Kangaroo Island Birthday Bash 2011 Style: Part I

This post has been hanging around for two weeks now :-(
It's going to be flung together now for the sake of getting it out of my 'drafts' folder.





You probably don't remember but this time last year we were on Kangaroo Island celebrating the Small Boy's 12th birthday.
Here he is last year (right), looking all of 12 years old with one of his mates. The whole birthday went so well that Himself decided we should do it again. Only this time we took two of his friends.

It was meant to be a nice 'get away' for me, but really, with 3 12/3 year olds to entertain, did I really think I was going to get to relax? Fortunately, they were absolutely fine. They spent some time at the local skate park and vegged around in bed for hours watching cartoons. At night, as we waited for dinner in the restaurant, we played charades and on one night I got them into a very competitive game of 'Racing Demons', my all time favourite card game. In a hard fought match, the birthday boy won!




Here they are on the ferry on the way over (left).
I'm actually not seeing any major changes in the Small Boy there. They are coming though. Oh. Yes. They. Are. Coming. I know that one day he will open the door and be taller than me and I will go back to being the smallest person in the family.




We might be getting a bit blase about the island nowadays, having visited so regularly. We always stay in the same place, as Himself does work for them (and this holiday was no exception), and we have established a few routines: breakfast and dinner in the restaurant or bistro, mini golf, walks down to the beach


to see if there are any penguins (there aren't, the seals ate them);
walks out to the landmark, Frenchman's Rock looking a bit sad nowadays since the storms have washed most of it away;

observing island architecture: old and new,
sunsets;



and rainy afternoons curled up in our cabins


reading or watching Foxtel!


The other big venture we have taken to is sand boarding. There is this phenomenal place on Kangaroo Island called 'Little Sahara'


which is basically a 2 sq km area of massive sand dunes. You can hire boards at a shop, 8 kms away, and then you are on your own to walk into the slopes and try your luck.



Yes, of course I did.


Actually, to be honest, these shots are taken whilst I was pretty stationary. The kids were having trouble getting the boards to slide on the rather damp sand.

Didn't stop them jumping though.

After my stationary attempts at sliding, I tried waxing the board up thoroughly. I put the wax on its side like a crayon and shaded the entire bottom of the board. The boys were sceptical, and a little sullen if truth be told. Apparently they had tried EVERYTHING and there was no way that fuddy old step mum was going to get the board going. Well, I have tried to load the video proof but blogger won't let me....suffice to say that their reactions were a picture. They were galvanised into action and waxed their boards into oblivion, sliding happily away for some hours afterwards.(Me about to show them how.....)