Priscilla Weekend - the other side....
Ok, so Gina and her friends waltzed off to Sydney for the 'best weekend' of her life.
It's not often that I have the kids all to myself for a weekend, and although I knew it wasn't going to be easy, I had a plan...
There was a footy game that I wanted to watch Saturday evening, so my idea was to fill their day with as many activities as possible to tire their little hearts out. Bless 'em.
- Take them to McDonalds (mackers) for breakfast - what a treat from Dad!
- Take them straight to watch an under-9s rugby match. It was outside and bit windy. Perfect.
- Take them to a shopping centre so they could walk around and spend their hard-earned pocket money.
- Take them home for a slap-up lunch.
- Take them to the beach. Run around the sand, climbing over dunes and scale a large set of steps to the top of some great cliffs.
- Take them for a fish-and-chips tea.
- Take them bowling with all the other 'stranded' dads and kids for 3 hours.
- Carry them into the car and home to bed.
- Watch the footy game with a beer and a self-satisfied grin.
Steps 1 - 8 worked perfectly. 3 exhausted children. Result.
As for Step 9?
Well, the TV went on, the chilled bottle of beer got opened, and I promptly crashed out completely on the settee for a couple of hours missing my game. Looks like I needed the sleep too.
Sunday was a much calmer affair. We had Joe and Rhonda bring their baby around which was a treat for the kids. Joe and Rhonda hadn't seen the house before so it was good to be able to show it off at it's best. Mind you, Joe rang at 7:45am (Sunday!) to arrange to come over - you can tell he has a baby, what other reason would he have for being up at that time on a Sunday?
Gareth had a party to go to at 10:30, so after he was dropped off the girls and I went to the local coffee shop for some hot chocolates and marshmallows.
Once Gareth was collected, we then drove to a local lookout place called Sugarloaf Mountain, where the the 3 of them spent a couple of hours sliding down a great hill on big pieces of cardboard I'd packed into the car. Unfortunately, it's going to take Gina ages to get the grass stains out of their clothes, but that's the price you pay for going on a weekend away....
Was it fun with Gina away for the weekend? fun, but different.
Was it hard work? Kind of.
Were we all happy to see her return laden with smiles and gifts? Oh yes....
Oh, and thanks to Anne-Marie for my ping-pong ball present. It's being sterilised as I type.
