Quiet week................

It's been quiet this week.

Ben had Thursday off due to another teacher's strike and with some of his school mates went to Penrith to see Iron Man - we figured that the teacher's strike wasn't his fault so they might as well take advantage of it. I am now having Thursdays off - but obviously the movies were more exciting than Mum being home! I caught up briefly with Heidi and Co in the afternoon for a cuppa.

Friday Ben was off sick - sore throat, complaining of aching chest and was running quite a high temperature - fortunately, Daniel was having that day off so he had someone home with him.

Daniel was suppose to be going to the "Easter Bunny" event for the RFS. It is a mystery course that different brigades undertake and they have different exercises to do. As there wasn't many from Faulco going, Daniel and Toby were going to be buddied up with Woodford but it turned out it was going to have to be an overnight thing so Daniel changed his mind. I guess that's why other brigade members didn't go either. It's called the "Easter Bunny" because it used to be held over Easter but now it's done at the end of May out of fire season.

Saturday there was no rugby due to other team forfeiting! Not that Ben would have been playing as he was still unwell. Apparently at least half of the other team play rep rugby for South West Sydney under 14s and had other commitments so Ben's team won by default - 28 - 0 (how do they work out a score if they never played??) !! Probably just as well as this appears to be one of the top teams and the only way to beat them would be for them not to turn up - very convenient!

Sunday I took the pups for a walk and we met a steam train along the way! I don' t think they (the pups) were too impressed - I thought it was quite cool though.

I only got the one photo, I have a new phone and couldn't reset quick enough to get another photo.

It came past quicker that I expected and was cheating - it has a diesel engine on the back pushing it along!

It goes from Central Station up to Katoomba and then back again later in the day. According to the web site it is due back again in July.

I can hear it now heading back down the mountains.

And that's it for this week!

Birthday Boys Weekend

Well another birthday has come and gone. Ben's birthday was Friday - he had the usual school to go to, it was also school photo day.

In the evening it was our Brigade's general meeting where Ben signed up as a new cadet in the Rural Fire Service - they can join officially at 12 yrs but our Brigade has a age ruling of 14yrs. He had to stand up in front of a room full of Brigade members and introduce himself and give a brief bio on himself. He did very well especially considering there were quite a few members there that night - we were passing our new Brigade constitution before the Annual General Meeting due next month, so attendance was higher than usual. Afterwards we took off for pizza (Ben's requested meal) and a DVD.

Saturday we had to travel to Baulkham Hills for Ben's rugby game - the team they played this week was Hills Black, they had played them before in a pre-season trial game and as per the trial game they were beaten again. Quite a rough team and some of their tactics quite questionable, they were also a much bigger team too - a lot of Ben's team (including Ben) tend to resemble stick insects rather than big rough rugby player! The final score was 39 - 14. Ben and another Ben on his team both got special mentions for their great defence so he came away with head held high! No injuries to report for this week either.

In the afternoon he had his mate Andrew over for a sleep over. He had also asked Sean and Bradley but both of them managed to get themselves grounded - must be a teenage thing! He seemed happy enough with just Andrew though, we had a barbeque tea, loaded up on DVD's and the pair of them were asleep before Dan came to bed - so much for them staying awake all night as planned.

Sunday morning they had arranged to go to the movies with Beth (Ben's girlfriend) and her friend. Beth's dad picked the boys up from here and took them to Penrith where they saw the Spiderwick Chronicles, then did a bit of shopping before Beth's dad dropped the boys off here again. Andrew and Ben then went off straight away with skateboards in hand and we never saw him again until about 5.30pm!

I think he enjoyed his weekend. He is already tucked up in bed exhausted. Poor Granny Di tried to have a conversation with him but could barely get a yes out of him - not sure if that comes from being tired or being 14yrs old!

That's all for now - love Karen

In the gallery...

Well, on Tuesday I took 14 of my paintings to the Bowerbird Gallery in Katoomba. We went up today to take a quick look at an international exhibition that opened this afternoon and the gallery owner has already put some of my paintings up on show!! It felt pretty weird to see them on a wall other than ours at home. I was also asked to do a short bio and send through some more photos of my paintings as well as a photo of me so that I can be added to the website. That is pretty cool because only a few of the artists on show in the gallery are featured on the website!!



Anyway, below is a photo of me in front of one of my paintings on show in the gallery....

My paintings...

Well there has been an intersting development. I spoke to the owner of one of the galleries in Katoomba last week and she asked if I could send through some photos of my work to her. I did so on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning I received an email and it turns out she likes my work and, I quote, "I have only just now logged in and they (the paintings) are super, I would like to see them now and I believe you would be added value to the gallery as your style of work is quite unique." I gave her a call on Thursday afternoon and she came to the house at about 5:30 that evening and liked what she saw.

So, on Tuesday I am taking as many paintings as possible to the gallery after work and she is going to put them up on display and for sale!!

Came as a big surprise to me, so fingers crossed all goes well.

I will let you know how it goes and will add some photos once the paintings are in the gallery....

Here is the link to the gallery if you are interested in taking a look: http://www.bowerbirdgallery.com.au/

Ok. Adios doritos.

Master Bubba (the peanut) Hale

Hi again,

We had our 18 week ultrasound today, no pictures available yet as they were having trouble with their printer but hopefully we can collect on Thursday.

So far all is well, Bubba appears happy and healthy and everything was where it should be.

We found out the sex - couldn't avoid it really - as it turns out Bubba is a bit of an exhibitionist (much like his father) and all was revealed to us quite clearly!!

So get knitting those BLUE booties!!!

Will update with picture soon - hopefully.

Ben's Parent/Teacher Night

I was just reading Heidi's blog about Robbie's parent/teacher night, it was also Ben's so Daniel and I trotted down with heavy feet dreading the outcome - or was it just that feeling of having to go to school? Ben was already there, he had gone up earlier to catch up with some friends - goodness knows why he was so keen to go back to school after being there all day but I have a feeling it was more about social contact with friends than school.

As it happens we have a "lovely boy" too (must be standard repertoire for Springwood High), he was a bit unsettled in the beginning but seems to be sorting himself out now. His science teacher and maths teacher spoke quite favourably about him and he has been doing surprising quite well in test etc - not that he had told us! Turns out he is in the top 10 in his class for maths - a big shock for us.

I think Ben was dreading his report from his English teacher as the first term report card was not very favourable but Mr Saltis (what a flake that guy is - reminded me of my chemistry teacher @ Tomlinscote) said that over the past few weeks Ben had made significant improvement and if he had to write that report now it would be totally different. Ben had actually come home from school that afternoon with a Bronze Award for showing significant improvement in English - that's his third Bronze Award now! When they reach 5 Bronze Awards I think they get some sort of formal acknowledgement from the school - I think.

Ben too has Ms Martin for history, she spoke very favourably about Ben and turns out she lives in our street! Not only that, I worked with her son Mark @ Penrith Imagining!! I ended up giving her a report on what a lovely boy Mark was to work with - quite funny!!

Ms Fodor, his technology teacher, guessed who I was before we even sat down! She said I couldn't be anyone else's mum bar Ben Sapwells - she thinks he looks just like me!

So we left with a huge sigh of relief - not what we expected at all. We made sure Ben knew we were happy with the outcome as I know he was dreading certain teachers reports.

Bens 3rd Rugby match...

Well the Blue Mountains Blue Tongues under 14's had their third match today. They did very well beating the opposition 40-29. They are now two wins from three games. Ben did his best and got in there quite hard early on, but seemed to slow down a lot towards the end and as it turns out he got a nasty knee to the ribs and is now feeling a bit bruised and battered and is nursing himself in bed with an ice pack. He got a couple of good runs in and went after as many tackles as he could.

One of the guys on his team is a great kicker and converted all but one of their tries!!! It looked like it was going to be a slaughter, but the opposition rallied in the second half and put up a spirited fight, but not enough in the end.

The team is very pumped now and they are riding high on their victory.(Until they come up against the giant Samoans again...)

Here are some photos of Ben and the team in action...