Phew! Where did the weekend go?

Thank goodness I only have two kids! How on earth parents with three, four, or even more manage I cannot imagine!

Out of school activities are so popular here, that if you come across a child that doesn't do some sort of hobby, sport, music activity in addition to their school stuff, it's the exception rather than the rule. Even trying to limit what ours do, both for reasons of cost and of time, at weekends you have to be a scheduling queen to work it all out (which I am, of course, thanks to my handy HP organiser, which as a phone, is a very good diary!!). Ours just do soccer (one in a school team, one in a club team), choir (daughter in both school and Aussie Girls Choir), drama (just daughter) guitar lessons and ensemble (just son), and something called Pedal Prix (just son - don't ask!)

So now the soccer season has begun here, this weekend for instance we had to take darling daughter to school soccer match on the other side of town for 9:30 kick off (more on that later!), then darling son to club soccer match for 12:15 kick off at different venue, then darling son to Pedal Prix practice at 2pm - and that's just the Saturday! Sunday (Mothers' Day here in Oz) had to accompany DD to Mothers Day Classic - a charity walk/run in aid of Breast Cancer Research, where her choir were singing before the start, and then do the walk with the girls - which, admittedly was great fun for a great cause but hey, it was hard dragging myself out of bed at 7am on a Sunday! When Channel 9 pointed a camera at me before the walk and tried to get sense out of me for an interview, they were wasting their time I'm afraid!!

On the subject of soccer venues, DD goes to a high school that's about ten minutes drive away, probably walkable in about 40 minutes, but in their wisdom they have decided that the girls' soccer A team should play all their matches at a school on the other side of Adelaide! Whereas the B and C team get to play at home every week! She was so pleased to be selected for the A team, as last year the B and C teams played elsewhere, and the A team played at home! Just can't win.......

Added to all of their social and sporting commitments, we try and fit in time to do stuff together, so Friday night (the only night there isn't some kind of training/rehearsals/lessons) we headed out for a meal at the Pepper Leaf Restaurant, Tea Tree Gully. This is a Vietnamese Restaurant apparently, which as far as I can make out is a cross between Chinese and Thai. Not having eaten "vietnamese" before though, we could have really done with a Set Menu with suggestions on how much to order and what goes with what! Faced with this huge menu covered in assorted dishes, we were a bit in the dark, so I have no idea if what we ended up ordering is typical of their food or not. It was ok, but all the dishes we ordered were heavy on carrots, red peppers (that's capsicums, to us aussies!) and onions! I imagined pots of prepared veg in the kitchen, with the chef throwing handfuls of each into different sauces, adding a bit of meat and coming up with 50 variations!

Saturday night we had tickets to see Cats, a production by MetMuscials at the Arts Theatre in Adelaide. Bought the tickets ages ago, but foolishly didn't look at the seat numbers so when we got there it turned out they'd seated the kids in a completely different part of the theatre to us! Unable to change them, as the show was more or less full, but surely when you buy a family ticket of two adults plus two kids, common sense would dictate that you would like to sit together?! Anyway, the performance was good, even if OH felt the actors went a little over the top with their cat mannerisms - even thought one was going to lick her own bottom at one point when she raised one leg high up in the air!

Anyway, that's our busy weekend over - until it all starts again next week! Just can't imagine how parents manage with more kids than our two - chatting with another choir mum on the walk, she mentioned a friend of hers that has 11 kids..... now that just doesn't bear thinking about, in so many ways!!