Holidays

It's been a long time since I last posted, so I thought I'd have a bit of a ramble about how I spent my holiday just past.

The very first day of the holidays I got up at 5:30 am with Caitlyn to go to the Australian Flute Festival in Canberra. So much for catching up on some sleep. It was totally worth it though, and the Festival was an incredible learning and inspirational experience. The highlight was that we chose and bought a lovely brand new flute for Caitlyn and I almost bought myself a real piccolo that actually works (the last one worked for about a week before it ceased to be playable and was also completely irrepairable). The only reason I didn't buy it was that my teacher thought she knew of someone who could sell me a cheaper one. It was great fun trying the hundreds of different types of flutes and piccolos, though.

I spent the next 1½ days after that at the Festival as well (it is a 3-day event) before getting picked up in Canberra on Monday morning to go on a family holiday to the coast. It was a nice trip, though I didn't do any driving. We spent about 4 days staying at our grandparents' holiday house in Culburra Beach, and it was just amazing. I'm not usually a fan of holidays away from home, but I loved every minute of this one. Our family has been going on holidays to Culburra since before I was born, but it never grows old; it's a wonderful location, with a lake just down the road, an oval, park and bbq's across the road, two beaches within walking distance and a cove a short walk away. We're so thankful to be able to stay at a place like this, and find that we appreciate it more every time we go.

We spent a lot of time swimming (although the water was absolutely freezing), walking, playing games, talking, and fishing. We are terrible fisherman, and hardly manage to catch anything worth keeping, but still had a great time trying. Joseph managed to catch a baby bream by hooking it's side... I still don't know how the hook got stuck in the fish's body instead of its mouth...

After spending a few days in Culburra we went to a caravan park in a nice little coastal town called Kioloa near Bateman's Bay. This was an extended family holiday organised by Mum's parents for all of their family to spend a weekend together. It worked out very well, and everyone really enjoyed catching up with each other. We had a lot of fun playing tennis, and a bit of healthy (?!) competition was aroused in some participants...

On Sunday we headed back to Culburra, to spend the remainder of our holiday there. Feeling all fired up, we played a bit of tennis there. With the main focus on relaxing, we also did a bit more walking, talking, fishing, and went to the beach although the weather wasn't so great. One unique aspect of Venturas is that we sometimes like to have long philosophical discussions analyzing various issues in some depth. In the holidays when we're all together with Joshua it happens quite frequently. It's a lot of fun, even when we're not really serious, but just talking and getting to know each other better.

This afternoon we arrived back home in Cooma, all recharged and energized to tackle another term. It was by far the most enjoyable holiday I've had yet, but I'm glad to be back in the usual busy routine again getting things done. Fourth term is looking very promising already, and I can't wait to get started again.

How did you spend your holidays, and what are you looking forward to in the new term?