A Post Christmas Catch Up

Not too sure where to start when it comes to telling you about our lead up to Christmas but I'm sure the photos below will give you a clue!!LOL
It all started on the weekend of the 15th/16th of December when there was a nasty incident between Sarah and one of her girl friends, I won't go into to too much detail as they really don't matter that much, but needless to say I am hoping that she has learnt a very important (and painful) lesson!LOL
Then on Tuesday night I received some bad news about my Fathers health. I did not sleep well that night so I woke up on Wednesday morning determined to go down and see how he was going for myself. I was going to take everyone with me but Lacey had woken up with a pain in her tummy and didn't feel very well so I went down on my own. It was good to see my Dad and to realise that he was in fact going to be ok for quite some time and that he, in his words "wasn't going anywhere anytime soon". Later in the afternoon Sarah rang to let me know that Lacey was now really sick so I headed back home immediately. John arrived home at the same time and we both decided that she needed to go to the hospital. They diagnosed her with suspected gastroenteritis and after spending a few hours on IV fluids and receiving an injection to help with the nausea they returned home at about 9.30pm and she went straight to bed. She woke up again a few hours later with severe pain in her lower abdomen which proceeded to get worse so I decided to take her back to the hospital at 5am. This time she was diagnosed with appendicitis and a decision was made to operate. We were told that the OR was very busy due to an equipment failure but that they would get her into surgery as soon as possible, but at 7.30 that night, we were still waiting!! By this time she was in so much pain even with all the morphine they were pumping into her that I was starting to get really worried. The nurses tried to get them to bump her up the list but to no avail. Eventually they took her to theatre at 10.30, but sadly, by this time her appendix had ruptured and she had developed peritonitis so instead of an overnight stay in hospital, she ended up being in there for 5 days!!! It looked like she may even have to stay in there for Christmas but after being pumped up on 4 different types of IV antibiotics, she was thankfully allowed to come on Christmas Eve!!! This was such a scary experience as I have never seen Lacey so sick or in so much pain. It's awful to have sit and watch that knowing that there is absolutly nothing you can to do to help.

So, as you can imagine, Chritmas Day at the McGuire household was a very quiet one!LOL I will post some pictures soon take on Christmas morning.

A Belated Merry Christmas

To all our family and friends - we hope that you have all had a very enjoyable and safe Christmas!

We have had a lot going on over the past week or so and will fill you all in on the news in a future post.

A Visit From Travis

Last weekend Tegan and Corey brought baby Travis over for a visit. While he was here we managed to take this picture of a very proud Auntie Sarah!

Year 7 Graduation

Last night Woodford State School put on a graduation ceremony for the Year 7's of 2007. At first, Kaydon didn't want to go at all, but I insisted and he ended up enjoying himself immensely! I can't believe that he will be in High School next year! Where has the time gone??
Mr Winrow voted Kaydon the "Most likely to Captain an Australian Cricket team!!LOL

Its an end of an era for us as we have had at least one child at Woodford State School since 1993 when Arlie started Pre School.

Looks Like Christmas!

Well it's certainly starting to look a lot like Christmas around here! I thought that my love of this time of year might ease off as my children got older, but it hasn't!! I still get excited about putting up the Christmas lights and decorating the tree and I really love the fact that the kids still get a kick out of it too. Arlie even came home for the occasion, as it has always been a big "family" thing that we do all together.

Silly Season

Lacey is such a card! While we were putting up the Christmas decorations, she decided to become a living Christmas Tree complete with lights, and decorations!LOL

Glenn

On Saturday night we went to Glenn's place for a pre Christmas BBQ. It was great to catch up with him as we haven't seen him for a while. He had recently returned from a trip to Darwin so we spent some time looking at his photos and just generally chit chatting. Jasper enjoyed getting all the attention from the kids and also getting the few left over sausages. Glenn even got Morgan, Kaydon and John to try some crocodile sausages! Sarah and I on the other hand was not quite so brave!! Glenn always has some really interesting little gadgets around his place and the kids were fascinated by this plasma ball light. I think Morgan did really well to get such a good photo of it!

Disappointment

We have a very disappointed Lacey on our hands today! She went for her assessment day with the Navy and sadly, they want her to wait 12 months to get some more "life experience" before she starts her Navy Career. They would like to her finish year 12 and consider applying for the ADF Gap Year as an Officer. She has no idea what she wants to do now, but is being quite philosophical about it all even thought she is bitterly disappointed.

Personally I would like to see her return to school and complete year 12, but she has 8 weeks holidays in front of her so no decisions have to be made yet.

Bad Hair Day

Recently the Woodford State School celebrated their 125th anniversary. The school put on a huge fete that included rides, entertainment, food and each class had a stall. Kaydon's class put on a hair painting stall and both Morgan and Kaydon couldn't resist having their coloured red and blue!

It was a great day and I believe the school raised quite a lot of money which they are using to redo their multi sport courts so it was well worth the effort that everyone put in.

Our Crazy Cat

I have never seen a cat behave like our cat felix does!! He is the biggest sook out, and sometimes he is more like a baby than a cat!! He loves to be with people, mainly me, and when I say be with people, I mean he likes to be held like a baby!! I don't know if it is his breed or not (I think he is part Rag Doll) or if he is just strange!!LOL
He often tries to climb up on your should and attempt to suck you your neck which is another very strange thing for a cat to do. When he is asleep, you can actaully lay him in all different poses and he doesn't even wake up!!

School Project and Silkworms

Kaydon has been keeping himself and John pretty busy with a school project on renewable energy. They had to build a working model of a wind drvien turbine winch. They spend almost every night for a week building it and it turn out really well, even though they had to use a fan to drive it due to a lack of wind. We haven't heard yet about what marks he recieved for the project but as they only have just over two weeks of school left, we should get his report card soon.

Kaydon also got into silkworms this year. He ended up with out 125 of them which have all now cocooned. I'm glad we didn't have any more as we just about stripped the mulberry tree bare of leaves just keeping up with these ones!! Some of the moths have now emerged and started to lay eggs, so heavens know how many we will get next season!LOL

HMAS Wollongong

Yesterday Lacey was fortunate enough to be invited on board HMAS Wollongong for a tour. She was incredibly excited and it was a great reward after a morning of final Year 11 exams. John took time off to drive her down and, much to his delight, was allowed to take the tour too. Lacey thoroughly enjoyed the visit and nothing could take the grin of her face for the rest of the day!

Weekend Update

This weekend, I was finally able to convince John to have a go at building Lacey a new cupboard unit for her bedroom. She has never had a finished room (neither has Morgan) and now with the possibility of her leaving home in February, I really want to do something about it.
I spent a couple of days last week drawing up some ideas of how I would like the unit to look and drawing up some plans, and then on Friday, we sat down and worked out what we would need to get it done. After a great deal of discussion and a lot of convincing, John decided that he just might be able to do it!!
The first step was to empty out the existing wardrobe that has been half finished for about the past 8 years. Morgan and Lacey's rooms are quite small so we really need to make sure the new wardrobe has more useful space than the built-in one that was already there. As you can see, Lacey has a LOT of stuff that needs to be better organised!
The next step was pulling down the existing cupboard, which wasn't all that hard as it was basically just some timber studs and a little bit of plaster board. Lacey enjoyed demolishing the plaster, she said it was really quite therapeutic!LOL
The next stage was cutting all the large sheets of MDF to size and then bringing them upstairs. I'm so glad that we spent so much time working out the best way to put it all together as it was a bit like a jisaw puzzle making sure all everything went together in just the right order.


The photo above show the progress of the unit over the weekend. The last one on the right is what it looked like at 7pm on Sunday night when work was called to halt. Hopefully John will find some time during the week to work on it and then get it finished off next weekend! He is doing a great job!!!!

Navy Sisters!

After much deliberation John and I have decided to let Lacey go ahead and apply to become a cook in the Navy. It has been one of the toughest decisions of our lives so far as it is just such a big step for her to take, but she is so keen to give it a go that it did not seem right to deny her the opportunity.
We have put one condition in place though, and that is that if she gets in and then doesn't like it, she will return home and complete year 12 even if it means she has to work at Woolworths for a while until the new school year starts. She has totally agreed to this condition so I guess the way I look at it now is that the worst that can happen is that she finishes school a year later than she would have normally but the best that can happens is that she loves it and makes a life long career for herself!
She has already been for the initial JOES (Job Options and Evaluation Session) and is booked in for her assessment day on the 3rd of December so keep your fingers crossed for her as this is something that she really wants! She can't actually join until she turns seventeen in February, so we have a few more months with her at home yet.
We are still waiting to hear when Arlie will be enlisted and the wait is just about killing me!!LOL I have never been very good at waiting for news like this, but I guess there is not a lot I can do about it. I am hoping that we will at least know something before Christmas so that I can relax a bit.
In the mean time, the girls have both been working very hard on their fitness. Lacey is running nearly every day and Arlie has lost about 10kg so far. Arlie is finding it a bit hard to find the time to go to gym because of the odd hours she works, but when she comes home Lacey gets her to go running with her. Lacey at least has the luxury of time, but Arlie had no idea when she will be required to do her fitness test so needs to work extra hard to get fit as soon as possible.

First Prize!

Morgan's artistic talent has shone through again! She won first prize at the Tullawong Junior Art Exhibition with the painting below which is her version of "Pop Art". I am always blown away by how good she is at art.

Cricket!

Lacey had cricket training this afternoon/evening. They are now starting at 5pm and go through to about 7pm. It's a bit of a rush to get her all the way down to Deagon by 5 but I know how much she enjoys going and its so good to see her back out enjoying the sport she loves that I really don't mind! She has been side lined for nearly two years after having her wrist operated on, but she is slowly finding her form again. Her figures for the game on Sunday where 7 overs for 4 maidens, 3 wickets and only 5 runs!

Big News!

Arlie went for her assessment day with the Navy and...........SHE GOT IN!!!!
Well she still has to pass her fitness assesment, but she has been recommended for the ADF Gap Year. She also has to get a clearence on her allergy treatments (she been having needles almost weekly for the past 18 months to try and limit her sensitivity to grass), but once that has all been done she will be given a date for her enlistment! As soon as we hear something I will let you know.

Twelve!

Our baby turned twelve on Tuesday! He hates being called my baby, but hey, that's what happens when your the youngest!!LOL
I think he enjoyed the day, although it can be a little hard to tell with him sometimes! He got some lovely cards and also managed to pick up $80 so this definitely made him happy!
We bought him a new Play Station game called Guitar Hero. It is played with a special guitar controller and you have to try and match the notes to some really good songs. He has had a ball with it since he got it and so has everyone else!

Inskip Point (aka Paradise!)

Last weekend we spent another 4 days in our favourite place, Inskip Point! We haven't been there since May so we were all looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend at the beach. We left home at about 6.45am on Friday morning as we had to drop Lacey off at school first because she was going on an excursion that was part of her assessment so couldn't miss it. Wendy kindly offered to pick her up from Morayfield on her way through in the afternoon so at least she didn't miss out all together!
We arrived at about 10.30am and then started the long process of setting up camp. We really struggled without Lacey being there as she is such a big help when it comes to setting up the tents. We quickly came to the realisation that we are going to have to get moving on setting up the caravan as, if Lacey decides to go into the Navy next year, we won't have her to help anymore.
Valerie arrived late in the afternoon and then Wendy and Lacey arrived at about 7.00pm. After helping them to finish setting up there tents, we sat down to a dinner of hamburgers and salad.
The photos above were all taken from the same spot. They show just how close to the water we were. It is just such a beautiful place and I could easily retire here if they would let me!LOL
On the Saturday afternoon there was a wedding held on the beach right in front of our camp. It was a beautiful day, and I personally couldn't think of a better place to get married!
The rest of the weekend was spent just relaxing beside the beach. Lacey, Kaydon and Valerie fished and Morgan read a book, drew pictures and listened to music.
Shadow had a ball trying to catch the waves as they came ashore and running after the sea gulls until he wore himself out.
Lacey caught a flathead on the Saturday and then on Sunday, Valerie took them up to the point where the barges to Fraser leave and Kaydon caught a really good size bream.She cooked it up for him along with two others that she caught and they tasted great!