Laura starts Kindergarten!

2012 has bought many happy changes for the Kirke family and one of those has been Laura starting "big" kindy! She was so excited! So was mummy and daddy. The school she is starting - Helena College, was our ultimate choice of schools, after looking at all the schools in the Perth Hills. She has been enrolled since she was 2 years old but we were still never guaranteed a place, because most children are enrolled from birth, such is the popularity of such a good school. Well we got lucky and the letter came to say that Laura had been accepted! Suffice to say, Amelia was enrolled from the week she was born!

So our first born baby starts school and she is loving it! It is a long week for her, 4 days, 8.30am-2.45pm. Although i have given her the option of staying home an extra day, she is keen to go all 4 days.

Her teachers are lovely and we have met all the lovely parents, who we have met socially on various occasions. The school has a very strong sense of community and we have made some very good friends already. As has Laura!

Proud as punch in her uniform!

A flower for her teacher!

Our new home. A cottage in the hills.

 So the big move came, just 5 weeks after selling Cope Place. We found ourselves a lovely little cottage in Parkerville, only 5 minutes away from our block. Its in a nice leafy, dead end, quiet street, with nice neighbors and some children for Laura to play with. It is small, 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom but it is all we need for now. We will stay here till we move to the block. We are so happy to finally be up here in the hills!

 An early morning walk on the bush track across the road.

A typical cool misty morning in the Perth Hills.

Our front verandah.

Autumn in our front garden.

No doggies still.

Ever since the fires in February last year we haven't had our dogs. Of course we took them with us when we evacuated and took them to David's parents. But we couldn't keep the there for too long (we ended up having to stay at Errol and Leonie's for over 2 weeks) so, Claire, a good friend of mine from The Paw House Kennels, came to pick them up for surposedly a short time till we got to move back home. Well that short time has so far turned into over a year and i had no idea that when Claire came to pick them up that we wouldn't see them again for a very long time. I kissed them both goodbye in the back of her van, expecting to see them again in about a week. I have since shed many, many tears. It turns out that once we moved back home we discovered all our fencing gone and the block was too unsafe and unstable to have the dogs there. So another friend over east in QLD offered to take Georgie and Scarlett for as long as we needed. She would campaign them both there in the show ring and look after them for s long as we needed.

The fencing was going to cost a lot of money to fix and we couldn't repair one side of the block till the neighbors rebuilt, because all the retaining walls had burnt too. The block, being steep, was also very unstable after all the trees had burnt. So Georgie and Scarlett stayed in QLD with Julie.

Georgie did fly back after 8 months and has since gone to live with a friend, who also owns Logan, one of Scarlett's puppies from 3 years ago. Scarlett is still there and will be having her last litter whilst there. we will have one of her babies and once the show season has finished at the end of 2012, Scarlett will finally fly home to us!

A house is not a home without a Whippet!

 Scarlett winning BEST IN SHOW!!

 Georgie girl.

My pretty lady. Australian Champion Stonegrace One StarryNite "Scarlett"

SOLD SOLD SOLD SOLD!!!

Finally! After over 2.5 years of being on and off the market, we have SOLD 6 Cope Place, Kelmscott!

We changed agents (and dropped the price, again, significantly) and within 2 days the new agent had a buyer for us.

No more home opens, no more mad clean ups for unscheduled viewings. Our move to our 5 acre block is suddenly looking like a reality!

It's a bitter sweet event. This house was mine and David's first house bought together that we lived in (we had previously bought an investment property together but never lived in it), we got engaged here, married here, we bought our 2 girls into the world here, literally in Amelia's case since she was born in the driveway! We experienced the devastation of the fires. We had many, many fun parties and Christmas 2011 was held here for the whole family. We had many evenings in the pool, overlooking the views to the coast and city, wine in hand! 

We will not miss the driveway, neither will most of our visitors and family!! 

So many special memories were created here.

But. We look forward to the future and the wonderful life that we will be making for ourselves and our beautiful little family, on our 5 acre block in Parkerville.

So, the move begins and many changes are before us ...

Fishing at South Beach

 Yay! A fishy on the pink rod!

 A beautiful dusk. 

Laura got a new fishing rod for Christmas from nanny Linda and Poppa Brent. So we decided to test it our at the beach on a lovely hot evening. We had fish and chips for dinner on the beach and then caught us some ... *cough* "fish" for tomorrow nights dinner! ... OK all we got was blow fish, but it was a good effort!

Daddy and Laura looking for the best fishing spot.