Eli's surf school

All on his own and with no prompting from me, Eli has started to show a very keen interest in surfing. In fact, he's already pretty much ditched the air-filled surf mat I bought him for Christmas and is now only interested in the blue boogie board that he can stand up on. As an example, here are a few pics of him 'surfing' in the canal at Noosa.





Of course, it doesn't always go so well, as demonstrated in these two photos from a session at the sandbank...





Even though he doesn't like saltwater in his eyes (and who can blame him), he's always keen to climb back on and 'dance' on the board again. These last two video's showing how comfortable he is getting up on the board and how fleet-footed he is - not bad for a little fella that is not yet three years old!

The Fisherman.

Another career possibility (or maybe it's just going to be a hobby) for Eli appeared over summer, because despite the fact that he'd never seen it before, Eli really took to the idea of catching a fish using Grandad's fishing rod. Here he is, waiting for the big one...






Despite his bravado and the well thought out plan for what we'd do if he did actually catch a fish, it seems that Eli might have (unfortunately) inherited Grandad's fishing skills too... as no fish were caught. Maybe next time...

Does Santa go in for rust proofing?

Does anyone know if Santa rust proofs? The reason I ask is that Eli quickly decided that the Tonka truck and boat that Santa gave him could go into saltwater, no questions asked. So, on Boxing Day, when we got up early and headed off in the boat to our favourite sandbank, Eli's truck and boat came with us. Obviously I'm comfortable with the boat hiting the water, but as you can see from these photos, Eli took a few liberties with the truck that I wouldn't have...not only did he submerse it in water, but he also took to filling it up with sand. And I'm really not sure what we were doing with the trailer, but surely the engineers at Tonka have thought of this sort of use?




After driving his boat over every square centimetre of the sandbank, Eli then dropped the anchor and secured the vessel on the shore (just as Grandad was doing much the same in the background).





Despite his attachment to his boat and truck, Eli did take a few moments out of his busy schedule on this visit to the sandbank to chase some pelicans...as you can see from the photo below, the pelicans were big enough that they probably could have gobbled him up in one go, but thankfully they didn't. Maybe they know that he punches well above his weight, because they took to the air long before he got anywhere near them.





That afternoon, our swim in the canal also involved some Tonka testing. Initially Eli launched the boat and was going to leave the truck on the sand, but then thought better of it, dragging it into the depths...




Thankfully Grandma had the common sense (perhaps recalling similar activities 30 odd years ago?) to attach a few shoelaces to the truck and the boat, otherwise we may have lost them to the bottom of the canal.





I'm happy to report that after several days of rigorous testing along these lines, I can inform the Tonka engineers that although the truck's axles have begun to rust and the stickers are peeling off, the rest of the vehicle (which is plastic) is holding up well.

The Christmas festivous!

Christmas Day consisted of two parts - Eli celebrating in Noosa, followed by Eli celebrating in Maleny. Fortunately, naps and a good drive in the car separated these celebrations, otherwise we may not have survived.

Not being one to miss out on the festivities, Eli woke early on Christmas morning, around 5am (which isn't actually that different from his normal wake up time). He was pretty impressed that Santa had found him at Noosa and that pretty much every gift under the Christmas tree was his for the taking...





Eli wasted no time ripping into the gifts and there were so many that he actually didn't spend much time enjoying the gifts at first - I think the ripping was the most exciting part, as demonstrated by the carnage in these photos.




After a gruelling unwrapping session, Eli sat contentedly on the floor with his new Kookaburra friend. I asked him if he was happy and he delivered his trademark cheesey grin, followed by a more sedate smile (which took some coaching!).




But there was no time for lounging around - we soon jumped into the car and headed up the range for Christmas lunch in Maleny. Here we found more relatives, another Christmas tree and more presents for Eli!




Eli and Alora took on the role of Santa's little helpers, which was supposed to simply involve the delivery of presents to their intended recipients. For those gifts that Eli couriered, it's fair to say that not many of them arrived at their destination with the wrapping paper still intact, but I guess that's all part of his high-end service.





Eli's paper ripping was starting to loose it's zest towards the end of the gift-giving session, but he soon got his spark back when he discovered a toy that makes the world's most annoying (and loud) noise...



While Eli and Alora wallowed in gifts, Charlie, Harrison and Oliver just took it all in from their spot on the floor...I can only imagine what chaos next Christmas (and the next few after that) will bring.




Eli and Dad nearing the end of a tiring, but successful, Christmas Day.

Lawn skiing.

Our family gathering just before Christmas this silly season was great fun. Not only did we enjoy the company, the tucker, the open spaces and the pool, but we also had a great time lawn skiing. Yes, that's right, lawn skiing. It turns out that when there's really not all that much grass to mow you can get some water-skiing skills training done whilst being towed behind the ride-on mower. One of Eli's older second cousins was the first to have a go, but as soon as Eli saw it I knew he'd want a crack at it too. So, here are a few pics and a video of Eli taking to it, somewhat ironically, like a duck to water...





I was a little more surprised at the time (but on reflection, not really) that my Dad also wanted to have a go. He actually ended up cracking the board, so my perception that it's more a kids activity than one for adults was fully supported...having said that, the kids thought it was fantastic that my Dad had a go (you can see them running after him enthusiastically in this photo).

Why daycare centres shouldn't have jumping castles.

Eli's daycare centre's end of year party was great fun. There was singing, dancing, sausages, cordial, ice blocks and...a jumping castle! I'd previously kept the existence of jumping castles very consciously under wraps from Eli and it came as no surprise to me that he loved jumping around like a lunatic all afternoon. In fact, Eli and some of his closest mates (Sam and Ethan) had to be closely watched all afternoon and they were particularly unkeen (as Eli is generally) on the idea that they had to share the jumping castle with other kids and had to wait their turn. Fortunately for these three guys very few other kids shared their stamina and enthusiasm, so they had lots of goes at the jumping castle. There were surprisingly few head clashes and no major injuries were recorded, which was a great relief to all of the parents in attendance. Finally, when they started taking the air out of the jumping castle - much to Eli's disgust - Eli decided that it was time to go home (I'm sure he was completely knackered), even though the older kids were still signing and dancing.


Knowing Eli as I do, it came as no surprise that the following day he sought to adapt his jumping castle skills to some tom-foolery around the house. Here's a short video of him jumping off the couch (a sport which is banned in our house - but I couldn't resist filming it before putting a stop to it) and having a great time of it.