Jax is playing rugby, and scored his first try at the game last week. Yay! We have interviews with his teachers next week, so that should be interesting. The schools produce report cards twice a year, and there is no online system to see how they are doing grade-wise. I suppose it would make sense to know this by your kid telling you, but 1)teenage boys mumble a lot so I don't know if I'd hear it anyway and 2) Jax forgets to tell me important things sometimes for a few days.
He is going on a trip with 11 other boys to Tasmania in July. They will be trekking for 14 days, I think, and are required to carry everything they'll need during that time in their rucksacks. I am really excited that he is going, because this will be one of those things that he will always remember. But then, I used to get excited about going to the Hasty Tasty for a hot dog, so maybe I'm overthinking it. But damn those were good hot dogs. At any rate, I am sure it's going to be a great experience for him. Hollie has informed him that if he runs into problems with dingos, he should "take note of their number" and call the rangers to report it. Dingos have numbers? What?
I was dropping Jax at school one day, and grabbed my phone to snap a photo. What I ended up with was way better than what I was going for. TIPPING HIS HAT!! I love this tradition. I was so excited to capture it in a photo. It was like going to the vending machine and ordering up blahhh pretzels, only to open the door at the bottom to find your pretzels and a Snickers bar that either fell or someone forgot. Oh lucky day! Anywho, he made me promise that I would not post this on Facebook. He didn't mention Blogger, though, so I'm going to play dumb and assume it is okay.
Hollie is still doing 3000 activities and continues to try and add more. She swims twice a week with a coach, and I think my girl might be getting a little bit of muscle on her! She really seems to enjoy it as well, so next term the plan is to drop art and ceramics classes after school and pick up another swim day.
She continues to be an original. She has been seeing an occupational therapist at school for help with handwriting. Imagine our reaction upon seeing this:
I'm especially loving the little signature she included at the end. Fantastic.
Brynn is her normal self - eager to try anything and independent as everything. This kid LOVES to cook. It's a contrast to what she normally likes - cars, sports, and tools. The nice thing about this is that her love of cooking has inspired Hollie to want to learn as well, and even Jax is getting into the game. They each get a night to cook each week, and we eat it (I may have bought a little extra bread and peanut butter just in case....and oh..there is a new whipped peanut butter by Kraft that is soooo good...) . We went over to the home of a friend of Brynn's to cook last weekend. They are a really nice family from Serbia and I love hearing their stories. The kids made orange muffins that were yumm-o! 
She is home with me on Friday and we go to swim lessons and Humpty Squad, where she is learning a variety of sports. She loves cricket, and tells me things about it, though I have no idea what she's talking about.
I've gone back to work part time, and am trying to keep up with everything. It's stressful at times, but so far working out okay.
If Jeff's contract ends at 2 years, we are 10 months from coming home...Wow.
