More rifle

The Lathrop team is now 3-0! They had a match this weekend against West Valley. Liam had a personal best score for air rifle of 524 and got to shoot with the Varsity team for small bore and shot a respectable 474. The team will compete Monday and Tuesday against Huchinson. This one may be a close match as last time they only beat them by about 10 points in all categories. Edit to add: We decided to measure the kiddos this evening, they are 6 feet and 5 feet tall. More amazing stats!

Rifle

Liam wanted to do an after school activity this year, he narrowed it down to Rifle Team, Fencing club, and Robotics (an extension of the Lego Robotics program he has been in for years.) In the end, Rifle Team won out for this year. After starting the season and seeing how much time commitment is involved...I am glad he just chose one! Rifle practices 4-5 nights per week and sometimes shoots on Saturday. Also required is help with their fund-raising efforts. As anyone who shoots regularly can tell you, all the supplies do not come cheap. Liam has now had two matches and is doing very well. They shoot three positions (prone, kneeling, and standing) two target cards each over the course of about 2 hours in both air rifle and small bore (.22). Their targets are scored points out of 100 for a total of points out of 600.

In his first match he shot a 488 for air rifle and 480 for small bore. Lathrop as a team won against North Pole in both varsity and junior varsity. For the second match against Huchinson (Lathrop's biggest rival last year) Liam shot a 502 for air rifle (he beat all of the JV and one of the varsity shooters!) and 430 in the small bore. Lathrop won by a very short margin in both the JV and V for small bore and air rifle.

Liam is having a lot of fun and learning a lot about how to compete in this sport. Unfortunately he is having some loooong days trying to keep up with practices that run till 7ish and shoots that can last till after 9 and still getting his homework done for the 3 honours classes he is taking. The season will last into December and for now I think he is counting it as worth every second!

Baking

Abbie Rose has been interested in doing some cooking and baking lately. It is lots of fun now that she is old enough to actually do it herself instead of Mom doing most of the measuring. Our first project:

Carrot cake cookies, used to bribe the guys at Kyle's work to buy from her school fund raiser and as a Birthday treat for a friend's Dad. They were tasty, I only helped with finishing grating the carrot and double checking her addition when doubling a recipe. Bonus points for a maths lesson along with a baking project! The next project, a monster cake:

Abbie Rose has a subscription to the American Girl magazine. On of the projects was how to make a monster cake. We made a real cake instead of a box one and used some different candies from the picture. It turned out pretty great! And tasty! Baked and decorated start to finish, with minimal help from Mom :)

Camping highlights

The view from our camp on U.S. Creek road. It is in the White Mountains, we found a little side road about 4 miles in on a ridge. There was no water (creek or a river) but the view was amazing and there was some blueberries left to find.

Abbie Rose the priestess of the flame :)

Liam looking very thoughtful, probably about what to eat for lunch!

Cheese! We didn't get very much camping in this year, but what we had was great! Our little old RV is getting small for us, but we are looking to upgrade for next year. Or maybe we will switch over to canoe, boat, or tent. We will see though, our camper may not be new, but the fridge/freezer, flush toilets, and soft beds will be hard to get away from.

They might be giants

First day of school 2012:

No matter how much you want to deny it, Liam is a freshman in high school this year. 14 years old, 6 feet 1/4 inch, with a size 13 shoe!

Abbie Rose is in fourth grade this year. 9 years old, 4 feet 11 and 3/4 inches, and a size 9 shoe!

The Blows

After we left Warroora, we drove to the Tropic of Capricorn and

(Alaska Grown at 23° 26′ 16″ south of the equator!)

a place called the blows. There is a big blow hole there, but the sea was really calm so it was more of a gurgle hole for us :P

The sign in front of the Blows, dumb tourist have a tendency anywhere to do stupid things to kill themselves. Australia is on of the few places willing to put up clearly marked warnings to try to save them from themselves. So be warned...King Waves Kill.

Wild Warroora

The rest of our time at Warroora was spent exploring the 4x4 trails, bogging the utes, sitting on the beach, admiring the wild life, and of course eating! We had some awesome meals while out, beef skewers, prawn cocktails, and several kinds of sausages just to name a few. I really wanted to share with you some of the cool animals we saw. A big change for me from moose, geese, and beavers.

A stick bug, we used to keep some of these in a tank. Here they live outside, this one was outside the homestead house.

A bush turkey, it is big, but not as large as an emu and they can fly.

Giant termite mound, it was taller than the truck and hard like rock. The bugs are nocturnal so none to be found in the bright sun.

Sheep and a roo in the backyard of the homestead.

Look how close this guy came! We could hear them most of the evening coming in to drink. They make a funny coughing sound.