Interschool Swimming

Today was the interschool swimming carnival. North Tom Price, Tom Price and Paraburdoo Primary Schools thrashed it out in the pool.
It became clear quite quickly that Paraburdoo's much closer proximity to the coast and the well known fact that they uncovered Poseidon's trident at the Para mine, has enabled their primary school children to develop gills and fins. What an incredible bunch of swimmers!
North Tom Price can also count a number of marine species among their pupils. But TPPS were not intimidated, even though they were a bit outnumbered, and did themselves proud. If there was a prize for sportsmanship they would have won it.
Freya swam in every race bar the breaststroke and placed 3rd in all her individual events! There is footage but, again, I ask that the sensitive among you turn the sound down, especially for the butterfly (3rd video) where she nearly took out second and I nearly herniated my larynx, if that's possible.







So that she doesn't feel left out, here is Esther at the pool a little earlier in the week:



Love and light to the mums of Ferndale and Willetton who yesterday lost a brave friend to a shitty disease.
Today I hug my girls extra tightly in memory of Claire and her children xxx

Swimming Carnival

Today was the TPPS Swimming Carnival.
I know it will not come as a shock to you that after 7 races, in which she placed 1st four times and 2nd twice, Freya was YEAR 4 CHAMPION GIRL!!

Says it all!

Rightly proud of herself

Guest swimmer in the Years 6/7 medley relay

Freya and her friends take out 1st place in the Years 4/5 medley relay

There's a good view from up there (so Freya tells me!)

Below are a selection of videos of Freya being an incredible swimmer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (exclamations by Freya).
I thought I might aim to be one of those non-embarrassing, chilled out parents and not yell a lot...but I just couldn't help myself.
I suggest that if you are at all sensitive to the very loud and enthusiastic raving of an over-excited mother you turn the volume right down.







In case you were wondering, there were other kids swimming today and they were all fantastic. I was on timing duties and honestly yelled just as loudly for the kids swimming in my lane as I did for Freya.

The race in which Freya didn't place was the 50m open butterfly where she competed against girls in all the other year groups. She came 4th. Her squad coach was watching the race and commented afterwards that Freya was the only competitor who actually did 50m of butterfly. Behold the magnificence of Freya's butterfly (and note the "breaststroke legs" on the other swimmers #justsaying).



The Australian Swimming Championships and Olympic trials are happening in Adelaide right now. Perhaps if I yell hard enough Freya might make the trials for Rio 2016...

Freya says: Today it was really tiring. Mummy was shouting her head OFF!!!
Mummy says: C'MON FREYA, SWIM HARD, BRING IT HOME, I LOVE YOU!!!!!

Saturday night's alright for dancing

What to do in TP on a Saturday night?
How about a burlesque workshop?
Yes please!!!

Our hostesses

Amethyst Passion and Von Deluxe enjoying the company of dead flamingos

Flourishing our derrieres

Mel and Kez shimmy their kitty frontiers

Making friends with chairs

Suck the lemon...oooh.

Sunday night was book club. We had read The Snowman by Jo Nesbo. Conclusion: Not as good as Larsson (despite the cover claiming Nesbo was the next Steig Larsson); far fetched; poorly translated; Mons and I had guessed whodunit 50 pages from the end.
As usual with our book club, the eating and drinking were cardinal.
Monday night: Team building at Teresa's.

Special

Y'all remember that Esther (and Freya!) were awarded honour certificates? Well, it transpires that when you are in Miss Keath's Grade 1 class and you get an honour certificate, you also become...Student of the week. This entails sitting on a special chair each morning and getting a special laminated certificate advertising what you like to do on the weekend ("go to the pool and draw pictures for my friends") and  your favourite food ("Coles [BBQ] Chicken and chips"). The certificate also proclaims: "Warm fuzzies about Esther" which include classics from Ano: "Esther plays safely in the playground". And Claire: "Esther keeps her desk tidy" (WTF, why is her bedroom so freaking messy then?!).

Side ponies are go!

I think maybe the Jonkers need Family member of the week. I nominate myself as inaugural family member of the week.
Warm fuzzies might include: Freya, "Mummy does a plausible Yorkshire accent when reading The Secret Garden to me"; Esther, "Mummy has planned and prepared heaps of nutritious meals for us, none of which contained Coles BBQ chook, but they were all delicious"; Ade, "Lou continues to do 95% of the housework, whilst also saving lives at work and attending at least 1 exercise class a week".

Ade and I continue to feel so proud of our children :)

In other news: Wound-er Woman strikes again and receives more flowers and chocs for her wound care excellence!!

Coral Bay

Coral Bay is a little piece of paradise flippin' miles away only 6 hours drive from TP. We went for the long weekend (Labour Day, since you ask).
Coral Bay's attraction is the proximity of the Ningaloo Reef to shore; you can literally walk out 20 metres, stick your head under water and greet a turtle. The sea is as clear as glass and, at this time of year, as warm as a mug of tea. The area is largely unspoilt and undeveloped and close enough to Tompers that we saw a familiar face everywhere we went!

It's a tough gig

F & E at the lagoon

Tiger sharks...do your worst!!

Much snorkeling fun was had by 3 members of the family. Freya, as I have previously documented, is half-fish, and yet has a profound fear of sub-aquatic wildlife. I will refrain from describing her fear as irrational since a fella got munched by a tiger shark in Coral Bay not so long ago and a 300kg Queensland groper (big fish!) currently menaces the jetty where the dive boats dock. Here's some footage I pilfered from YouTube...

Esther is a novice snorkeler but she had the very experienced Dr S Giles as a buddy and was soon showing typical Esther enthusiasm for her new hobby.

Ready to snorkel?

...and away they go

It was great to see Sarah again and good to hear that she is getting a well earned rest in her latest locum post after her hellish turn at TP. You can read Sarah's take on CB here, she has some excellent writing on Tompers too!
Our camping buddies for the CB trip were Jacinta and Matt, and very affable camping buddies they were too. They joined the Jonkers on a sunset quad bike ride along the beaches and through the dunes.

Matt and Jacinta; Freya and Esther both manage a photo bomb!

Indeed the quad bike ride was voted holiday highlight by both F & E. Freya will argue that she got the best deal because she got to ride pillion with Ade while Esther had to make do with me; although, in my defense, I did give the bike some welly coming down a huge sand-dune.

Freya to Darcy: Mine's bigger than yours!

Coral Bay sunset

I loved the quad bikes too but for me the holiday-best-bit was the glass bottom boat/snorkel trip that we did. The reef is amazingly beautiful, and I swam with (reef) sharks!

Wait a minute...is that a manta ray?...

...no, it's just Ade, entertaining child left on boat!

Me and my handsome husband

Girls steered us home

I think we'll come back.