Wordless Wednesday : Of scales, claws and the beating of drums.

Our new, beautiful 12-metre long dragon boat arrived !

 ' Champion' racing boat !

With customised dragon scales on the hull in our club colours , a new drum and complete with an ornately carved and painted dragon’s head at the bow and a tail (not shown yet) at the stern. Our old dragon head looks like a school project next to it

I'm not sure when our maiden paddle is and there is a special ceremony to dot the eyes.

It's large; large enough to seat up to 20 paddlers, a sweep stands on the rear . During races a 'drumme' balances upon a small wooden seat on the bow. Then we battle it out to the beating of drums. The paddlers represent the claws. 


Lifting the new boat is a piece of cake (with a few strong women and men) compared to our older boats. They arrive on 40ft sea containers in packs of ten (on a slow boat from China)

An InLinkz Link-up

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Billboards

I love reading billboard signs  - there are so many clever ads and slogans.

Forgot about morning breath !

Clever

Punishment or reward ?

Funny and serious.

I Love Kermit

Short and sweet.

Mona

*This isn't a sponsored post -I just think it is fun idea so I decided to share it with you - from the LEGO Festival of Play as the 50th anniversary celebrations continue.

You can now submit a personal message you would like to see built with a custom-made giant LEGO letters and displayed on a special LEGO Builtboard for all to see.

Brisbane will be abuzz as a giant double-sided 4m tall x 5m wide LEGO Builtboard is installed in King George Square, Brisbane from August 29 – September 2.

You can submit a message (up to 36 characters long) at LEGOfestival.com.au - NOW , so get your thinking caps on! There’s limited spots and only the most unique will secure a space.

Each message will be hand built by LEGO Certified Professional, Ryan McNaught, who will be on site every day spelling out your message. The LEGO letters are approximately 80cm tall, and are made out of hundreds of LEGO bricks in white, yellow, blue, green and red. 

Whether it's a declaration of love, a happy birthday message or a big announcement – GO say it in LEGO!

These are 2 - I did for hubby 

Keep calm – let’s do the time warp again

Keep Calm – you only stepped on Lego

PS : * I do have a Lego giveaway coming up soon !
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Wordless Wednesday ~ Hang a gate

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.
J. R. R. Tolkien

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.
Lyndon B. Johnson

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Zookeeper ~ at not your average Zoo { Giveaway }

We were recently invited to a preview of the January 12th release of Zookeeper , a very cute and hilarious family comedy movie. It was #1 at Australian box office too.

Romance and animals in a comedy together , animals showing us how we are doing it wrong - hilarious , though of course crazy ! Yes, it's very funny and the lack of swearing appealed to me .



They manage to pull it altogether very nicely. It isn't Toy Story 3 or Cars 2 but a harmless comedy with less violence than either of them.The musical scenes at the end are brilliant.

All the animals at the Franklin Park Zoo love their kindhearted caretaker, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James). Finding himself more comfortable with a lion than a lady, Griffin decides the only way to get the girl of his dreams is to leave the zoo and find a more glamorous job to win her over. The animals, in a panic, decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret: they can talk! To keep Griffin from leaving, they decide to teach him the rules of courtship -- animal style!

My five year olds really enjoyed the talking animals ...the jokes probably went right over their heads.

They are big fans of talking animal movies (Babe ; Nemo; Charlotte's web, Racing Stripes). The very cute furry co-stars are voiced by Cher (Lioness), Nick Nolte, Sly Stallone (Lion) and Adam Sandler (Monkey) to name a few. You've got to hear their impressions to believe it.

I think my boys hardly noticed the only bit I found mildly disturbing, Bernie the Gorilla describing how he had been abused by another zookeeper . He gets his just desserts in the end , the other zookeeper, not Bernie.

It certainly isn't your average zoo and isn't just a kid's movie - there are laughs a plenty for adults. Laughing is contagious. I also loved the special effects and trying to see if the animals were real . The romance at the end was sweet !

The PG rating relates to mild crude humour but if there was, it was very mild in my opinion.

Kevin James (Griffin , the zookeeper) was , well , a right idiot in love - going all out to win the dream girl who ditched him a few years back , again. The end results were somewhat predictable - watch out for the dynamic Rosario Dawson, the other NOT so romantic interest in the movie.

Bernie, the Gorilla and his obsession with TGI Friday's is very funny and well played out. Harmless ; still I wondered why he didn't need pants o_O

I laughed most of the way through ; I did miss a bit due to a toilet stop and lollie refuel !
 
To celebrate the release - I have two copies of Zookeeper to giveaway : one Blu-ray disc and one DVD version to be won.

To enter - answer this question -

If you could have a chat with an animal, which animal would it be and what would you talk about ?

The two most original or creative answers win one copy each ! ( Tell me which version you would like or if it doesn't matter)

Closes February 3rd 11.59pm , 2011.
Australian residents only.

Like them on Facebook and check out the Free game app too.
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Wordless Wednesday ~ A long way from Gnome

We told the Drummer Boys to go find Gnomeo and they DID ! No Juliet :(

There is no place like ~Gnomesville~

ABC



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Sunday ~ 7 things to keep the kids happy for next to nothing

 (ps the red mark on his chin is a spill off the bike) Joel - he had red shirt underneath

Double trouble !

Transform each other ...
This is my  brother- in-law with no head, it's my printers /desk behind him. He does look very slim in this photo. Shh don't tell him. I can't remember what filter [?] it was

 1.Take funny photos with Photobooth - Sam took this of himself.

2. Let kids clean and vacuum the car ...wash it if you have time !

3. Ride scooters to park

4. Swing (& slide)

 

5. Discover  Dandelions on the way home - blow

Find some drum sticks and beat out a tune

6. Pop some popcorn and put on a family movie DVD.

 7. Chalk drawings on the concrete or blackboards.

How did you spend your Sunday ?

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Yooneek and Kre8iv Names

Kewl & Kewt baby names ...only we all grow up and then spend the rest of our life spelling it out to people.

Would you thank your parents for your name if they spelt it so yooneekly just for the sake of it.
I think knott.
Fair enough if it is cultural or back to ancient spellings.


At my sons' preschool there are 2 Samuels and a Sameul.

At playgroup someone spells my Samuel's name - Sameul and another person - Samual.
I was confused myself the other day when I was about to write it down. I seriously got out something to check.

I was already wondering why people have to be so kre8iv when I came across an article in the Reader's Digest about the very issue.

We all know the substitution , rearranging of letters and additional letters does nothing to change the pronunciation of even simple names. It does make them seem harder to pronounce, let alone spell.


I am not one to judge but seriously I wonder why people want their children to stand out...whether they like it or not.

It is more like torture the name spellling to increase the 'torture' at school ...then everytime they fill a form.

Cimberleigh?

Keightey ?

Dayvd ? or Daivd ? an Australian school friend's mum spelt it differently in birthday cards every year.

Matthew with one tea or two ? I am often asked !


When it comes time to do the family tree you might find that 'branch' falls off when no-one can look up the name because of the unusual spelling. We had a bit of fun searching the NSW database recently but you can't much information unless the marriage is prior to 1960. A quick look at the database marriage names revealed mostly normal names too prior to 1960.

Unusual names are a different story but still have their problems.



Cillian ...now I know this is a Irish name but how do you say it ...KILL ian. A little fellow at 4 boldly told stood up to the Principal of the school and told him he said it wrong. He was receiving an award :) too. Every time he got an award he had to do it at school and the kids teased him mercilessleigh.

Mozart ...moes art apparently but seriously it does suit the guy who now wants to be a musician. The guy gets asked all the time why he was called Mozart ?

Out of interest  I also googled 'yooneek' baby names and found this excellent post too.

Ps When my Samuel was in the NIC unit the baby boy, a metre away and right next to him, born the day before, had the same first name and surname. Exactly - no middle names were used. The file had a sticker to say beware patient of same name or similar.  

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Search and rescue

One of the tricky decisions we have to make as parents is how hard we let our kids play with 'their' toys .

Do we stiffle creativity & freedom to play and learn for the sake of keeping the toys new looking ?

Do we want toys to stay in pristine , almost brand new out/in of the box condition ? or be loved and well played with especially in the case of boys.


I am not talking about willful destruction of toys (think Sid in Toy story) but letting them get a bit dirty and well used outside.


At the farm the boys love to take Buzz & Woody on adventures. Woody once clean and pristine is now slightly dirty and scruffy looking. I laugh at the fun they have with him , role playing. They don't need any encouragement from me.


The rescues well ..."I know ... lets get a big stick and whack Woody down" if Buzz fails on his rescue mission.

See more play ideas at

Where do you stand ?

ETA - Since Woody is a Cowboy 'doll' I guess he qualifies as an inside toy than can be a taken outside toy.

PS I don't let them take the Duplo outside because it is so damn hard to clean the dirt off and out of all the holes.
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