Hello world! How is everybody? I am a little rusty having not written anything in nearly two weeks so I apologize for any spilling miskates. I can't remember what I wrote last time and I'm too lazy to check so I'll just press on.

Well, last weekend DWs parents decided to have a weekend away with some old family friends and all their respective children, grandchildren and partners. Somebody thought that all us Victorians would like to drive four and a half hours to NSW to a place that distinguishes itself from competing camp sites by having toilet paper. To be fair, it is a rather picturesque place situated right by the Murray River and we actually stayed in a very well appointed house large enough to sleep 13 people. Hardly roughing it. It was, however, four and a half hours away and we have Princess and Little Man to think of.

Little Man was great because he either slept or just watched the scenery go by. He was pretty laid back about the whole thing, though he did get a little grumpy and greatly appreciated a chance to stretch his legs during a break in the trip.

Princess was also pretty good and provided much of the entertainment on the way. She did sleep a little but, as we expected, not as much as we would have liked. But we were prepared. We had books on tape! More precisely, books on MP3 player and a set of headphones with a long lead. This enabled us to have the MP3 player with us in the front while she listened and read along in the back. It worked very well, except when the wrong book came up or she wasn't sure which page she was supposed to be on. When ever a problem occurred, she would yell louder than usual because she had the headphones on. She wasn't upset or anything, she was just letting us know. We also put some of her favourite songs on the player and this is where most of the entertainment for us came from. She would sing along loudly and out of tune to the bits she knew and mumble loudly and out of tune to the rest. All up, it could have been a lot worse.

We arrived in around mid afternoon and had a chance to settle in before the rest of the family arrived. DW made the mistake of telling Princess she could stay up until Grandma and Grandad arrived which was after ten that night. The poor kid's eyes were almost falling out of her head and she could barely string the words "I'm not sleepy" together. We did manage to get her into bed eventually and she did sleep until 7am which is pretty good for her. Little Man woke up several times through the night but mostly because his young cousin in the next room was having considerably greater difficulty settling.

The next day I played golf with my Father-in-Law, Shdan and DW's brothers, Shshaun and Shlockie. I'm not much of a golfer. I was being given advice from all sides, except the front, which as it happens, would probably have been the safest. I remembered to keep my head down, which seemed appropriate given the shame. By chance, my first hit off the tee was actually quite good. It was a par 3 hole and I took over ten strokes to get in the hole. I stop counting when I run out of fingers. In my defence, the greens were not grass but rather sandscrapes and hadn't been set up very well, with the lip of the hole slightly higher than the surrounding sand. This caused even the straightest putt to go astray. Not that any of mine were the straightest putt. It was just a little reassuring that others also experienced some difficulty.

My problem early on was my first hit off was nice and straight and while sitting only a few meters from the green, I hit the ball nearly as hard again, sending me WAY past. Every hole after that had something else wrong. Slicing, hooking, dribbling, missing, swearing, searching, swearing, searching, swearing, finding, hooking, swearing, searching. DW's dad was always the first into the bushes to help look for my ball but I think it may have also been to hide the giggling.

After much gnashing of teeth and miraculous findings of the ball, I managed to curtail my overshooting and a "house rule" brought my putting into single digits. In fact, I even managed to use the newly adopted "house rule" (which accounted for the poor sandscrapes) to par two holes in a row. It was time to retire and I skipped backed to the holiday house to tell DW who struggled to stop raising her eyebrow, causing it to quiver so hard it almost popped off.

Anyway, because I had a conference the next day, we had to head home before everyone else, so we packed up and bundled the kids into the car and started the long journey home. The kids were less well settled but we finally made it home at 10pm. That's pretty much the extent of our trip, except for Princess nagging and nagging to have a swim even though the pool was cold and the wind was colder. Grandma Shue braved the icy pond but no one else was brave enough. Little Man just ran about pulling at things and pressing buttons on the video player. Still, it was a nice, if a little brief, get away. Hopefully next time will be for a little longer.

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: Let the sneeze pass, then play the shot.