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.

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 :)

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.

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 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/

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.

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. 

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.

Last night I was set to go for a jog - 2nd one since my mysterious foot injury - and my sister suggested I take her dog Bailey.  Now this picture is from when he was 11 months old (yes don't be fooled by the pink blanket he is a boy) and he is now 7 months old.

So I thought why not it would be good to have the company.  I wasn't sure how he would go with the distance, I had planned to be out for an hour and I don't think he had ever gone that far.

I didn't count on the unpredictability of a puppy.  After half an hour of dealing with him running in front of me to get a cyclists, dogs, ducks, other joggers, walkers and imaginery things that I couldn't see I gave up.

We walked the rest of the time but I did make him go up some fairly big hills to compensate for the jog I was missing out on.  I won't be taking him again for the training run but he was fun to walk with.  Everyone wants to say hello when you have a cute dog at your heels.

As usual the weekend was full on.  Mia had a sleep over at Pappa's on Friday night but I had to pick her up at 7.30am to take her to ballet, apparently she wasn't too impressed about being woken up when it was still dark.  Daddy came to watch on Saturday which made her a little shy and she didn't participate as much as she did last week.  Oh well baby steps.

Gift Buying

Afterwards we went to Garden City Shopping Centre for Mia to chose Easter gifts for daddy, pappa and Marie, a birthday present for her friend Jaxon and a soft toy for each of the twins that were born a couple of weeks ago.  More friends to add to the collection.

She was very serious in choosing her Easter gifts, she didn't want anyone to have the same thing it took a long time but she finally settled on 3 very distinctly different gifts and it didn't cost me a fortune which was also a plus (sorry guys if you are reading this)

Good Memory

The afternoon was spent cleaning and playing games with Mia, she loves what we call the memory game.  When we were kids it was played using cards.  All the cards lined up in a grid picture side down then you take turns turning two cards over at a time, if they match you get to keep them and have another turn, if they don't you turn them back over and the next person takes their turn and so on.

These days it is a little more flash, Mia has a Dora the Explora version that she got for her birthday, they are little disks with pictures of dora and her friends.  I always knew that Mia had a great memory but she beats nearly everyone she plays at this game.  Has anyone else noticed this in their kids?

There was a slight pause and Tyler says "But your mum is dead", before I could responsd Mia says "is your mum Grandma Terry"?  I told her yes and she replied with "But she died".

I love the matter of fact responses from these guys, I couldn't help but smile whilst I explained that yes she has died but she did have favourites when she was alive.  This seemed to satisfy them and they moved on.

We picked up another little one (Zali) on the way and it was to be her first time, but my theory was confidence in numbers.  We were the first to arrive and Mia actually spoke to the teacher - a good start.  Her and Zali spent the next 10min waiting for class to start skipping from one side to the other holding hands.

When the class started Zali turned into Mia from last week.  Like a deer in headlights not wanting to move or respond.  Surprisingly though Mia got into it and skipped and pointed her toes with the rest of the class.  It did take 10 minutes to convince Mia to stop holding Zali's hand though :)

At the end of the class as I promised her I took Zali and Mia to the ballet shop to buy them their outfits and shoes.  Luckily I was able to get quite a lot second hand from the ballet school otherwise it would have cost a fortune.  I will post a photo as soon as one is available.

The rest of the day was spent planting new plants in the garden.  The kids helped me put the new soil from the wheel barrow into buckets so I could put it on the flower bed.  We are now the proud owners of some passionfruit trees (which Mia thinks are eggplant trees), a lime tree and some hedging.

Back in the day when I was on Minti last time I was training for an open water swim held here in Perth - Rottnest Channel Swim - it is the biggest open water swim held in the world (as far as number of entrants) 19.2km if you swim in a straight line between Cottesloe and Rottnest Island.

I have completed the crossing in a team of 4 on two occasions but this past 6 months have been training to complete the crossing in a duo.  The training was hard, staying motivated was harder.  To help we went to a seminar held by Shelley Taylor Smith over the Christmas break (marathon swimmer) and she gave us a lot of tips to keep us motivated including the suggested of joining a swim squad.

We joined our local pool and they were a god send. That extra motivation when you are swimming with a group goes a long way - and of course my new favourite mantra - if you don't quit you will make it - I used that alot both before and during the swim.

The event was held on Saturday 16th February and we made it.  7 hours 51 minutes 40 seconds.  Our goal had been to break 8 hours so we were very happy.

So what's next:

Well I am the sort of person who cannot continue exercise without a goal, so we have entered the Bussleton Half Iron Man to be held in May.  The event is 1.9km swim, 90.1km bike ride and 21.1km run.  I am only doing the run part and started my training a couple of days after Rotto.

I am no runner and certainly haven't tried to run in a very long time so I am struggling a bit.  Particularly with sore feet - if anyone has any suggestions that would be great.

The event is 7 weeks away and coming up fast - stay tuned on how training progresses.

I must admit I have resisted it as the thought of costumes and dance recitals didn't exactly fill me with excitement + her dad was trying to organise some piano classes and I felt that one thing a week outside of day care and kindy was enough.

Piano classes fell though so with great trepidation I did my research and found a ballet class held on Saturday mornings.

She was so excited counting down the sleeps until her first class.  On the morning of she bounded out of bed got dressed and ate breakfast with no complaints.

We arrived 15min early and watched the class before hers and she was still excited.  All this ended the minute it was her turn in the class.  She did not move.  One of the teachers tried to encourage her but Mia just kept shaking her head with the most defiant look on her face.

So for half an hour all the other kids danced around her whilst she stood and stared.  A few of the other mother's were telling me not to worry and that it is common for them to take a few weeks to warm up.  I was also worried that these mum's would think I have forced her to come.

After we left she was a little quiet but after a while decided she did want to come back next week and would like a ballet dress.  I have told her she can't have the dress until she dances.  I also know that she took notice of what was happening as later that afternoon she was showing me some of the steps that the other kids had been doing...

Seriously she drives me crazy sometimes...stay tuned for the next ballet installment next week.

For those of you in Perth Andy was the Promotions and Marketing Manager for 96FM radio station.

He will be starting his new role with Nova FM late March as their Promotions and Marketing Executive (I hope I got the titles right)

We are all excited and proud - Andy you Rock!

Hardly surprising given her mother spent most of the pregnancy not being able to move much or drive due to her cervix being sewn shut (I am sure there is a much more technical term for it)

We were all very grateful to learn that Charlotte arrived very happy and healthy and her mother is doing extremely well.  One of the most relaxed new mums I have seen.  I wonder if that is due to the difficult pregnancy that everything now seems easy.

We took Mia to visit on the weekend, as she had picked out a new stuffed toy for her new friend and she was busting to give it to her.  She doesn't quite look comfortable holding the new baby but she loved it.  She also helped mum change her nappy and get her to sleep.

It has been a hell of a year.  I have seperated from my husband (divorce in the pipeline) and lost my mother to cancer, moved house twice, started a new job (same company) and swam a duo to Rottnest.

It is time to get back to some normality in my life and I guess it starts here.