Friends with Holiday Houses

Anne and Angus bought a holiday house 1hr up the coast at the end of last year. I have seen photos and the place looks amazing! I have heard about their adventures up there - fishing, the beach, kayaking, crab catching, prawning. It just sounds lovely. One Thursday at Mother's Group, Anne and I were chatting about our weekend. She was headed up to the holiday house with the family and we had a quiet weekend with nothing on besides Preschool BBQ and church. Anne then suggested that we could go up after the Preschool BBQ, have a sleepover and then we hang out until after lunch and head home for church. James and I chatted and we decided that we would be up for the challenge. 

We headed to preschool BBQ for dinner and enjoyed face painting, playing and chatting. It was really nice to catch up with Anna, Neil, Emma and Mikey as well as to meet Gus (Alexander's little buddy) and his parents. 

We then headed home, did teeth and the kids got into their pjs. We hopped into the car and headed up north. Eliza had a little nap in the car and Alexander fell asleep. Fortunately he transferred when we arrived and went straight back to sleep. Winner! Eliza and Daniel were both quite excited and so were quite awake, plus sharing a room together. Flynnie hadn't gone to sleep yet so was very excited that we were there so he kept coming out of his room too. 

In between kids coming out to say hi, say they can't get to sleep, say that Flynnie came into their room, etc. we had a lovely time sitting in their lounge room chatting, sharing a drink and chocolates. It was just really nice to sit and catch up together. We were going to do prawning but with all the storms the water was pretty gross with a lot of weed there so it wouldn't have been nice prawns. Eventually all the kids were asleep and we were growing tired so headed off to bed. Unfortunately sleep wasn't the best over the night. Eliza and Daniel basically tag teamed going to the toilet, calling out and just waking us up. I was basically up each hour. Fortunately they didn't wake everyone everytime. 

Daniel and Lachie were up at 6am and Ems was up at 6:30. Anne and Angus hadn't told their kids the surprise of our kids being there. Flynnie knew because he was still awake when we arrived and Lachie woke before we had head to bed but Ems was quite excited about her surprise and was even more excited once Eliza woke up. The view from their place is gorgeous! So relaxing.

The morning started with Angus, Lachie, James and Daniel heading out on the kayaks to check the crab catchers. They have 3 out there. The night before Angus caught a massive mud crab! This morning they caught a blue swimmer crab.

Lachie picked up the crab

He taught Daniel how to hold it. Proud of him having a go.

The younger ones enjoyed watching them all out on the water.

Cheeky boys

While Angus made the kids some breakfast James went to get coffee and Anne and I went for a lovely kayak. It was so peaceful out on the water! A perfect escape.

Angus then took Daniel, Lachie and James out on the boat for Daniel to do fishing for the first time. He was so excited about it! I didn't know how he would go with being on the boat and it being a slow process to try and catch a fish but James said he did pretty well.

What made it even more excited was that Daniel caught his first fish with the last piece of bait. Great work Daniel! He did have to throw it back though because it was too small.

While they were on the boat, Anne and I took Flynnie, Alexander, Ems and Eliza to the beach. The girls enjoyed playing in the water with the boogie boards while the boys loved playing on the sand.

It was a struggle to pull the kids away from the beach! We headed back to their place for lunch - sausages, fresh crab meat (yum!), salad and bread rolls. Perfect and tasty lunch. And then we packed up while the kids enjoyed an ice cream.

It was such a fun weekend! We will definitely try and head back up there with them and stay for a night or 2. They are such wonderful friends and I just love watching the little friendships grow between each of the pairs of kids. The friendships are forced, they just connect.

So overall it was a success, even with many wake ups in the night. And the kids have now had their first sleepover at a friends place. Pretty special!