Arannatee's fall into the river

Poor Arannatee unbalanced and fell into the Murray river this morning while we were camping. She hit her head on the way in and now has a 3 cm laceration that is so deep you can see the skull! She was very lucky she did not get swept into the rapids which was just a few cm away. Dad jumped in after putting Arannila on a rock (I was not around) but cld not find her. She bounced up by herself crying for her dad. Later she told us that she hit bottom and used it to launch herself into the light. We were so thankful she kept her head and knew what to do. Swimming lessons definitely paid off for us. Dad's iphone was sacrificed to the water. Thank all thats holy, that tht was all was sacrificed.

Christmas in Oz

Our 2nd Christmas in Oz. Spent it camping down south in Walpole.
Santa missed us this year. No stockings were put up at the campsite! Oops.
Thts our christmas tree that we put up. Lots of arannatee's arts n craft were on it.

Dentist

Brave girl is going under gas for a tooth extraction. The gas is strawberry flavored. She gets 2 gifts if she cooperates.

Akido

Arannatee's been doing some akido n having lots of fun.

Kindy - Dawesville Catholic Primary School

Arannatee's been going to kindy for a year now. She was in an ex-classmate run Montessori kindy with just 2 students last year when she was 3 going on 4. She seems to enjoy her kindy but the standard is fairly low. She loves her friends but is a bit bored academically. I'd like to really pull her out and homeschool her but with Arannila taking up a fair bit of time, I might need to keep her in a for another year. I still have to set up my Montessori classroom. All the stuff is here but the shelves are not set up yet.

Here are some pics of her kindy shots.

New Sister!

Arannatee's got a new sister. Born on 23rd June, 2010 at Thompson Medical Center. 3.31kg, 50 cm long and head circumference 33cm. She loves her!

Playgroups and playdates

Arannatee is certainly a very lucky girl. She's now officially in 2 playgroups organized by mothers. One is at the condo where she mixes with kids with mixed ethnicities from the expats here (Austalian, NewZealander, British, American, Turkish, Japanese, Filippinas) and the other is a homeschooling playgroup that is quite educational.

And her social life is very full, playdates almost everyday and if that's not the case, then I take her out. We've been to Sentosa and the Science Center and next up is the bird park.

Home Entertainment System!

Hi there, through the generosity of a freecycler, my family received a 7 speaker Sony amplifier system. It was supposed to go with a Sony multicode DVD, but unfortunately, that did not work with the Philips TV. We are overwhelmed by Edwin Tay's generosity!

He even spent 4 hours setting it up. The set-up was something I would not have been able to figure out myself. Very complicated. Will post some photos later! I'm so excited to have surround sound.

Books I'm giving away via bookmooch

Be a book trader at BookMooch.com

Been a while

I'm truly a sad, sad blogger. I've not blogged since last year! Arannatee is a healthy 2 years and 9 months, talks non-stop and still hates sleeping. Farid and I have been developing Ithaca and this month has been really, really busy. I'm back into facilitation and have just done a diversity residential camp this past weekend. Quite a learning experience!

Will keep my blog short. That way I'm more likely to blog!

Rainbow Warrior

Ooooo! This is the thing that inspired my path in life, the Rainbow Warrior!

Since I was 12 years old in fact! Greenpeace was the reason my whole life journey took the path it did, from majoring in environmental studies and forest science to my work experience. An aside: I found an old Greenpeace petition for the moratorium on whales dating from when I was 12.

Anyways, when news came yesterday afternoon that Rainbow Warrior has berthed in Singapore, I was determined to go onboard! Joe Lai of the Homeschooling group was nice enough to organize a visit for the homeschooling parents. We had a tour of the ship!!! It's a 55 meter boat and there's a North American totem painted on a part of the ship. The ship's name was inspired by a North American Indian prophecy which foretells a time when human greed will make the Earth sick, and a mythical band of warriors will descend from a rainbow to save it.

Arannatee Drumming

We went to a friend's house last night for a birthday party and ended up jamming! There was a keyboard, drums, acoustic guitar, classical guitar, zaphoon (of course) and lots of amplifiers! Farid took turns playing the guitars and the zaphoon. Sharon was on the drums and Malti on the keyboard. And Arannatee had her own set of drums! I wished I had a photo. She played for an hour, trying to keep to the rhythm, switching her drumsticks from one drum to the other, and stopped and started with all the music and took bows after. It was adorable!!!

She played for a whole hour, like a real professional. We are really happy she had the opportunity to try this out. Thanks Cindy, and Cindy's mom and dad! And Cindy, kudos to you for an awesome meal!