Last post of the year

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and I wish you all a happy new year, etc, etc. We had a pretty good day here, nice weather, all that sort of thing. Not that I paid much attention to the weather because I spent most of the day in bed. Not nice having a cold on Christmas! But anyway, I’m feeling a lot better now. We had to reschedule our Christmas canine freestyle routines though, and we’re planning on doing them on the first day of 2013 – that is, depending on if Jessica’s feeling better by then or not. She’s come down with something very similar to what Chana had a few months ago, and it kept Chana in bed for a week.

 

Now, a look back on some “highlights” of 2012.

JANUARY: We were stuck in a boring caravan park in Whyalla, SA, with annoying neighbours. At the end of the month we finally left, only to have some nutcases throw rocks through our windows the first night back on the road. So back to the caravan park we went until we get the windows fixed.

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FEBRUARY: I made the Superdogs Trick Show 2012 video of the team and booked the Wallumbilla Show for May.

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MARCH: We had a tour of a fire station in Broken Hill, NSW. That was awesome! We also bred Lassie to Sambo.

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APRIL: Not much interesting happened this month.

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MAY: Wallumbilla Show. Gympie Show. Last day of the month Lassie had nine gorgeous puppies!

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JUNE: Nothing interesting.

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JULY: We went down to Beenleigh (Brisbane), met some friends and found an awesome dog park!

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AUGUST: Visited cousins in Townsville and performed for them.

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SEPTEMBER: I nearly lost Sparkie to some sort of virus thing. She ended up at the vet’s overnight. One of worst nights of my life!

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OCTOBER: We spent a week staying in our cousins house near Sydney. Discovered Stargate Atlantis!

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NOVEMBER: Took my first lightning photo!

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DECEMBER: Nothing much happened this month either.

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It wasn’t as busy as 2011 was! I have some stuff planned for 2013 already – mostly dog stuff, shows, you know.

So, that’s it. See you all again in 2013!

Five days to go!

I’m still here. I know I haven’t exactly been blogging very regularly the last few months, but this time I have a different excuse – I’ve been too busy! The Christmas canine freestyle routines are looking great. Well, some better than others, but that’s pretty normal. We spent Monday night in town, then spent six hours walking around the shops on Tuesday! Ugh. I think we managed to get every we need, which is good because shopping’s not my favourite thing to do, and definitely not for six hours straight.

Since my last post, aside from training the dogs, we’ve been making random videos, learning how to dive into the pool, watching Stargate Atlantis, making a few friends, we set up the Christmas tree, wrapped most of the presents, and set up the tent. It’s been around 30*C and we’ve been swimming almost every day.

That’s the best shot of us older one together so far. Not so good!

 

Random stuff: Gabrielle, Chantel, and Suzanna have colds. Again. It’s only five days until Christmas, but apparently the world’s going to end tomorrow… I don’t think so! It rained a bit this morning. I need to organize a costume for our routine.

Swimming and… other stuff!

We got permission from the Ariah Park caretakers to run the team in the oval, and we’ve been spending several hours out there most days (when it’s below 30*C). The routines are looking better, still some kinks to sort out though.

 

The swimming pool nearby is cheap enough that we’ve already been there twice. And the water’s almost warm!

Mummy was trying to get a photo of us all on the raft, but we kept jumping/falling off!

 

Last time we were in Ariah Park was four years ago, Christmas 2008. It was so hot that little Sparkie tipped over her water bucket and then dug in the mud patch she’d created! I remember it hit 40*C on Christmas Day. I’m not sure what the temperature was the rest of the time, but it wasn’t far off 40!

This year it’s hanging around 30*C so far, which is not too bad if we can jump in the pool whenever we feel too hot! And there’s showers here too to wash off the chlorine afterwards.

Back in Action

We haven’t been doing much dog training for the last nearly two months – being in the town your baby sister is buried in can really knock your motivation out the window. And the last two show organisers I emailed never emailed back. But I woke up on the first day of December and realized that we didn’t have any routines sorted for Christmas! Last year I was working on ours even before my birthday. We’ve got some good ideas so far, music sorted, now just waiting to get permission from the camp caretakers to let the dogs off lead. If they say no, we’re going somewhere else!

As of our last rehearsal, Sparkie’s overexcited, Tess is unfocused, and Lassie’s goofy. Jessica jokingly calls us “the rusty Superdogs and their rusty handlers!” which isn’t far from the truth. This is what happens when we take a two month break!

Happy 16th Birthday to me!

My birthday started at 7:10am, when I kinda half woke up, looked at my watch, and decided to sleep in for a while longer. Five/ten minutes later the phone rang. Chana got it and gave it to Mummy (who was asleep), then Mummy passed it on to me. It was Auntie Beth, ringing from NZ to wish me a happy birthday. After that most of us went back to sleep for a while. Then I had a coffee and took Sparkie for a walk before we all sat on the family bed for presents.

Because we are in a small country town at the moment, I only got three small presents, but Mummy’s going to get me something else when we get to a bigger town.

 

It was stinking hot day, until about 2pm when a storm appeared on the horizon. There was a warning out for hail, strong wind, and heavy rain. We heard some thunder and the clouds were getting really dark so Jessica and me decided to take the dogs out before the storm hit. About ten minutes into the walk there was really loud crack of thunder, the lightning was getting close, and we could see the clouds moving in fast. So we abandoned the walk and headed home. Just before we reached the bus there was another rumble and the wind picked up. I yelled at Chantel to pack up her toys and Jessica quickly started to help. We were about to bring down the awning when the wind started blowing even stronger. Mummy yelled at me to grab a pole holding the awning up, but the wind was blowing bits of grass and dust into my face so I couldn’t see. Eventually I covered my eyes with my arm and grabbed the edge of the awning. Mummy started dropping the poles and then the wind caught the awning, nearly ripping it out of my hand. I had to forget trying to protect my eyes and use both hands to hold it. Jessica grabbed one side as I dropped my pole. The rain started just then and the wind drove it into our faces. Daddy unhooked the awning from the side of the bus and we were yelling at each other over the wind and flapping of the tarpie. We dragged the tarpie inside, and just as we were nearly in the door there was a crack and a fizzing sound. I saw sparks flying off a power box as thunder rumbled around us. Finally we were all inside, and Jessica’s saying how scary it all was. I’m just glad we got home when we did!

After running the dogs and playing in the cool of the evening, Jessica decorated my cake and we all sat down for dinner.

Somebody had the silly idea to get me relighting candles – I blew them all out, looked away, then looked back and several had relit themselves! I think it was Chana’s idea. But anyway, it was funny.

Burrendong

On Tuesday we went to the Burrendong State Forest near Wellington (NSW), and it was awful. The tourist brochure said there was a water slide out there, etc, etc. They failed to mention the $10 entrance fee, and the fact that the water slide is only open on the weekend. Besides that, the barbeques weren’t working (and hadn’t been since January). The place had a real rundown feel, which is fine, but the fact that we’d paid $10 for next to nothing was annoying. And the lake had blue-green algae in it.

On the bright side, there was a great view and plenty of tracks through the bush to walk the dogs. Sparkie and me went for a half hour walk and didn’t see any people at all, which is always a nice change after spending so long in town!

On the way to camp, we stopped by a strange sculpture. Apparently it’s meant to be a seed pod with stalactites inside it. It represents something, but I can’t remember what it was! And the wall around it was meant to be the hills around the town, or something like that.

Parks

On November 14 we woke up around 7am to watch the solar eclipse. We didn’t get to see the full one like up in Townville or Cairns, but it was cool enough. Didn’t get any photos though, unfortunately.

 

Yesterday we went to the Dubbo Waterpark, which is nowhere near as cool as the one in Townville, but the younger guys loved it.

This yellow ring sprayed water at people who stood inside it – Chantel named it “the Stargate.”

 

After that we went to a dog park with agility equipment. It wasn’t as good as the one in Beenleigh, Brisbane, where we went in July. Well, it got a tiny mention here with no photos. Anyway, this dog park here in Dubbo had so many prickles in the grass that we had to stop every few minutes to pick them out of the dogs’ feet! And it was late in the evening so most of the photos are blurry.

Bush walks and ticks

So I finally have something interesting to blog about! We’re now camping further around the lake, with access to an awesome bush track, which in three two hour walks we still haven’t seen all of. The only downside is that there are ticks in there – not the paralysis type, but we have to check the dogs over after every walk anyway. So far we haven’t found any on them, but this morning one was crawling on Mummy (on the back bed!!) and I flicked one off my arm when we were in the bush this morning. Icky little things, I reckon!

The dogs are loving the good runs, and I think everyone is enjoying the new space. Jessica went fishing yesterday with a pipi thing she found by the water, but she didn’t catch any fish. The younger guys spent a bit of time playing with the basketball yesterday, and today Chantel helped them build a sandcastle.

Most of them are now going for a swim. We’ll probably take the dogs for one last explore of the bush tonight before heading off to buy some milk for tomorrow morning’s coffees.

 

You remember I said we were still fighting a cold? Well, most of us are over it, but something else seems to be going around now – Chana has spent all day in bed with a sore ear, sore throat, and slight high temperature. Chantel also had a sore ear last week, but it wasn’t as bad. Hopefully it doesn’t go around us all, because it seems pretty nasty!

Long Days

We’re still in Newcastle, doing next to nothing and just waiting for our motivation to come back. Since my last post, we’ve met up with some friends, filled three bags with unused clothes for Vinnies, and suffered a pretty bad cold (some of us are still fighting it). Our generator broke so we got a new one, we spent a lot of time at the playground, we went shopping, we…. I think that’s about all we did actually, apart from the usual dog stuff and general living. Jessica, Chantel, and Chana built toy cars for their Zoob animals from old boxes we picked up from Bunnings, which they have now turned into houses for their Matchbox cars. The three youngest guys got necklaces the other day. Oh, and I got a haircut.

 

I realize this is probably one of the most boring posts ever, but I just wanted to let you know we’re still here! LOL! We’re planning on doing a bit of exploring around Lake Macquarie this week, so hopefully that’ll provide some good blog material. And photos too.

Wordless Wednesday - Hard times

We went to Serenity’s grave at the Sandgate Cemetery yesterday evening, for the first time since the day we buried her there.

The best playground EVER!

We left Campbelltown on Saturday, and headed north. Asta went to a new home in Gosford, and then we stopped for the night opposite a fire station.

We went to a the Lake Macquarie Variety Park at Speers Point a few days ago – it’s great! There’s a massive slide, ropes to climb up, a flying fox, smaller slides, various swings, bridges, climbing walls, and a mini road for bikes and scooters complete with mini road signs!

There was plenty of parking for big rigs and a field we could run the dogs in.

 

We had Jireh’s third birthday yesterday – man, time sure flies! I remember Mummy had to spend a few days in hospital with him when he was born, and that left us in Daddy’s care at home…. No, it wasn’t all that bad, except we had pasta and cheese for three nights until Mummy came home! It was all Daddy would cook – the first night, it was like, “Wow, this is great!” and the second night was like, “Again? Ok,” and the third night, “Not again, Daddy!” LOL! Every morning Jessica and me would race each other up the path to the hospital to visit Mummy and Jireh, and only once we nearly ended up on the wrong floor! It was kinda fun though. And the day Mummy came home it was thunder and lightning storm –  just as we got inside the bus it started to rain!