Theatre Restaurant

For the first time in 15 years (since the inception of Pine Theatre Restaurant) we had just one costume to make on the last Friday of term two. Max was an elf and Jesse made a quick costume.

It was, as usual, a feast.

Followed by outstanding theatre.

Max had a scene with Mya and a bunch of other lines - all of which he had memorised and didn't miss a beat.

Lots of old friends turned up.

Mack woke up and charmed the entire audience. He loved Peet's braces and laughed till his belly must have been sore.

Pine Christmas Concert

Pine's Christmas Concert was a tough one for Louisa - her last.

There was singing by the whole school:

well almost (that's Mac and Declan mid song - see Mathilda's stern face). (See the little girl in the shiny two piece right under the microphone in the top picture - she's a mermaid in the little kids play - and is secretly pregnant - it's never mentioned in the play but she rubs her tummy every so often.)

And this is Max as a purple blob in the middle kids play. (It was an easy costume at least.)

And Louisa as a dinosaur made of shade cloth.

Then came the major event of the night - the grown up play - Alice in Pineland. With a twist. Katymae went into labour that morning so she and Maris were spending their night going to and from the hospital - which meant we were short two major characters. I became the white rabbit instead of Maris and Mathilda was the Queen of Hearts instead of Katy. (Tina took Mathilda's place.)

Jesse was Alice - and was amazing.

Tom was the rapping caterpillar.

And Peet stepped in at the last minute too - to be Tweedle Dum to Fraser's Tweedle Dee.

Drew was the Cheshire cat and Patty was a very cute dormouse.

Then came awards, goodbyes and quilts (made this year by Patty and Caryl - for which I am most grateful). The came the tears - we hurried to clean up and managed to distract Louisa momentarily by talking about Mack's imminent arrival.

Camping with Drew

After three long years of intensive (though spasmodic) lobbying Max finally talked everyone into a middle kids camp.

The McFadyens provided a property outside Cooroy for camping on and Max spent his first night away from the family camping with Declan in a tent of their own.

Drew was running the camp so they climbed Mt Pomona,

swam at Little Cove and Granite Bay,

read The Rangers Apprentice until late at night, ate ridiculously late each night and early each morning,

found a dead cow and brought home skeletal bits,

and fell into bed exhausted each night.

I joined them for the second night and slept in Alec's swag near Declan and Max's tent - which was gorgeous.

D

The theme for the annual Pine Dance - on tonight - is the letter D.

So Louisa is a Dihatsu - front:

and back (costumes at our house tend to be representative rather than realistic):

And Jesse is a Dancing Queen:

Of course Max was Donald Duck, Roger was a Dad (very imaginative), Peet was a dag (not too big of a stretch either) and Alec declined to dress up. I stayed home recuperating and Thomas stayed home studying.

Pet parade

Pine's annual pet parade resulted in Fisher winning the prize for Jumpiest Pet and Gertie won Hungriest Pet.

A certain amount of pride was evident.

Here's some Pine kids we prepared earlier.

One of the lovely bonuses at Kate's wedding was seeing so many old Pine kids.

Tamzina, Brent and Niki were there too but missed this photo.

Last week

Monday: Anne's birthday barbeque at our place with all her family in Australia.

Tuesday: Sydney for a seminar that was cancelled - so Sydney for some shopping.

Wednesday: Free night - except for a practice of the grown up play for Jesse

Thursday: Middle school Awards night - Peet was awarded a silver academic award - which means he got A's and B's only on his report card.

Peet was also announced as Middle School Vice Captain - cute. The boy captain is an African kid who is lovely - Peet says it's the flavour of the month - everyone wants to elect a black person.

Friday: Pine Christmas Concert. It was all a bit high brow for a Pine concert - really impressive singing of Christmas Carols from the middle ages, bongo playing and genuinely funny skits.

Then - in a return to true Pine style - the kids decided to do some unscripted skits. Each kid just picked what they wanted to be, thought of a general storyline then gave it a go.

Max was a dragon named Custard.

Louisa was a porcupine and Peter Pan. (That's Declan in her lap - he's 3 and his sister is at school - he just wanted to be on stage so Louisa had him sit on her lap.)

I keep telling Roger that he is the best costume maker in our whole family and he should make all the costumes from now on - he's not buying it.

Jesse was in the grown up play - a High School Musical/Hairspray/Abba Movie spoof. We don't have decent photos because she was dancing so wildly the whole time that all the photos are badly blurred.

That's Annabelle as the girl from HSM, Tildy as the boy, Josh and Fraser as the basketballers, Jesse and Patty as the nicest kids in town from Hairspray, Maris as the teacher from HSM and Tina as the piano girl.

And Peet picked up his new Tuba - shiny, gold, and huge.

Alec went to a party, and the rest of us went to Sunshine for the night - which was absolutely worth the trip - and back in time for a baptism on Saturday afternoon.

Big Kids Camp

Pine Big Kids Camp to Stradbroke Island was on again last week - Louisa went alone - a huge step for her.

She had a great time. Here's before:

Here's after:

Josh and Fraser (ex pine kids - around Jesse and Alec's ages) went too. They took Fraser's 4WD, and because Maris had given them a strict talking to about the camp being alcohol free, and because they were offended that she would even think they would do such a thing, they spent a whole Sunday afternoon taping up empty boxes from the local liquor barn to look new. Then they loaded the whole boot of the 4WD and waited for Maris to arrive. Maris, Kate and patty all got out of the car at the same time and in unison berated them for bringing all that alcohol. The boys were delighted with the joke -which was actually very funny.

Pine Dance

Roger found a pigeon at work - a real pigeon not a stool pigeon. It's a racing pigeon and gave the intelligence guys at the jail the jitters. They checked it's owner and looked for connections to prisoners - that would be one impressive pigeon that could be trained to fly to a new destination but they checked anyway. Eventually they decided that it was all above board so they phoned the owner who said to just take it closer to Brisbane and let it go. Roger brought it to our house.

We let it go - but it seems to have adopted us because now it just hangs around here.

All of this meant that when the Pine Dance theme was decided - the letter 'r' - Louisa wanted to go as a racing pigeon.

Max was determined to go as a soldier and so resorted to being a russian soldier. Roger went as ...Roger, I went as a Republican by taping a soft toy elephant to a hat, Jesse went as a rainbow and Peet went as a pirate - because pirates say...."arrr".

Amazingly, Peet danced all night and Max even did the Macarena and the YMCA. Louisa danced all night of course.

Theatre Restaurant

Pine's annual theatre restaurant was it's usual success.

Max was a boy called sandwich who loved eating sandwiches. (which apparently is hilarious if you are a kid.)

Louisa was Jim-Bob Franklin - the mayor of the town.

Pine

Crazy hair and clothes day - blurry Louisa who woke up at 5 am for Jesse to do her hair.

Louisa spiking Max's hair:

Apple bobbing:

25 years of Happy Children Learning

Pine celebrated 25 years in March. We've been there for 17 of those years. We decided to have a casual pot luck dinner and to invite whoever we came in contact with rather than going the whole nine yards like we did for the 20th anniversary.

I had to leave early because it was also the night of the Relief Society Anniversary. But Roger took a few photos of some of the past Pine parents and kids and teachers.

Philip and Michael McClenehan with Patty:

Sam, Liza, Josh and Jesse:

Patty, Jesse, Tina and Tamzina:

Fraser, Steph Howarth, Jared, Sam:

Tom, Adrian and Loughlin:

Nikki:

Kate and Drew:

Kate and Di:

Of course there were heaps of others, but Roger was a bit slack on the photo taking. It was a gorgeous night - so nice to see so many now grown up Pine kids who have turned out to be wonderful people. Kaitlyn Woods was there and said she wished she went to Pine because everyone was so happy to be together again and Jesse added that it is where she most feels like herself outside of home.