Holidays, Boarding School and Going Home

Hello there my friends.  How are you all?  It has certainly been a while between blogs hasn’t it but I have had a lovely break and there has been so much happening.

I will try to keep the update snappy but can’t promise, we all know how I love to bang on.

After arriving at Brisbane airport we picked up our hire car… realised we needed something other than a sedan to fit all of our luggage and I tell you what – Mr Chardy packed that little X-Trail like some sort of packing ninja, it was like suitcase Tetris.

We enjoyed a lovely holiday on the Sunshine Coast.  Gosh it went by quickly.  Because we had to fly out in the end we arrived on the coast 2 days early so we stayed with some lovely friends (who we actually only met last year thanks to our good friend Di, but we now count them as some of our closest friends).  Don’t you just love those people who you really connect with.  Eddie & Rob are those people, we feel like we have known them for years, they have hearts of gold and we are just so grateful to have met them after such a shitty year in 2016.  They were one good thing that came out of last year.  They are the sort of people who would give you the shirt of their own back and we just love spending time with them.  They also happen to have a holiday home on the Sunny Coast and invited us to stay for the 2 nights before we checked into the house we had booked.  It was so lovely too, gosh we had fun and it was great to be able to settle into holiday life a couple of days sooner than we had planned.

Eddie even took one for the team and came shopping with me at Sunshine Plaza.  You see we still had a long list of gear we had to get for Tom before he started boarding school.  I did have to do some begging but she came through in the end.  And thank god she did, far out.  If Eddie wasn’t with me I think I would have given up after item 3 on the list.  I would have put it all in the “too hard basket” and said “i will get it later”.  Not sure when later was but I would have given up.

We did 5 solid hours at the Plaza and it wasn’t fun.  In the end all we needed was a pair of summer pj’s for Tom and do you think we could find a plain old pair of pj’s??  Nope… Target, Best & Less, K-Mart…. even Peter Alexander.   Nothing – it was at this stage of our shopping adventure that Eddie saw “The Real Miss Chardy” and it wasn’t pretty, there may have been a foot stomp involved.  In the very end Mr Chardy took him to Myer and managed to find him a pair of boxers and a plain old bonds t-shirt, I should have just out sourced this job to him in the first place.  But he was pretty busy wrangling Clancy who was determined to spend his $50 on a drone from one of those dodgy shops in the middle of the shopping centre.

On Saturday it was time to check into the house we had booked with Mr & Mrs Savvy B & Co and I will tell you something for nothing, we were not disappointed with our selection.  Oh my goodness, it was amazing.

Selecting holiday houses is a Summer Sport I take very very seriously.  This time last year I would have been sifting through hundreds of holiday houses to find us the perfect one.  I left no house un-viewed.  I am thinking perhaps I could start a little side business where I find holiday houses for people.  So if you are in the market for a house but don’t have the time (because obviously I have so much to spare) then let me know and I will hunt one down for you – just tell me where and how much you want to spend and I will find you the perfect house – no really, I am serious…. just shoot me an email and I promise to find you a house**.

But I digress… back to the house….  we were very happy here.  We even had a spare guest room for visitors to stay over, we were definitely not cramped.  This was the perfect house for 2 families and sharing the cost means you can afford a view like this…

We stayed at Sunshine Beach and gee we loved it there.  Sunshine Beach isn’t crowded like Noosa.  The beach was on our doorstep, well down quite a few steps to tell you the truth but it was right there.  As in we could wear just our swimmers and nothing else and trot on down to the surf.

We were walking distance to the Surf Club and little shops and cafes but to tell you the truth we only went to the Surf Club a couple of times because why would you want to leave this…

A lot of people told us the surf was really rough at Sunshine Beach but it turns out we like it rough.  There were quite a few stingers though which wasn’t much fun.  I think most of us got stung but we found if we went in the mornings it was much better.  I only got stung once and it wasn’t really that bad.

Most afternoons we would all go down to the beach where the kids would play cricket and we would sip wine while the sun went down.  So soothing for the soul.

Mrs Savvy B and I managed to squeeze a little hike into our holiday.  We went all the way through the Noosa National Park one morning.  From Sunshine Beach right around to Nooooooooooosa.  It was so lovely.  The Sunshine Beach side was pretty hard going, quite steep and lots of stairs to climb but lovely and quiet.  We even had to walk the full length of a nudist beach.   We looked up ahead and noticed there was one person on the beach doing yoga.  As we got closer I said “Is she naked”…. then we realised she was a he.  Downward dog then a head stand (I kid you not).  We were not sure how we were going to pass this one.  It was all ok, he ended up heading into the surf as we got closer, thank god, because I would have had to have a look and I think he was pretty old.  Anyway, it gave us a good laugh.

As we got closer to Noosa the path got very busy, so many people.  Yuck.  Sweaty jogger, families, strollers just so many people!  Not what I am used to that’s for sure.   We carried back packs with us so we could have a swim when we arrived at Noosa and boy it was lovely to bob around in that gorgeous clear water.  We then enjoyed some breakfast at a cafe over looking Noosa Main Beach before calling Mr Savvy B to come and collect us.  It was such a lovely morning.

After a week at the beach it was time to face reality, check out and head to Brisbane so we could put Tom into boarding school on the Sunday.  Again we stayed with Eddie & Rob who put up with us for a week this time.

On the day we put Tom into school my lovely friend Nikki – from Styling You – had a BBQ lunch for us at her place with 2 other families.  You see they all have boys at the school where Tom is going so it gave Tom a chance to meet another boy who would be in his year.  They also all live really close to the school so it would be nice for Tom to meet some day families.  Gosh it was lovely of them to have us.  I can’t tell you how welcoming people are, everyone we meet says “if Tom ever needs anything just let us know, we can go and collect him or drop anything off”… it is just so comforting to know there are so many people down there willing to do anything for him, especially when we are so far away.

Tom had his first game of cricket on Saturday and Caro (who was at the BBQ) messaged me telling me she was at cricket watching Tom.   She sent me a few photos and Nikki even asked her husband, who was also there, for a photo.  He even bowled someone out first go.  Not to bad for a little boy from the bush who has never really played much cricket.

Anyway, back to school drop off.  I thought it was going to be easy but of course in the end there were tears.

We kept it together quite well while saying goodbye but there was no way I was going to leave him sitting on his bed all alone while we walked off.  I looked down the dorm and noticed another lovely family saying goodbye to their son, they were all looking a bit teary and I knew this was a boy Tom had met and got along with at his orientation weekend.  So I walked down and asked if their son would like to come and hang out with Tom while we all headed off.  Once out the doors I was a little bit upset and looking back up the path and seeing Tom and his mate waving out the window yelling “Goodbye” didn’t help matters.  But we did it and it wasn’t too bad.   Tom has been really brave, but I am sure the tears will come eventually.

They keep them pretty busy and it is basically one big school camp!  They all went to Wet & Wild the first weekend.  This weekend they headed up to Mooloolaba and in between all of this there has been slip’n’slides, bbq’s, Laser Tag around the school, dodge ball, movies…  more than we got when I was at boarding school I will tell you that!

Mr & Mrs Savvy B loaned us a car while we were at the coast and it all worked out really well because we also drove it back up to Camooweal.  Saved us 4 airfares too.  The trip home was very quiet and there was NO FIGHTING!!!!  Life with only 2 kids is quite easy my friends.  Of course we miss Tom so much but know that he is where he should be with so many opportunities awaiting him.

We finally arrived home last Wednesday and of course it was a massive effort to get back in.  We had to stay in Camooweal the night and then fly in.

Oh and we have a new Govie.  Miss Pip joined our convoy at Longreach and slotted right in with our family.  The kids love her and I think she is going to do a great job over in the school room.  We are only 2 weeks late starting school which means today is their first day back.  Just a little bit of catching up to do but we are trying not to stress too much.

Clancy starts Prep this year which I am only MILDLY EXCITED ABOUT!!!! Yippee, he will be at school EVERY DAY.  Oh wow, I am not going to know myself people.  The house is going to stay clean and he won’t need feeding every 2 minutes.  Bring it on.

Ok, I think I really need to wrap it up now… just looked at the word count and it is 1,839.  Sorry!!!  If you have made it this far then well done.  There is so much more I could chat about but I am going to finish now.

It is time to get back into 2017.  How are you anyway?

Did you go away?
Where did you go?
Did you do the boarding school drop off too?  How was it?

**Disclaimer: if this little house hunting venture proves popular then I promise to find the first 2 people that email me a house… after that I can’t promise anything.