4 Stray Katz: A taste of reality, complete with our own bathroom!

After the disastrous time I had last year whilst Daniel worked at a shutdown in Karratha (and stayed at camp), we decided to all stay together in Karratha where the kids and I could enjoy all the family friendly facilities the town has to offer. We also decided on an ensuite site and wow what a luxury it is having your own bathroom. I am certainly not missing traipsing back and forth to the toilet or showering whilst others are going to the toilet! So nice to have some privacy and be able to leave our toiletries in the shower. It's the small things that can make all the difference.

Anyway we decided to get Emilia into kinder whilst we were here as she has completely missed out. As it turned out she is actually compulsory school age in WA and they school closest to the caravan park (which happens to be the newest and best school in Karratha) had a space in a preprimary class. She awoke at 5.30am on her first day, full of excitement and anxious to get into her uniform and get to school. She has fitted in well and after a few days of angst (after the initial excitement she realised how long she would be away from me for and decided she was missing me too much) she now enjoys school a lot, has made lots of friends (we had her school friends birthday party on Sunday) and relishes in telling me all the things she has done each day. We do homework each night and she is very pleased (as are we) with the development in her reading and writing after only a few weeks. I am finding it very weird being the parent instead of the teacher though and it has taken all my self control not to try to take over in the classroom in the morning!

Anyway with Emilia at school Jackson wanted to go too! Instead we have found a great 3 year old kinder next to Emilia's school and he also goes several times a week to the 'kinder' (crèche) at the gym. He loves it and actually hides when I come to pick him up as he doesn't want to go. He wore a stripy t-shirt on his first day and decided this was his uniform and would not wear anything else. I now have a few stripy t-shirts that we rotate so he can wear his 'oooniform' every time he goes to kinder. It is very cute to see how excited they are and also makes me realise they will enjoy a bit of 'normal' life when we return to Vic.

I have joined the gym and am loving the Pilates and yoga classes, especially knowing Jackson is happy with the lovely staff in the crèche. Jackson and I also go the library several times a week and enjoy rhyme and story time (and the air conditioning).

Daniel is working extremely hard and his feet are struggling to get used to wearing work boots for 14+ hours a day in 35deg heat after a year in thongs. He has to soak them in Epsom salts each night before bed as he can hardly walk by the time he gets home. He is certainly earning his money on this job but hopefully it will make it easier for us when we get home as we still want to buy in Mansfield.

It is another experience to add to the list and as a friend said the other day Emilia will certainly have a story to tell next year when she starts school properly in Vic about the time she went to school in Karratha, where the aircon blasts all day, where classrooms have fridges to store the kids lunches and where the uniform is only shorts and a t-shirt (no jumpers needed or available)!

We should be here for around another 2 weeks before touring the centre of Australia then heading back to Vic (although we are a bit apprehensive about coming home and ending our trip we are also excited to see everyone, especially Rascal).

Here are some pics of our big school and kinder kids.