Jayde's Birthday, Taekido and Emus - 3rd-6th Mar

More fun for Stanley over the last couple of days. Jayde had her 10th Birthday. She got a yummy roast dinner on her birthday - that's her favourite meal, and on the Saturday, she had her birthday party. She invited nine of her school friends over, and they had a "Masterchef Party". Masterchef is a TV show in Australia where people compete in a compettion to make yummy foods. At Jayde's party she and her friends all got to make their own pizzas for dinner, as well as decorating cupcakes, and making their own ice cream sundaes. It was a yummy party! Jayde got lots of nice presents too - clothes, and books were main thing. Jayde really likes reading, so people knew that books were good presents.

They played some fun games at the party. They played Sardines - the game that they had played at Family Home Evening earlier in the week. They played the "Chocolate Game". In the chocolate game, a big block of yummy chocolate is put on a plate, next to a knife and a fork. There is also a jacket, a hat, a scarf and some gloves next to the plate. Everybody sits aropund the plate, and then to start the game one of the players rolls two dice. If he get's two 6s, something special happens. If he rolls anything else, then the person next to them then gets the two dice and rolls them. This keeps on going until somebody rolls two 6s. When somebody rolls two 6s, they get to eat the chocolate. The catch is, that before they can eat any of the chocolate, they must put on the hat, the scarf, the jacket, and the gloves, and they can only eat the chocolate once they have put all the clothes on, and then they must use the knife and fork to cut up and eat the chocolate. Whilst the person is trying to get dressed and eat the chocolate, the other players keep rolling the dice. If they roll two 6s, then the first person has to stop eating the chcolate, take the hat, scarf, jacket and gloves off, the the new person who rolled two 6s must put them all on before they can eat the chocolate. The person wearing the clothes and eatingg chocolate changes everytime somebody rolls two 6s. You keep going like this until the chocolate is all gone.

Jayde really likes a book called Lord of the Rings. Her birthday cake was a "hobbit hole". Hobbits are characters from the Lord of the Rings. Elissa made a cake that looked like a house built into the side of a hill - because that's what Hobbits live in. The cake even had two plastic Hobbits in the front garden of the hobbit's home.

Stanley got to go with Jayde on Thursday night out to her martial arts. It is called Taekido. It combines two other types of martial arts - Taekwando and Aikido. She goes to martial arts for an hour each week. She is  a Brown Belt, and is practising to try and become a higher level.

Stanley also went out for a drive with Adam, Seth and Jewel down to Tidbinbilla. Tidbinbilla is a nature reserve about 15 minutes from the Easts house. When we got there, there was a group of about 15 emus all wandering around eating. Emus are very BIG birds. They are about as tall as an adult human. Stanley could then see that behind the emus, lying in the shade of the trees and bushes behind them were about 20 kangaroos, all keeping cool.