Let me tell you a little about the house – it was huge! And
it had a ‘great’ room…we were all in love. The great room had a huge coffee
table, nice sturdy arms and backs to the couches, a large wooden seat to divide
the room and window seats overlooking the back decking. So many options for
dancing at a height = pure bliss for this little table-top groover. The kids
loved it too, Lachy stood at the stairs to the sunken great room on Friday
night and told me he was “just heading underground and this has been the best
day of my life!” Elle and Dave snapped up the main room so they could get away
from the cluster of kids at the back end. The rest of us played musical beds
most nights amongst the other rooms. The house was reasonably old which meant
there were no water flow restrictions in showers (or claw foot baths… yep they
had one… yep I got a pic), or water temperature controls. The kids got scorched
and skinned every time they showered and Tones and I resorted to showering
fully clothed to avoid the pain. When we weren’t relaxing in the claw foot,
that is. Now who was who again?
Night one we battled to get the 6 kids to bed. When I say battled it’s no understatement, the
back of the house sounded like a war zone and we were wishing we had some
Phenergan on hand! They finally all dropped and we set ourselves up in the
great room for a Scattegories challenge with Lachy allowed to stay up later as
our chief roller. It certainly wasn’t my finest moment, proclaiming an egg to
be a dairy product, so I was relieved that Elle was having some ‘blonde’
moments of her own to keep us laughing. The word of the night was declared “fuckwit”
and the non-allowed word of the night “rapadura.” They wouldn’t let me have
that one - do they know nothing about
sugar substitutes? And while we’re on words poor Kris copped it all weekend for
using his “dumbphone.” Yes folks – it’s now a word and has been officially
added to the dictionary.
I can’t remember who
was declared the winner – obviously it wasn’t me or it would have made the blog
highlights. Saturday morning rolled around after the night from hell with the
kids at the back end of the house. Four cups of coffee and a bacon and eggs
feast later I was ready for my walk. Tones decided to come along too, on weekends
I try and do a 10km walk so I had warned her we’d be out for a while,
personally I think that’s why she was so keen. We set off to the beach and
walked along the path, then headed up a hill, then down the hill, then along
the beach again then home. It was actually a lot more exciting than that – just
hard to put the scenery, fresh air and good company into words really? We were
happy to have the Lorna Jane support crew on hand too…and cracked a new 10km PB
for time, maybe I should try 4 cups of coffee pre walk this weekend too?
Now when you get to the stage when the kids outnumber the
adults it’s always controlled bloody chaos. Next year I’m implementing a colour
coded wrist band system to make sure we always know which kid we are supposed
to be looking after. Despite the chaos, we managed a nice afternoon bottle of
bubbles, followed by ciders, followed by beer while the little kids slept, the
middle kids watched TV and the big kids swam. Then it was time for an all in
crazy pool session, a quick game of cricket and play in the garden before
dinner. We tried to put the kids down early but resorted to a drive around town
with the girls to get them to nod off. Once again we were wishing we had some
Phenergan!
Finally, some adult time, and Saturday night we decided on
celebrity heads in crazy hats. It was the funniest game of celebrity heads I’ve
had in a while, and caused a bit of confusion when I declared that Dave was on
my list! Unfortunately (for him) I meant his character, not him but I’m glad we
got that cleared up! Many of you know of my list – for those that don’t stay
tuned – it’s a whole other blog!
Now I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase be careful what you
wish for? On Sunday morning Lachy and Emme woke up covered in HUGE welts. We
weren’t sure if the mosquitos had attacked or it was from the garden they’d
been playing in but first stop (after Simmos) was the pharmacy for some
Phenergan! Yeehah – the kids will be sleeping tonight! In an attempt to get the
girls to have an afternoon sleep Tones and I took a little trip out of town to
pay our respects to our forefathers. Here we are at Vernon Track (Mum’s maiden
name.) Despite our best efforts we couldn’t find any other family names,
however we did stumble upon Cockworthy Rd. Given an absence of ‘cocks’ to
determine if we were worthy we decided against a photo.
We did our best to finish off the rest of the food and dips
on Sunday arvo and had Thai takeaway for dinner Sunday night. Our evening
entertainment was watching Kris and I try and roll a ball from our tummy to our
mouths without using our hands. I’m still laughing at the footage, and we did
it without spilling our drinks! After a quick game of whizz, bong, bounce the
weekend was starting to take its toll on the crowd so Tones, Elle and Dave had
an early night.
Kris and I decided to kick on and tuned in to watch the top
50 number one hits of the 90’s on Foxtel. The drinks were flowing, the tunes
were cranking and (surprisingly) so were his dance moves. He bailed out at number 14 and left me
to clear the esky and see in the number one alone – lucky I like a challenge! I
took the opportunity to test the volume of my wine glass by pouring my Jacks
into it (classy) and danced alone on every raised height the great room had to
offer – good times people…good times! At
about 1pm I finally crawled into bed and just in case you’re wondering…the top
ten were:
Unfortunately despite all the good times I had to say
goodbye to my Havi’s on the weekend. They’ve served me well. Tones and Elle
were relieved when they broke as they were sick of me walking around all
weekend asking everyone where my thongs were. I only packed one pair of shoes
for the trip so I had to duck in to the surf shop to buy some replacements.
The only pair I could get to fit were bright coral and Tones
refused to be seen in public with me wearing them. At least I couldn’t lose
these ones – they certainly didn’t blend in.
Alas, all good things must come to an end and soon enough it
was time to begin the packing up, do final head counts, say goodbye to the claw
foot and the great room and head home. But not before one last stop at the
bakery. We arrived home happy but exhausted.
I worked for a few hours in the afternoon and then went for a walk to
try and get some energy back. It didn’t work! So I took Willby on one last
adventure for the weekend – a bike ride to the servo for a can of COKE! What a
great end to a fabulous weekend.
