Lathams News: EASTER AT TANNUM SANDS 2018

As usualy we spent a week of our Easter break at Tannum Sands with family..
Our church family has been coming here for the past 18 years or so. This year there were about 50 of us camping for the long weekend...

It is always a special time for us as our daughter, son in law and grandchildren join us. The grandkids love this special holiday with their Moppy and Poppy in our caravan.

Family camping

Sarah, Colin and the children arrived not long after we arrived there so were in time to help us set up the annex. We had invested in a set of double decker bunks for the children this year and they were thrilled with their new beds...

Testing out their new bunk beds...

Checking out his camping chair....

The weather wasn't the best this year... It wasn't too bad over the actual Easter weekend but for the rest of the weak it was either raining or overcast which wasn't the best weather for the beach, but we still managed to have an awesome time away with the kids....

The kids were pretty excited about a visit from the old Easter Bunny, and wrote little notes to him, and gathered grass to put into their hats to make nests for a delivery of chocolate Easter eggs.

The Easter Bunny has been....

Abundance of chocolate

Chocolate eggs hidden everywhere

Shopping Poppy their stash or chocolate

Watch out Willow Poppy is going to eat your chocolate

The Caravan Park had organised an Easter Egg hunt at 8am in the morning. They had about 600 eggs to distribute but from past experiences, the littles don't ever get a look in and last year it was all over before it had even started.

This year I decided to buy a couple of bags of smaller eggs, and organise an Easter Egg hunt for our littlies and a couple of the kids who were camping with us in our group. It was much more successful with the bigger kids helping the little ones and sharing with them.

The group of children who took part in our Easter Egg Hunt

Loving his chocolate

A mouth full of chocolate

On the Monday whilst everyone else was packing up ready to head home. Poppy took the kids out to check the crab pots and do a spot of fishing..
We had to get a new life jacket for Max and whilst he was initially happy to try it on, he wasn't too keen on keeping it on.

Max's new lifejacket

Trying on their lifejackets

I can't say that the fishing or the crabs were any good at Tannum this year, but the kids sure had fun going out in the boat with their Poppy.
Willow even managed to drive the boat...She was chuffed.....

Willow and Sarah getting into the boat

After checking the crab pots they all did a spot of fishing... Willow is usually very good at catching fish. There just didn't seem to be any fish around at all this Easter. Wondering whether it has anyting to do with the murky waters whipped up by the cyclone out to sea,...

The girls are fishing

Willow learning how to drive the boat

Feeling terribly chuffed at driving the boat herself

Meanwhile whilst these guys were all off fishing, I tackled the Mt Washmore load of washing that had piled up over the four days. It was a good thing that I talked it today as the rain was to set in the following day...

On the Tuesday, Sarah took off into Gladstone to spend the day at the Uni Library doing an assignment and studying. We were left at home to look after the children, well technically it was me that was left home to look after the kiddliwinks, as Steve went off to check the crabpots and try his hand at a bit more fishing... it was all very disappointing as he didn't managed to catch a fish, although we did pick up a couple of crabs.

Meanwhile, the kids played on the iPad and watched a movie as it was way to wet to wander outside and do too much...

Some iPad time

We also played some games and Willow did some of her school work as well as some reading for me. She loves school and loves to learn. It is quite exciting seeing her so keen and seeing how far she has come in this short period of time.

In the afternoon it fined up for an hour or so, so we headed over to the inflatable water slide which was just behind our van... Great value at $2 for the hour to go sliding... Willow loved it.
I took Max and Willow's friend Elia over also but neither of the boys wanted to do it in the end.

Willow enjoying the water slide whilst Elia watches on.

Wednesday was another wet day, and Sarah once again headed into Gladstone to spend the day in the Library studying and doing her assignment... It was easier for her to do it on wet days. It would have been so much harder for her if the weather had been good.

The kids started the morning by watching a DVD on the tele. We then did some craft together...
It was so much fun watching these kids set up their craft and getting involved in it. It certainly kept the ball rolling.....

We spent most of the morning playing indoor. The rain let up for a while so Barry (Elia's Dad) decided to take the kids for a ride on the scooters and bikes around the caravan park. We had thought about taking them along the parth to the beach front but with the weather being the way it was decided against it especially since Max still wasn't 100% well and he still seemed to have a cold.

They did get caught out in the rain and all get a little wet. On the way back to the caravan, the kids found a great puddle to play in, so we let them have a good play in the hope they would burn off a heap of energy and come back have a quick bite to eat before we put them down for a short nap.

We had plans to take them into town a little later in the afternoon to see a movie...

It was good to let the kids get outside and burn off some energy. AFter two days of cabin fever, this was very much needed...

We fed them and then put the two boys down for a quick sleep as we had plans to take them into the movies later in the day...

I lay on the bed with Max and the next thing I know, I must of dozed off as the next I looked up and here was Max up off the bed and standing at the kitchen sink with his hands full of this...

such a cheeky face..

He wasn't happy about having to surrender his chocolate. This time I decided not to lay with him, as I didn't want to fall asleep again... It didn't take him long to fall off to sleep.
Meanwhile, whilst Max was sleeping, Willow did some of her homework for school.
Part of her job was to keep a five day journal of some of the special things she had done and was doin through the holidays...

Writing her holiday journal as part of her homework..

We woke the boys up just after 2pm as we needed to head off to Gladstone so that we could arrive in time to see the 3.10pm movie Sherlocks Gnomes...
The kids were very excited about going to the movies. This is another great thing to do when the weater is wet....

In the cinema

The movie finished around 4.45pm which still gave us a good half hour until we had to meet the girls, so we ended up taking the kids into the game centre at the cinema....

We decided that we would meet the girls and have dinner in Gladstone, as we had planned to have a BBQ tonight but it would mean that we would have to stop off at the supermarket to buy some snags, and then still go home, cook dinner and bath the kids.

We figured if we had it in Gladstone, we could just head home straight after dinner and put the kids straight to bed... Because it had been raining for the last couple of days, there was a good chance the kids could get dirty and cold, sitting out under the awning...

We decided to have dinner at Hogs Breath in Gladstone. I have to admit it was a great choice...

It was a great night out especially since Barry and Anna were leaving in the morning so it was nice to have dinner out together.

Thursday was a quieter day around our camp site. We spent the morning helping Anna and Barry pack up as they were heading home today. Steve and Sarah then went out to bring in the crabpots and then Steve and Sarah took off into Gladstone in the afternoon. I was going to go with them, but the kids have hardly been in the pool all week, so in the end I decided to stay back at the Caravan Park and take them on the waterslide and then to the pool. It was their last chance to enjoy it all as they were leaving the following morning....

In for the big splash

Max was keen to go until he got there... I think the number of big kids on it scarced him a little and then he just wanted to watch.

Max was keen to do it but by the time he got there and saw all the big kids, he just wanted to stay with his Moppy. He did however enjoy sitting on the pedal cars and this amused him for quite a while before we went and had a swim in the pool.

Love these munchkins and I love the fact that we can have a camping holiday with them each year...
Hopefully these will be great memories for them as they grow us...
We were all due to go home the following day, but Steve and I decided to stay one extra day after the kids left...

It meant that we could take our time packing up and then get away the following morning without feeling under pressure....

We had the boat all washed and packed, our outside tarp and kitchen pulled down, and the annex down and packed away by 2pm that afternoon which then gave us a couple of hours to just chill out together... We watched a movie and then enjoyed a nice wine and some cheese and crackers just on sunset...