End March, beginning April

Bicton Polo Pool where Ella's 6:45 am swimming training took place (note river in background!).

Richmond Primary Swimming Carnival - Ella diving in (at #6)

Ella and her friends: Olivia, Samantha, Ella E., Tia and Natasha

First place freestyle!

On Newman's boat with Perth in background

Ella, Pieter, Rory, Amelie and Maddie

Rob and Mike Deeks at Dockers game

The Dockers

rainbow and sky following lightening storm

birthday morning with my 3 little blessings

birthday breakfast with the girls

ewww!

Abby Leeming, Ella, and Abby Duncan on Easter

We had the most amazing lightening and hail storm here in the end of March. It only lasted a couple of hours. The golf-sized hail came down for only 5 minutes, but it did millions of dollars worth of damage in cars, wiping out car dealers' entire stock and the flooding shut down many businesses! The lightening was all around us and so incredible. We had to go pick Ella up at gymnastics during the height of the storm. The road was all flooded, it was incredibly windy and the lightening was insane. Amelie started crying saying "I don't want to die!!" Well, we all survived. Ironically, the RI flooding and storms came exactly a week after ours where there was even more damage, from what I've seen by the pictures. Our basement in RI, which holds ALL our belongings, was flooded and some unimportant stuff was ruined, but thanks to our property manager, Bevin, Sean Greene, Seth Rambikur, my father-in-law, Bill Ashworth, Kristin Riley, Brendan Reardon and Water Out, everything turned out OK in the end. Hard to deal with natural disasters on the other side of the world.

Richmond Primary School had their school swimming carnival for years 4-7. Ella decided a couple weeks before hand that she would, in fact, participate. She had missed the try outs so they put her in division 2 (out of 3 divisions). She went to morning swimming training at Bicton Polo Pool (on the river) from 6:45-7:45 two times a week for 3 weeks. I thought after the first session of swimming 200 meters immediately upon getting in the pool she'd be over it, but she loved it! She wound up swimming freestyle, back and breast at the carnival and getting 1 first place and 2 second place ribbons. It was so much fun.

Rob also got to go to a Fremantle Dockers Australian rules football game with our friend Mike Deeks and the Dockers won! People here mostly either root for the Dockers of the West Coast Eagles. The Dockers have not done well in years so most people laugh at you if you are a Dockers fan, but this year they having a winning record! Aussie footy is much different than American football. It's almost like a combo of soccer, football, basketball, and wrestling. They run non-stop, are in phenomenal shape, and throw each other all over the place! They don't wear any pads at all. We're hoping to get to a game as a family one of these days. So much to do and running out of time.

The kids had yet another school holiday from April 2nd to April 18th! On April 1st we were invited to go out on our friends', The Newmans, boat. Maddie Newman is in Amelie's class and a good friend and her brother Rory is Pieter's age and a friend of his. So, Susie and Greg invited us out on their big incredible boat! It was a beautiful day and they took us up to Perth and then anchored somewhere along the river so the kids could swim. We felt so fortunate and spoiled to be able to experience such extravagance! Afterward, they all came over for a barbie. We just had such a nice day!

Then...the next day...I turned 40!! I woke up to lots of homemade cards, tea and rusks with strawberries. Rob gave me an incredible Nikon camera with changeable lenses, which I love! It takes amazing photos. Then I went out to breakfast at The Blue Duck, in Cottesloe, with 9 of my closest friends here. We actually stayed in the restaurant, overlooking the ocean, for 2 1/2 hours, which is pretty unheard of on a Saturday morning. It was so nice. The bought me a gift certificate to a spa so Pia and I are going on Monday to get the "Indulgence Package". Can't wait! When I came home I was instructed to watch the camera DVD so that I would know how to use it. Afterward we went into Fremantle to check out the Fremantle Street Performers Festival. The first show we went to I was suddenly chosen, out of a crowd of at least 100 people, to participate! Not my favorite thing to do!! I must have had that "It's my birthday" glow to me. Anyway, the show ended with the guys asking Rob permission if I could kiss his cheek. Rob said "YES"! Thanks a lot! In the end, the guy turned his face as I reluctantly leaned over to kiss him and he kiss me on the lips...YUCK! The night ended with going out to dinner with Rob and the kids at the view intending to take pix of the sunset with my new camera, but it had run out of battery. Oh well. It was really a great day!

The next day was Easter. We went to church and then went over to the Duncans house for lunch, together with her family and the Leemings. It was another beautiful and relaxing day. However, we did miss having all our relatives who usually come to Easter at our house back in RI.

posted by Marileen