Day 14 - Free fun & Fimo

Today started as one of those days. The kids were sick and tired of being stuck inside following a week of weather that made it too uncomfortable to go out. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get them to agree to disagree and tempers were frayed (including mine).  Time to go out!

We had planned to do a quick trip to the park hoping that some fresh air and exercise would change their moods for the better. Then someone mentioned a walk to a cave down the road in the National Park where you can see Aboriginal hand paintings and suddenly we were on a bush walk. Half way to the cave we saw another sign to a swimming hole that we've been meaning to look at since we arrived in the mountains. Our plans changed again and we took off down some steep rocky steps.

Gosh, I'm so glad we did. We hadn't planned to visit the National Park today and we certainly hadn't planned for a swim -but with my children where there's water and a bit of sunshine someone is always going to get wet. We had the whole place to ourselves so I let them strip off to their underwear and dive in.

In seconds my tired and moody kids were happy again looking for "crystals" in the sand and splashing around in the cool water. If I'd packed sun screen and food we could have stayed all day.

With my patience restored I was in the mood for some craft this afternoon so we got out the Fimo clay and made some beads. Ben made a robot to make into a magnet.

I'm two weeks into my no shopping challenge today and we've done really well. So far we've stuck to our plan. It's been hard at times. Mornings like this morning usually make me want to go and do something with the kids - the mall, the zoo, a trip to Sydney, DVD's from the shop. Today we did get to do things together - free things - and it was just as fun.