A Sunday Outing 2

Millie taking a break in the door of our local Trade Store

The Ride home - sure beats climbing the hill in the midday sun!!!

A Sunday Outing

At the end of our road there is a walking track that wonders down through lush bush, crosses a couple of streams, wonders through a village and ends in the Botanic Gardens..... a work in progress. Its a great little oasis in a dusty Honiara with grassy areas for picnics, ponds full of lily pads and frogs, walking tracks through the bush, a swimming hole and a run down kids playground. We then follow the road out to the main road where there is a small hotel across the road next to the sea - a great spot for a drink.

Its a bit of a hike back up the hill, but today we were lucky enough to get a ride back home on the back of our neighbours ute!!

Its amazing the little spots you can find in our town if you are prepared to explore.

A Titanic of a Hut

For the last 12 months our 3 shipping crates have been sitting under the house. We don't anticipate needing them for any trip home soon so Carl has been busy this month turning them into a Play hut extrordinare!!!

They come complete with 3 rooms (upstairs and down) lots of port holes, 2 verandahs, a climbing wall, a slide, blackboard wall, steering wheel and pulley bucket system. It is still a work in progress but the kids love it and have used it heaps hanging out with the 5 kids who live next door. In fact I had to send the neighbours kids home when they turned up at 7.30 this morning!!!!

Yes we are still here

Betsy & Pops

Notice it's a month since I have posted photos on the blog. Life just gets away on you at times. Time for a bit of a catch up.

Carl is back from PNG and half way through his month home before he heads off in mid September. We seem to have got into the routine reasonably well and his time away is manageable for us with good planning and a few stiff drinks.

Having Carl home means we can do a few things that are totally undoable with one parent and three kids - such as kayaking. Last week we spent Saturday morning kayaking around the port/waterfront area checking out the boats and yachts in town ( caught up with some people we had met in Vanuatu) and visiting the dolphins in captivity awaiting export.

We also went along to the Solomon Idol Semi Finals. We have been regular and keen attenders as Poppy's best friend Betsy and her sister Marian have both been competing and are through to the grand finals of the Junior section. It is a crazy event roughly following the format of all "Idol contests" but very hot, squashed, smelly and drawn out. The elimation process is very long and painful but the singing to great and they have lots of great entertainment. Last week we even won a prize for making the best balloon figure-decided by the Deputy Prime Minister no less. The prize-3 packets of twisties - a favourite food here. We're now planning our banners for the grand final - the Thurston's have no shame!!!!