Dreamworld Conquered

A bit of a reprieve from my NaNo writing today and the real official start to the silly season. This weekend is just the beginning of schedule clashes and running from one thing to another. From 8 on Sat morning we were at dance concert rehearsals, a quick lunch at home, change of uniforms and then off to Little Athletics. Sunday - we had a number of schedule clashes and just had to work around them to choose the best outcome.

Generally, I will be one of the supervisors for Morgans Age group at Little Athletics. This normally involves me organizing the kids into lines and ensuring they get their turns on each activity and recording times or distances. I bribe the kids often with lollies and cut up fruit as the waiting times between activities can be a little wearisome. They were training for the big competitions this week, so for the second time this season, I was handed the tiny tots to ‘play’ with as thier normal teachers were teaching relay races. We had a lot of fun teaching running ( how to start, when to run) - the kids like to just runn of in mobs - so its quite a challange to get them to line up and go at appointed times. discus - basically - “hit that dad over there with this rubber ring” ( not such a good idea - as Morgan - who was not training with the bigger kids as he was not competing, actually DID), then over to long jump were the kids ran like mad and hopped over a rubber rope to give them some focus to jump some distance. So

me just didn’t get it and just ran straight into the sandpit and fell on their faces. Its a laugh a minute!

Today - Sunday - we had to choose between Dreamworld and competing in the regional Little Athletics comp. As much as the kids are enjoying their time at LA, its really not a focus for me for them to compete - nor do I think they are really that inclined or gifted in that way…..we shot off to Dreamworld - it is the first of the Christmas Parties we have this year - Celebrated through the Social club at Adrians work - and the only one which anyone from Energex will be allowed to go to. How rough is this? Bah Humbug Energex, under the guise of concerns for public finances and accountability in the current financial crisis has all but canceled Christmas. The staff has in the past had an afternoon or an evening staff appreciate party - sometimes a big BBQ and entertainment, other times a theme park has been hired for a few out of hours session times - but this Christmas - not even an office party will be allowed. to make matters worse - a letter was sent home saying that they still appreciated the hard work staff members undertook - and understood the impact that long hours and on call hours have on people with families…. and STILL they canceled Christmas. ANYWAY.. best not dwell too much on that…

Today was about getting out of the house ( and all the jobs piling up) away from my writing, and away from Brisbane. Morgan is tall enough now to go on most of the rides - and Lilly is not too far away either. One of the sadder things about being overweight has been missing out on going on rides etc as I simply couldn’t fit. I was so delighted to be able to do so today. I’d been hanging out to get on the Mick Dohan motorbike one and it didn’t disappoint! Lilly and I went on it twice ( she was very disappointed to find she was too small to be on the bike so was consoled with the fact she could be in the sidecare beside me.

We are so proud of Morgan for making his own mind up about things! at first he was unsure of wanting to go on any of the bigger rides - so we honoured that decision - until he was really bored with the kid ones… THEN he got a taste for thrill - and there was no stopping him. His favourite is the Claw.. I was able to ride on the cyclone for the first itme as well - and gald I don’t have a neck problem as it really tips you about. Miss Lilly is desperate to be big enough to go on some of those stomach churning rides - but its still a good 15 cm away for her yet! After 3 consecutive goes on the Enterprise (one that rushes you round and round then then upside down) - I was really queezy - thankful I had nothing in my stomach - and glad to have the excuse of sitting down for a bit.

We had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon - which I am glad of - as by the time it was time to leave in order to get to it in time - I’d really had enough.

So - what were the clear favourite memories of the day at Dreamworld? For Lilly it was the tiny pink lollies she was allowed to have… For Morgan - he wanted to claim the big six te-shirt - however, he is not tall enough to go on two of them - plus the t-shirts were not his size - so he chose a trophy to go on his desk - a tower of terror one..