Friday Favourite~ Rainbow Easter carnival

 A highlight in our children's school calendar is the Easter carnival. It is held on the last day of school before the school holidays begins.

 The school carnival is the major fundraiser for the year and raises approx. $1600 in much needed funds for Norfolk Island Central School.

 It is always a magical night for the kids and sometimes has a shower or two, but this year we were blessed with a magical sunset and a double rainbow to begin the festivities.

Easter Carnival at Norfolk Island Central school

This year has flown by so fast that I have completely lost all concept of real time since starting university.
 It is Easter weekend 2012 already! AND I still have Christmas blogs to update not only from 2011 but from 2010 too.

Most of my photos and comments now go straight to facebook for friends and family to view, but the Easter carnival is such a fun event each year that it deserves a blog post.

Here is my little princess with her pipecleaner bunny ensemble that she made on the last day of term today.

 Each year the kindergarten to year two parents bake a cake for the cake stall to sell, I only have one year left to do this until Jasper starts school so am already planning next years cake.

 After the successes of my rainbow layer cake at last years Easter carnival and since, I made a short stack version this year in softer colours.

Last year there was a fight to see who would buy it first.

See original here it has the recipe of last year's rainbow layer cake.

I like the chocolate pastel version of today's cake, I think it worked out okay. I wonder who bought it?

Tonight the carnival was wet on and off again, but luckily the warm autumn night didn't deter may of the locals who happily walked around damp for an hour or so. the rides and amusements all still continued through the evening, the kids love it as running through the rain is one of the added joys of childhood

There are so many favourite activities, I hardly see the kids all night (until they come back for money)

Their favourites are the green machines (low to the ground bikes that can zoom around a track like go karts but with pedal power) and sumo wrestlers( big puffy suits to wear to wrestle your opponent to the ground, funny to watch) for Teddy and for Sienna, the merry go round, inflatable dragon where you can go through his mouth and climb through its belly and out its tail, also bat the rat, flying pigs and facepainting.

Jasper loved the merry go round, but was content to play to hang out with me in the facepainting room as I did my shift. He did like the trash and treasure room also and spent lots of time (out of the rain) playing with toys that look exactly like all his old baby toys that we used to have at our house, luckily he didn't ask me to buy them back again, I only just got them all boxed up and given away to the school.

Here Sienna is attempting to go for a fourth arm break by rollerskating everywhere along the wet and slippery paths and through muddy puddles, she had lots of fun though but those white Barbie pants will never ever be white again.

The perfect end to an exciting night, a chapter of a good titanic book and clutching a prized balloon.

Easter carnival

The Easter weekend celebrations have begun! I have had 3 different Christmas's in Norfolk, but this is my first Easter, that I can remember.

The Island has been a buzz with even the service station attendants asking, are you going to the carnival?

It is amazing in such a short time, how many people you can meet in a small community and how fast you can become part of that community.

I was buying raffle tickets for the big Easter hamper, when the seller quoted my name, address and phone number to the helper writing it on the ticket, I shouldn't have been, but I still find the personal touch a surprise.

Well, the community was out in full swing, and we came to enjoy everything on offer.

What a magical evening....... it had turned a touch cool for the first time in the evening, but there were plenty of warm up activities and food on offer, like jumping castles and kettle fried fish and chips.

Teddy loved the blow up dinosaur that you crawled into his mouth, went down an internal slide, and walked through its bowels to come out of the tail, when Ted disappeared into the mouth, I asked the Dad manning the ride how much it was, he replied 50 cents, so when Teddy ran out of the tail and back into the mouth, I walked back over to the attendant and tried to give him another 50 cents, when he told me, it was 50 cents for 3 minutes! BARGAIN!

At the merry go round, run by the lions club, it was only 20 cents a go, I felt like I was in another era, those prices haven't been heard on the mainland for about 30 years, even for school fetes.

it was a wonderful night, we didn't win any raffles, but I got some great kids toys and books at the rummage sale and have lots of happy memories.

We had a good laugh when Brandt pointed out, that only on Norfolk Island would they put the dart game in front of the jumping castle, luckily no one missed...............