Starry, starry day

The crew from Starry Night came to our home school group today for an astronomy workshop. They come with an inflatable dome that has a projection of the constellations on it, which was really fantastic!

I was organising the day, which I took on since Littletree is so fascinated with astronomy at the moment, so we got to watch them setting up, which was cool.

I took a bunch of photos of them setting up, of course:

Something about being homeschoolers, most of the group were drifting in a bit late, but in the end everyone arrived just in time, and Marie gave a talk about planets and stars with the kids.

We all (well, most of us), posed out the front for a group photo too.

Entering the dome was very womb-like 

But once we were in there it was much roomier than it seemed :)

Marie did a great job of explaining the constellations, and the kids all had a great time, shouting out answers. 

Of course, once the lights went out, we couldn't take more photos

I think my favourite part was when Marie asked a question, and one of the kids (don't know who it was in the dark), answered correctly, and Marie asked how he knew the answer. The reply came,

"I'm home schooled and I love learning" :)

Crystal Garden

We've been slowly working on getting our new garden established; we transplanted a few favourite plants from my old veggie patch into pots to bring to the new house.

Mint, Aloe Vera, Nasturtium, Comfrey, Cassava, Chili, and a few more.

Littletree has been really into taking care of the plants, watering them and giving them attention. She spends a lot of time with the plants, calling the faeries down from the forest to come and play in our garden and live in the plants.

The other day she decided to put all of her crystals in with the plants, to give them more energy to grow, and also so it's nice for the faeries.

Littletree has quite a big crystal collection on her temple, for such a little girl; she had enough to put two or three on every plant. They're all growing really well now :)

And if views our cute little fledgling garden isn't good enough, here's the sunset from the bottom of it:

Rosita

We finally found a nice car to replace Little Blue Sky who crashed 2 months ago (has it really been that long!?)

I was really fixated on the idea of finding a Toyota Corolla hatch, early 90s model, and not too keen on getting a Ford, or anything else... but it seemed like everyone had the same idea, because all the Corollas we found were double or triple the price of any equivalent car, and snapped up too fast to buy anyway.

In the end, we saw a notice up in the local general store for an '89 Ford Laser hatchback... not really what I wanted, but it was a manual, and selling for only $1000 with six months registration and a roadworthy certificate.

For the price it was worthy to at least check it out. Our friendly mechanic said the car is in great condition, doesn't even leak oil and could be sold for twice the money. But the couple selling it were backpackers keen to sell in time to get on their flight out of the country, and we jumped on the bargain :)

So we have a new little car!

Littletree has dubbed her Rosa; Rosita for short. It's breaking with our tradition of naming cars after the sky (we had Little Blue Sky and our yellow van, Sunshine). We briefly considered naming Rosita, "Sunset", but Littletree wanted something in Spanish (she's been speaking in Spanish a lot lately), so Rosita it is! (Though to be honest, she's red, not pink)

Green Goddess

I received a wonderful gift from EarthMama, whose birth I attended six months ago:

Isn't it absolutely gorgeous! and so apt for me :) I love it. She's now looking over my living room, in the prime position that you see right when you walk in the front door.

And just a quick plug for EarthMama - she doesn't have a website, but she does a lot of wonderful paintings in this style, and if anyone should want to buy one from her, I can give her your contact :)

Homeschool Group

We had a great homeschooling meet up today. The group met in a park we'd never been to before, in a town the group hadn't yet explored, so it was really nice to go a bit further afield and to branch out to new people.

The park is huge, much bigger than anything else in the area, and there were cycle paths, so the kids had a great time riding around

Then Littletree and her friend Princess played a game of giant chess

We mostly hung out in the shade chatting and sharing a picnic of fresh fruits and home made brownies.

Hopefully plans for a new chapter of our homeschool group closer to our new home will manifest, if we can organise it together with some of the new comers :)

oh, and the battery in my camera was flat today, so these pics were taken on my cell phone camera - sorry for the crap quality.

Great Weekend

We had a few friends come over for dinner on Friday night, which kept snowballing till we had seven guests! One of my old clients, my current client and a couple of other friends came.

It's so wonderful to have a space big enough to host ten people for dinner. We sat around enjoying a big feast and chatting the night away.

Here's Rinka demonstrating yet another great use for a big pregnant belly:

A few of the guests slept over, and we spend Saturday morning having a lazy breakfast before wandering down to a local swimming hole for a dip. We all had a great time swimming in the cold water :)

Here's RainbowBaby pulling my hair - he thought the big pile of dreadlocks was loads of fun!

Sunday morning Purple and I went exploring around the local markets and then had a relaxing afternoon at home while Littletree went to play at a friend's house.

What a great weekend!

Bellydance

Littletree is really into belly dancing lately, and since one of her friends has a belly dancing costume in her dress-ups, Littletree wanted one too.

We decided to sew one, using some scraps from my sewing bag. Littletree had her first real go on the sewing machine, and had a load of fun.

Here she is modelling the finished product:

She's been wearing it just about every day, and freestyle belly dancing all the time. We're so loving having this great big expanse of wooden flooring :)

I think next time we get a package from her family in Israel we'll ask for some more belly dancing paraphernalia, like a scarf with coins on it.

Koo koo koo ka ka ka burra

Slowly, slowly, we've been making our new house a home. Purple drilled some hooks into the wall on the balcony so I can put my hammock up :)

It's such a perfect spot to lie; it feels like hanging up in the trees.

And we discovered there's a posse of somewhat tame kookaburras who came to visit while I gave the hammock a test drive.

Littletree was so excited, and several of them flew down to say hello. I'm guessing the last people who lived here used to feed them, as they ate scraps right out of Littletree's hand

Of course we wake up to their laughing in the morning, this morning I even saw a pretty-faced wallaby in the garden. It's nice to still have wildlife around, and feel like we're in the rainforest, yet have all the benefits of being in a village close to a big town.