Mother's Day

Mother's Day over here is not the same as in the UK but the same as in the USA, so it was May 8th over here. Will and Sam got up at 7.10 a.m, unheard of in the Morgan household at the weekend! Sam had made pancakes at Nat's the day before, so they came into our room with pancakes and ice-cream covered in maple syrup, strawberries and banana - yum! I was very impressed! Then Jack got up and presented me a wonderful present from them all, which is a Weekend Afternoon Tea at the Hotel Windsor in Melbourne, and equates to going to the Ritz! He had organised it with Jason so that Natalie got the same present, so we are off to that in July- how lucky are we?

The day got even better when Sam scored the winning header in his footie match!

Yesterday was Sam's 15th Birthday! He had his friends Harry and Aaron stay overnight on Friday because yesterday, he had his 2nd trial to be a Ballboy at the Australian Open next January. There started off with 1,200 hopefuls for 300 places, and Sam had got through to the last 800! It took place at Melbourne Park, the home of the Aussie Open and consisted of a multiple choice test, fitness test and ball control skills. He really enjoyed it, so we shall just have to wait and see - it's all good experience.

Then in the evening, we had Natalie, Jason and the Girls over for a home-made pizza night, followed by games, which consisted of the chocolate game ( if you throw a "6" on the dice you have to put on a hat, scarf and coat before attempting to cut and eat a block of chocolate) and the flour game (a dome of flour with a sweet on the top. Each person has to cut a slice of flour away and whoever knocks the sweet off has to use his teeth to get it out of the pile of flour!) Lots of fun and laughter! I will try and load some piccies onto our Flikr site :)

Life returns to normal...

Well, now the excitement of the Easter holidays is over, life gets back to its normal routine, apart from the Royal Wedding of course! Unlike you UK-er's, we did NOT have a day off, but since it was starting at 8p.m over here, I guess that was fair play! Not such a big deal over here by any stretch of the imagination - not seen any merchandise at all with Will and Kate on! But, did find a few interested girlies to have a little get- together with down the road! Robyn had decorated her house in toille and fairy lights and resurrected the best English china, so that we could all enjoy a right Royal knees-up! We dressed up and all took food and wine and had a most enjoyable evening :)

The footie season got officially underway on May 1st. Jack had his first reffing match "in the middle", earning himself 80 pnds compared to 15 pnds in the UK!!! It was a mens game and quite tough by all accounts, Jack having to give out several yellow cards. He is the youngest- ever ref in the state of Victoria to ref a mens match - he should be over 18 to do this! But because he had such a good reference from the UK, they have let him start early here!

Sam has been made Captain of his team for the year, which he was very pleased with. They won 2 - 1 which was even better!

Wills AFL team were thrashed at their first game, but he got stuck in, not at all bothered that he is the smallest and youngest and should be playing for the year below! They were so impressed with him that he won an award for his courageous and stirling efforts (even though at one stage he threw the ball as if it were a rugby ball!!!) Yesterday, he also won the cross-country out of half the school year so was on a real high!

Today, I tried my hand at "Stand-up Paddle Boarding". This is a relatively new sport over here which has developed over the past 4 years and where you stand up on a board much like a surf board but bigger and ...paddle! Today I stayed in the mariner while I got my balance and learnt the basics and it was pretty easy-going, but I guess it will be more challenging once you hit the sea! Watch this space...!