happened to our holiday glow? Everyone is home today with a varying range of coughs, sore throats, temperatures and lethargy (okay, the last one's mainly me) so I'm hoping we'll recover our good health and spirits with some enforced rest. Every so often I glance at a few holiday snaps, to remind myself that this time last week we really were having fun in the sun, with no school lunches, coughs and colds or public tantrums...

This was our view from the balcony. It was sparkly and spectacular and I could have sat and stared at it from my banana lounge every darn day for at least a year!!

We swam, ate ice cream, lazed around, read books, stared at the sea, played in the park, walked the streets and drank coffee and milkshakes day in, day out. Just what holidays are supposed to be.

Arch developed a pathological fear of the ocean (what? the water's cold??) but quickly became confident, moving from clothes and paddling into swimmers and swimming in the (semi-heated) pool. He loved the water and in the end it was hard to get him out!

A holiday highlight was picking our own strawberries from a farm we stumbled across in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. We'd gone for a drive, and taken a wrong turn (Queensland road signs were the bane of my life!) so suddenly found ourselves heading for Brisbane when we'd intended to head north. It took us three times of driving up and down a highway-to-nowhere before we turned into the driveway of the farm - stress levels between the driver and map reader were soaring.

However the signs/map debacle was worth it. The farm had a little shop with great coffee (to soothe adult nerves), smoothies, fresh fruit and veges. Picking from the specially designated strawberry beds was a delicate operation. Can you believe ALL four kids obeyed the sign not to eat the strawberries before buying? True. Only J (who was paying) deemed himself official (illegal) taster - and all photo evidence of his rule-breaking has mysteriously disappeared!