Festive Family Night

 I took the kids to the CSIRO Discovery Family Night tonight.  We had no idea what we were going to, but the word FREE really motivated us to go.  CSIRO is a scientific research organization in Australia that sponsors this science museum.  First thing we did was make slime.

 They had model trains set up you could drive, or derail as in Hope's case.

 The girls were in craft heaven.

 This robot is from Dr. Who (or so Spencer tells me).  It moved around talking.  Hope tried to climb on it for a ride.

 This games master guy had great activities for the kids.

 They shook up dry ice in a rubber glove until it got so big it popped.

 Faith has had her face painted more in the last few months than she has in her entire life.

 Hope likes her arm painted.

 More experiments with dry ice.

 This slinky James is holding is actually a first place prize.  I won a bag of gifts from the gift shop when I came in first in the Santa dress-up competition.  Parents had to put on a Santa suit and run up and down some stairs, then take the Santa suit off.  Three other parents competed in the competition and their times were around 1:12.  My time?  33 seconds.  Yes, I'm pretty proud I won the Santa dress-up competition.  I can add it to my resume.

 The kids LOVED this dude.  He had a show on Santa's magic dealing with science and he pretty much just blew up a lot of stuff.  Awesome.

 They decorated huge cupcakes with lots of candy.  Again, all free.

 Faith couldn't leave without painting.

Wow, what an awesome night.  All for free.  Between the slime, the cupcakes, and the painting and crafts, I sure hope they give their clean-up crew a pay raise after tonight.

Wombat Cuddle

 We went to the Embassy today to see a presentation from a woman and her husband who help injured animals and foster orphan animals  at their home.

 They brought a few different animals to show us, and  they explained how to help animals if we see them on the road.

 That is just a pretend snake, but she was showing us how we could catch a snake.  Since we don't have any of her handy equipment, I don't see snake catching a thing we'll be doing any time soon.  

 They brought two baby wombats with them.

 Wombats are nocturnal, so not many people have seen them.  If you see them at the zoo, they are usually asleep.

 Faith calls wombats, wumbears.

 They brought a joey kangaroo with them also, but he was a little too jumpy (pun intended) so they didn't want kids to hold him.

Til we Meet Again

 The girls have some best friends.  They are the first Aussie friends they have made, and we really love their entire family.  There is just one problem. After only four months of being with them, they are moving to Melbourne.  Darn.  Faith and Leila love the Barbie jeep.

 Hope is one cool gal.

 Today we went to a good bye party for our friends at a park.

 Violet (who is usually not that dirty), Faith and Hope.  My girls are so sad to see Violet and Leila move away.

 My boys made sure everyone stayed cool at the party.

Me, Sarah (who is moving) and Kristin.  It's sad when great families leave our ward.

Tis the Season

 We've been throwing a lot of holiday parties around here lately.  Saturday, Dec. 8th we hosted a progressive dinner for the Relief Society at our home.  We were able to have about 20 women sit down for dinner in our living room/dining room.

 We ate dessert at Shanae's house. There was a LOT of food that night and I hope everyone had a great time.

 Thursday, Dec. 13th I hosted a cookie exchange.  Aussies do not do cookie exchanges and they don't know what a white elephant is.  I'm glad I'm here to educate them on the finer points of Christmas celebrating.

 Kylie, Tara, Shanae and Lucy.

 Bren and Hermarnee.

We ate, played games and wrapped up our cookies.  When I think of Christmas, I think of cookies.