We enrolled Mia into swimming lessons this past term as a replacement of the disasterous ballet class.  It was better timed with classes being after school on a Thursday at our local swimming pool (same one I train at which is very handy).

She is coming up to her last week of the term and I cannot believe how much she has learned.  She has always loved the water and has never been afraid to jump in with her floaties on or using the boogie board at the beach but now she can almost swim with no floaties.

So it was a proud mother who received the information for next terms enrolment which notified us that she has graduated to the next level of swim class.

This past weekend has seen my birthday come and go - A big 32 years of age.  Hard to believe that time has passed so quickly.  It has been a difficult change of age - one without my mum - and a dad who is somewhat distracted with new interests.

However myself and 7 friends took off to Dunsborough (3hrs south of Perth) for a long weekend.  We stayed in an amazing house 10min walk from the Centre of town.  Now when I say amazing that is probably an understatement.  It used to be a Bed and Breakfast if that can give you an idea of the size of this place.  4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, multiple wood fires and plenty of space.

Highly recommend if you are in the area.  Check out www.capeexec.com.au and search for Dunsborough Vista Lodge.

On the Saturday we went out for lunch to Flutes Restaurant which is attached to one of the better winerys in the Margaret River Region.  The food was amazing and the service was excellent.

Alcohol free flowing for the afternoon and well into the evening where we entertained ourselves with the Nintendo Wii I received as a gift, pool and dancing.  Amazing how 8 people can keep themselves entertained for 12 hours.

Sunday was a little more subdued with some shopping and afternoon naps but I gotta say it was an awesome weekend and one I wont forget anytime soon.

Mother's Day was always going to be difficult in our family, it is the first mother's day without my mum (passed away Oct 3rd).

Originally I wanted to to forget that mother's day existed and lets face it Mia is too young to realise it is mother's day by herself.

Luckily my ex husband thought mother's day was more important than that and talked to Mia about it and took her shopping to buy me a gift.  Of course then that was all Mia could talk about, so I had to come up with an idea of something we could do together.

With all the exercise I do Mia always wants to come running with me and of course I always say no it is too far, so I was very excited to see an ad for a mother's day event at Lake Monger.

3.5km around the lake (walk or run) so I registered us and bought Mia some very fast running shoes.  She was very excited and counted down the sleeps.

Its wasn't the greatest of weather - a little rain followed by humid heat but it was a great morning.  Coffee was available for the mums who got up early and there were plenty of people participating.

the idea behind the event was to raise money for breast cancer reasearch, something very close to my families heart.

I am very happy that we celebrated the day and the event was so well run I think we will do the same thing again next year.

Oh and the present she chose was fabulous - a beautiful new tea pot for all the tea I drink - I don't really drink tea :)

Hard to believe it has been a month since my last blog.  So much as happened but no time to report now.  Will post over the coming days including some cute pics.

Just when things are starting to head back to normal, my grandfather passes away.  Strange in a sense as he was perfectly healthy but also not so strange given he was 93.  A very good innings if you ask me.

I guess the hard bit is it is dad's dad and with losing my mum only 6 months ago this is hard on him.  Mia and I are flying to Melbourne with dad next week for the funeral.  Mia wont actually be going she will be looked after.  She did go to my mum's funeral but she had alot to do with her, I don't even think she would remember who my grandfather was, she only met him once and that was 1 yr 1/2 ago.

Wish us luck for the flight, it has been a while since she has been on a plane.

There are so many times when you look at your child in amazement and this is one of those times.

Mia started Kindy this year and little did I know they were actually teaching her things.  Now don't get me wrong I am a big believer in school but I thought Kindy was more about learning structure and listening and social skills.

I was Kindy helper last week for 3 hours but didn't really get to see what they do as it was also school photo time so it was all a little chaotic.

On Saturday Mia was going to a birthday party and she wanted to write on the card.  As per usual she wrote her name followed by the number 4 (her age).  But then she surprised me.  She asked to write Ryan's name (the kids whose party it was), so my sister wrote his name on a separate piece of paper and she copied it perfectly into the card.

As you can see from the picture we then gave her lists of people's names and mostly she managed to write them all very well.  I asked her where she learn't all this as it certainly wasn't from us and she said Kindy.

I was very impressed and extremely proud.

I have to post a blog about my weekend away at The Mahogany Inn here in Perth.  It is approx 30min from Perth right near the John Forest National Park.  I believe it is the oldest Inn left in Western Australia.

I am a very big believer in service.  Coming from a customer service background I know it isn't hard to give, but there just seems to be a lack of it everywhere I go whether it is retail or hospitality.

The service we received at The Mahogany Inn was excellent both by owners and staff.  I understand that the current owners only took over a couple of months ago but the staff are long termers.

Everyone seems to enjoy their job and we even ended up having drinks with the owners and staff after everything closed.

The food was amazing, the servings huge and the price was extremely reasonable.  They have 12 accommodation rooms if you want to stay the night at a hugely reasonable price of $120 for Saturday night and $100 for other nights.

Seriously cannot speak highly enough of this place - everyone should go.  Check out:

www.mahoganyinn.com.au/

Strangest thing, these two normally don't go anywhere near each other unless it is the dog (Bailey) chasing the cat (Pixel) and Pixel hissing back.

For some reason on this night they found the peace of sleeping together.  It was short lived but the quiet time was great.

They are back to normal now.

I picked Mia up on Friday afternoon from daycare.  It is always awesome seeing her after the 6 day break.  She gets really excited and can't stop talking and I get really excited and can't stop talking.  It takes us a little while to settle down.

We tried ballet class again on Saturday morning with only slightly more success.  There was foot movement but no arm movement.  1 week left of term.  Lets wait and see.  I really thought she would be better this week, we took her friend Zali with us and she has extra sleep given the change in daylight saving. 

I have now booked her into swimming lessons after school on Thursdays.  Something she has mentioned before and I think a great idea.  They start on the 1st of May.

I competed in the ASICS Bridges Fun Run yesterday.  Never quite sure why they put the word fun in these titles.  It was a 10km event starting in front of Perth City and going around the bridges and back to the start.  Not sure how many people competed but it seemed like a lot.  It took a few mintues to be able to get any sort of pace going with all the people in front.

I was a little disappointed in my time but happy overall that I got up and did it. 

I had some success yesterday with regards to my running.  I have been very careful since the sore foot incident (which was never resolved I might add) so I ran for 45min on the treadmill at the gym on Friday.  Saturday arvo took the dog for a very long walk and then last night attempted another 10km.  The circuit that took me nearly 1hr 20min last week took only 56min 57sec last night. 

Very Happy

This coming Sunday is the ASIC 10km fun run.  My ex husband is also competing so there is a little bit of rivalry going on.  Lets face it, he will kick my butt but I love the challenge.