Monday, September 24, 2012

Hippy House Captain

Last Friday Iman's Year 5 class did the first assembly for the new school year and as it was Peace Week, their theme was "Peace", thus the hippy clothing. It was also a big moment for Iman on a personal level as she had applied to be a House Captain and the results were announced during the assembly. Voting took place the week before and each person in the Blue House listened to speeches delivered by the candidates and voted for their preference. Jack displayed a mature understanding of the approach when we told him to vote for Iman - he declined, saying that it would depend on her speech !! In the end, he voted for someone else as their sibling had said to Jack that they could not be friends unless Jack voted for his sister (Democracy at it's best !!). Iman was elected without the support of Jack and now has a full year to lead the Blue House kids - we are extremely proud parents !



Tuesday, September 18, 2012

KK Swimming - Penampang 2012

Last weekend we were all back in KK again for the 4th Penampang Club swimming competition. This is the same competition that the kids went to in December last year without me. This time with all three taking part, it was an eventful two days in the heat. Jack and Ayden were swimming in the same group which made it even more interesting. Neither of them won individual medals and I've been told they need to eat more to build up muscles! (We also found out after the event that there was confusion as to who was the older brother - there is certainly healthy competition between them). They were both part of the JSC relay team for their age group and won two silvers in their races so we had two happy boys. 

This year the competition has nearly doubled in size making it much busier in the small confined space of the club and overall making competition much tougher. Iman who previously has won silvers and bronzes even in the KK meets learned this the hard way when her competitors proved to be much faster and stronger leaving her to settle for 4th and 5th places for most of her races. These are the same girls she has raced against in the last two years and it is simply down to the number of hours these girls put in which is apparently every day training and in some cases twice a day. Somehow Iman understands that and did not seem to be bothered with her performance and was happy with her relay medals. This year JSC brought a bigger teams bringing almost three times the number of swimmers to last year and from being the winner or runner-up last year, JSC came 5th this time. But the kids all head a good time taking part and spending time together and in Ayden's case, chatting to the volunteers! And despite working within a small space the competition was very well organised - hopefully we will be back here again next year.











Saturday, September 08, 2012

Ayden's First Sailing Lesson

We had one happy boy this morning. Ayden has been asking to join the lessons for several months now and though he is very keen, he was too young to start. The instructor kept telling him only when he turns 6. Well he's only about 6 weeks away and the instructor could no longer turn down his enthusiasm! He had a great first session and was just as keen to de-rigg as he was to rigg up the oppy. I say he must be looking forward to next Saturday already but he will have to wait for a couple of weeks!