Extended Family Time

What a busy day today ended up being, full from the minute it started.

I took all of my children to Myers at 9am this morning so that I could get the boys fitted for their school shoes.  They have a sale on buy one pair get the second pair 50% off so I wanted to take advantage of that, and go early enough before they ran out of sizes, which were limited already. No worries though we were successful.  J needs two pairs this year, a black leather pair and sports shoes and S just needed sports shoes.  T scored his first real pair of sports shoes, velcro ones because I could take advantage of getting another pair for half price.  The poor child really does just have to fit into every pair of hand me downs and he hasn't had some sports shoes for a while because I just haven't had the right size.  That will be good, he can do the velcro himself, and use them for riding his bike as well.  He was quite chuffed that he got to sit with the big boys and get measured as well.  Easy and painless, and its good to save a little bit of money.  A thought did run through my head as to what it will be like when I have to take them all to be fitted and will be buying 8 pairs of shoes!

Then we headed out to Australia Zoo to meet up with the rest of my family.  It was quite special that we were all spending the day together at the Zoo.  Even my older brother Steve came along, and I don't know that I can ever remember him having a day off work and joining in something like that.  Now I know why my mother phoned me this morning and told me to make sure I brought the kids out.  It must have been really pleasing for her to have all of us there.

Trevor, Angela, Mark, Sarah, Hannah, Georgia, Matthew, Amanda, Steven, Mum, Myself and my four troops made up our group.  We met up at various points, and did our own thing for some of the time, it gets a bit complicated following each other around, you don't get to see as much.

At one point I just took my 3 boys and wandered around and we went to see the Croc show, and it was much easier than mucking about with the stroller.

The Zoo is fabulous, but really quite expensive now.  Mum paid $172.00 for herself and me, and my 3 boys, E was free.  So a visit to the Zoo is not something you can do often.

We did enjoy our day though.  The kids were all good.

Mum and I left just after 4 because we had to go and pick up a birthday cake for Sarah, as she turned 31 today.

Tried a few different places to book in for dinner, and our first 3 options were booked out, so we booked a table for 6 o'clock at the Chancellor Park Tavern.

We wanted to eat early because of the little ones, and I wanted to finish at a reasonable hour so I could head into Daisy's.  Geoff and I were there on time.

The others all dwindled in at various times after that, not too late I didn't think though.

But of course it was 7 before we ordered and it took 45 minutes for the first meal to arrive.

I think there was some frustration as to the length of time that it took, but they were busy, I think everyone must have been ordering at the same time.  The meals were really good when we got them.  I had chicken, which I would not usually order when I was out.  The kids meals were good value to, $8.95 for a good serve and reasonable good quality meal, a soft drink and ice cream.

It was about quarter past 9 by the time we got home.  

We are all pretty tired.

It would be nice if all the kids would sleep until lunch time.

I hope my UK relatives are having a nice time, such a short trip, hard to fit everything in.  I love having them here though and will be sad when it comes time for them to go.  I know Mum dreads when it is time for them to leave.  She gets a little down afterwards, understandably so.

I should sleep well tonight.  

One little pic from today, I loved the Elephants, they were splashing around in their pond and having a great time.  I have never seen Elephants so playful.