Greg's Room update #(oh - I forget)

I spent 1.5hrs this afternoon cleaning up - removing all the stuff in Greg's room that shouldn't have been there - ie. my track racing bike, shelving etc.

Then moved Greg's bed around so that I could sweep and mop out his room, you wouldn't believe how much crap piles up in there... and it's only been a couple of weeks since I did a complete sweep out and mop last... (Greg's going to learn the art of mopping soon too! I'm only doing it now because it's because of renovations that it's mainly a mess...)

I moved Greg's bed into a better position - which gives him so much extra room in there... his room is nearly double the size of his old room... and he doesn't have to have his computer in there because he's in the office with Rob...




Greg and I have just been around all of the windows downstairs and measured them up to go and see about getting curtains and railings made for all of the windows so that at least we get rid of the 70's look of the place...

I'm now going to head out and look at curtain material... not sure if I want to drag Greg there - so that he at least has a say in the curtains for his room... or whether I go and drag Mom out - because she's always been good with this kind of thing before....

I guess now is my opportunity to get a new curtain for the nursery too... I'll go and see what they've got....

Renovations.....

Well, lets start with the renovations everyone is waiting on..... The sliding door and the window into Greg's room has been done....

There is still a lot of work to be done - but we're getting there gradually..... one day it'll all be done and we'll get bored and have to buy another fix-er-up-per house... ehehe.... (NOT LIKELY!!!)

This is going to look a lot nicer once it's bricked up.....

The sliding door means that the room is lit up a lot better now....

Greg finally has a bedroom door... the gap under the door is because we're planning on tiling - so there's room under the door in preparation...

The inside of Greg's room... the floor is all dusty from cutting a hole in the wall to put the window in - as well as having to cut the timber for around the window....

Ok, well that's the first lot of renovations...... now comes the ones that have become slightly more urgent....

On Monday I was walking down our rickety back stairs - and the one rotten one that we'd been keeping an eye on (clearly not on the day in question) decided that it had had enough of this cruel world and gave way..... it was just rotten and it's time had come.... It was hard to get a pic of how it looked - but this is just an idea.... the bruising looked like it was going to be worse than it ended up being... and now my leg is just a touch sore and has slight bruising ... (which for me is a miracle.....)

((And just when I thought I couldn't be handed any more bad luck this year.......))

Top of the stairs.... taped up so that the little miss can't start to walk down the stairs...

You can just make out the tap where the stair is missing... and the one above it that had been replaced after we'd been in the house only a few months...

The bottom of the stairs that are also taped up so that the little miss (and other people) - don't try climbing the stairs... we'd hate to find that other stairs are ready to fall out too....

Plan is that tomorrow I measure up the height of the landing - and the distance from the start to the finish of the stairs - so that we can have new railings built to hold new stairs... and this time we're going for the steel effect railings.. but stick with the timber treads as they're less slippery...

We "were" planning on holding off stair renovations until we'd built the verandah - but - it seems that this is just an expense we're going to have to deal with... these things happen....

Change of Plans.....

Well, there's been a change of plans, we're no longer buying the property.

Which is great in a way, I get to do all the renovations around the house that I wanted - and Rob can have his Shed... which means we can get our motorbikes at our place - which frees up room in Mom and Dad's shed... so everyone is happy :)

The Window and Glass sliding door are in at home now - the bricky is coming next week to brick up the front of the house - and then all we need to do is paint and tile and we're finished....

It's all very exciting... but I need to get new stairs out the back too - because one died the other day - while I was on it - so I've got a huge graze down my right shin - accompanied by some special looking bruises.... For now, the stairs are taped off so that people can't go up or down them (but also - taped well enough to keep Jade from climbing them too.. so the tape may look a little overboard - but it has a purpose.....

I'll try to take pics of the renovations when I go home today - if not - I'll update this over the weekend or something...

Last Post for the weekend... I promise....

Well, I did promise no more blogging... however, I can't help myself... after spending the morning at sea urchins, we got jade to sleep - and Rob and I spent the afternoon trying to re-organise more of our mess so that I could find my gym again.... (I say my gym - even though it was Rob who wanted it - because he was going to use it - but he hasn't ever used it - so it's MINE!)....

Anyway, so we managed to find the gym, and it fits nicely downstairs between the toilet (ok that makes it sound bad) and Greg's room.... but there is a bit of wall infront of the gym where we're going to fix an LCD monitor and I can put on shows or whater while I gym away...... (and yes, I do plan to change THOSE curtains also! - I'm sure THEY'VE been in the house since it was first builts too!)

(Again, ignore the Air Hockey Table - once we have the entertainment area set up - it'll look more in place)




So, lets go back to what the Garage looked like (back in October when I was taking pics of the clearing we were doing to get Greg's room up and happening....)

Also, you have to keep in mind, that this amount of stuff in the garage is actually not that much in comparison to what it HAS been like before... and it just keeps piling up!

Now, you may not consider this clear, but when you consider that we have to run the business from home, there is a reasonable amount of stuff that Rob needs on a daily basis, and it can't all live in his van... (if it could - it would - believe me!!!)

But, the room is clear enough that John can remove the garage door and put in the sliding doors now and we wont be worried that everything is going to fall out and on top of him....

Sea Urchins Sunday.....

Today was that time of the month again, time to go to sea urchins and let the kids entertain themselves... unfortunately - entertaining themselves still isn't high on their priorities... although - Jade did well - the first half an hour or so she was quite happy to run around and play with the other kids - which was long enough to enjoy a cappucino before having to pull out the camera (yes - I remembered it today!) and run around taking photos....

Within about 10mins - I was sweating... which in my current state of badly needing a haircut - was not a good thing - cause then my hair was sticking in every which way... pity it can't look as cute as Jade's hair.... but you get that..... (not really sure I'm up for pig tails anyway!)

Anyway, this concludes my blogging for the weekend......

Happy little monster!

Mitchell and Lachlan

Jumping castle... she's got the running from side to side nearly sorted... still falls into big heaps in the creases....

Jade down the slide....

and then came lachlan.

Kate and Mitchell

The Slide was popular!

Kate and Lachlan

Playing video games - like father like daughter...

Apparently crashing these cars is great fun!

Such a little poser!

Jade worked out that the swingy things were able to be grabbed onto... so it's a swing that I don't have to push her on! Yay!!!

Property Map.

Handily enough, Google Maps has a reasonable shot of the property. I've drawn a border around it so you can see the actual boundaries.

View Larger Map

We only got about 500m into it on the bikes, as we were a bit unsure of the boundaries on the ground, and didn't want to go into anyone elses property. However, there's some EXCELLENT trials ground there, and we're hoping to be able to clear a road into the bigger area that we can get a truck along so we can get a shipping container or something like that into, to use as a cabin.

We need to buy some more GPS's I think 8) Tharyn wants to start walking the boundary so she can mark it, so we know where our property is and where a good path to stick a road would be. I'm sure Tharyn will update the blog with more information soon 8)

--Rob

Gin Gin Property.....

As many of you may know, Rob found a property out in Gin Gin (about 200km south of where we live) - so today we went to look at it before signing any contracts.... it is AWESOME!

You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos, but we were about 20km outside of gladstone when I went "oh.... bugga... Camera is at home... I hope mom has hers" and she didn't... ehhee



This isn't actually the front of the property - but this is across the road from where we parked, which is just around the corner to the front of the property - but it'll give you an idea of what the property is like....

Everyone parked and bikes offloaded.... ready to get going... we had to be quiet and push the bikes down the road before starting them as Jade had fallen asleep in the car on the way there and was happily snoozing away....

Rob getting ready....

Everyone else waiting around....

Dad trying to get dressed in peace... (everyone had to go and watch)

I had just taken the phone out of the backpack and it was all fogged up because of the bottles of water in the bag.... silly me!

Frank found a log to play on, given it was the phone's camera - it was slow - so I didn't get the bike in the air photo that I was hoping for - and the battery was quickly dying... so there was no time for re-takes...

Rob holding onto my bike while I was busy taking photos....

I Quit!!

Well, the highlight of my week so far was coming in to work yesterday to tell them that I will only work up until the end of the year.

The partner's weren't here - but I advised the office manager and my manager..

No one seems too surprised though, I've decided that I am happy to spend some time at home - get things organised... keep Rob organised.. run the Company and have a few minutes spare to myself so that I can get focussed on having a happy and stress-free (or at least less-stress) pregnancy next time.

We wont be waiting "too long" before we try again - but we're also not going to be rushing into it either... so don't expect me to be saying in the next two months that we have another baby on the way... but don't be surprised if there is one (at least on the way) before the end of next year...

Trials Club Break-up.....

Saturday morning, we loaded up the car (although - I believe we managed to get most of it packed up on Friday night! for once we were slightly more organised)....

We left home around 8:30 - loaded up the bikes at Mom and Dad's place... and headed off to Seeonee Park (up near Yeppoon) for a weekend of trials riding...

We took Jade's pushbike - and I pushed her around on both days (which definitely beat carrying her around - and she's "not a baby" - so she doesn't seem to like the idea of being strapped into the pusher anymore)...

Saturday night they had the breakup party.... pics below....

I wasn't behind the camera (all night at least)....

Jade and Darcey dancing...

typical computer geek - can't even go out camping without all his gear....

Jade and Darcey Cuddling..

Look who Santa is... (he walked up to Jade who just looked at him and went "hi daddy")

Jade then realised that she was going to get a present - so it was more exciting then!

Getting her present from Santa (Santa the trials rider... with his Red Trials boots!)

Jade was looking so cute asleep in the tent (this was about 5:30am - the sun was up - so I was already up and out of the tent - but Jade only got to bed at 9:30 the night before - so she was still too tired to wake up)

This photo was taken about 2 seconds after taking the first photo... the camera had flashed... so she put her pillow over her head...

When I got home - I realised I hadn't taken a photo of Greg on the motorbike at his first trials comp. How Nasty is that?? However, Mom managed to get film of him and Rob going through a section each - so at least we have some evidence!)

Built In's!!!!

The built in wardrobe's have finally arrived.... I'm not sure how easy they are going to be able to be seen in the photos (you can click on either photo and it should open a larger version) - but I'm reasonably happy with how they've turned out... unfortunately there is no back in them like I thought there may have been - so I still have to have a hole fixed in Jade's wall - as well as painting the walls inside both wardrobes.... but that can wait for now....

Jade's Room

Greg's Room

(you'll have to excuse the mess in Greg's room, partly due to being a teenager room (unmade bed etc) there is also the fact that the bedroom is far from being complete. The back wall needs to have a window put in it - and the brickwork outside still needs to be done - as well as tiling on the floors.... but we're getting there!!!)

Blah...

This week pretty much sucked, I went to the Dr on Monday morning for a routine checkup and she pulled out her mini-ultrasound machine. So this was supposed to be an exciting event.

Unfortunately, when they can't see a baby there, then that's not so exciting.

I went off to have a formal ultrasound - sure enough - I had a "missed miscarriage" - so basically my body had no idea that it was no longer producing a baby.

I went in Yesterday to have a D&C.

We're not sure when we'll try again... just going to get on with things for now and worry about it sometime down the track.

Sorry for the crappy post. On the bright side - there's the trials club breakup this weekend, so I'm sure I'll have some photos and story to tell about that after the weekend.

Domesticated?!?!?

Ok, something has really gone wrong with me, I started trying to reorganise the kitchen today so that I could put my port barrell into a cupboard with the port glasses - as well as packing away my new kitchenware....




(new kitchenware is due to the fact that we went shopping yesterday to the kitchen shop because they had a sale on... and I walked away with this HUGE 9 piece set - with 3 different sorts of steamers as well as another roasting dish (not even close to as fantastic as my birthday one - but it does mean that I can cook a few things at once (when I get REALLY domestic!!!))


I cannot believe that I managed to stack absolutely everything - and the fry pan from Rob's mom as well as the pancake frypan that we kept from our "old stock"... and it all fits in the one drawer - and the drawer actually closes!!


I love the idea that pots stack!! Yay us!!


Anyway, then I pulled all of the rubbish that we had in the one cupboard out - cleaned the shelf and put in the port barrell and the glasses!!

I think it looks quite neat.... and I can actually turn the port barrell without having to remove all of the glasses... I do, however, have to remove the one glass that gets in the way of the tap... but, given you only would turn it to pour a glass of port - I figured you'd need at least one glass out of there.. so it's not an issue :)

Ok, I'm done posting for another week (I think!)...

Away for a weekend......!!!

Last weekend was the Annual Conondale event... Conondale is about a 5hr drive from our place... not counting when we have to stop at all of Rob's clients on the way down... (and we ALWAYS have to stop at Rob's clients... these people can't manage to keep their computers running long enough for us to have a weekend off!)...

Anyway, rant over, we headed off at 7am Saturday morning... and got to Conondale about 1:30 or 2pm.... I can't remember exactly the time, well I'm not even sure that I actually looked at the clock when we arrived...

We arrived, unpacked the car and set up our tent and the little one for Greg....

Once this was done, Greg and Rob got dressed and went out riding on the trials bikes to play around... they both had a ball and managed to go through a helluva lot of fuel... but that's because where the trials comp is held each year also has a dirt bike track - so of course - boys will be boys - and they had to go and try the jumps and stuff.....

Lucky us.... we had jade in our tent for the night - which isn't usually a problem, however, since our last camping expedition Jade has gone from sleeping in her cot, to sleeping in a "big girls" bed... so, to cut a long story short - we couldn't put her in the port-a-cot for the night and we had to put her down just on the mattresses.... I didn't figure this would be an issue, we have two "double" self inflating mattresses which we usually shove on the ground... however, when setting up the tents, the boys didn't actually check the ground before laying the tent down and pegging it in... so, between both mattresses was a huge rock or tree root - or something... and I ended up sleeping on top of that (in between both mattresses) - as Jade takes up more room than Rob does on a mattress she wasn't huge on sharing the space with me...

I didn't get too much sleep that night as everytime Jade rolled into the edge of the tent she freaked... I guess she lost track of where she was and was getting claustrophobic (sp?) or something... so I'd have to roll her back onto the mattress and wait to make sure that she was definitely going to keep sleeping before I could happily attempt to go back to sleep... (keeping in mind that even though Rob wasn't drunk (a first for him at conondale) - he was still snoring!!!)...

Anyway, I finally gave up when it started to look light (as far as I was concerned) - and I headed off out of the tent to go to the toilets (which weren't flushing - so we had to use buckets to keep flushing them - and there were a limited amount of people who were apparently capable of actually doing this - so everytime you went you had to flush before you could even go! (end whinge))... I figured it must have been at least 5am.... but no, I was wrong... it was only 3am...

so I headed back to the tent.... sweating like you wouldn't believe... (and I was hoping for cool weather.... I was wrong there too!)... as I lay in the tent - I was listening to all the people in their tents around us snoring... I started to appreciate the petty effort that Rob puts into snoring... you should hear GREG! OMG! that kid can go off... I feel sorry for his future wife! ehehe... there were also other people going - but given I was in the tent - it was hard to work out what direction they were all coming from - so I couldn't go off accusing people the next morning.... else I'm sure I would have.....

Anyway, finally I heard people making noise - so I got up - it was only 5:30am - but it was late enough as far as I was concerned and I went over to have coffee with Mom, Dad, Angela, Mac and Shayne who were all awake... so that was good....

I got greeted for my birthday (oh yeah - I turned 30 - and now I'm *allowed* to have grey hairs.. even though I already have some!)... I got my presents from Mom and Dad - a really kewl roasting dish that can be used for just about anything... and even the lid becomes a dish of it's own (hard to explain)... From Angela I got a wooden motorcycle that is all nicely varnished (is that the right way to explain it?) - it's all shiny... unfortunately Australia Post is not ultra reliable with the whole "fragile" concept - so it's kind of a jigsaw - but we're going to glue it back together soon - and then I'll take a photo of it! - I also got a frypan (but a really good one that can even go in the oven.... OMG - I'm turning domestic! - it's taken long enough!)....

Then Rob finally hauled his butt out of bed (leaving jade happily sleeping in the tent) - from Rob I got a block of normal Cadbury chocolate... then I got this HUGE box containing:

Note the 2ltr milk bottle for reference of size, this chocolate bar is 4.5kgs.... I nearly died...

and yes, it is ONE bar, I thought maybe it was full of little toblerones... but I was wrong (AGAIN!!!)... we broke it up and gave Frank and Shayne two of the triangles, two to Mom and Dad, one to Greg, and the rest are all in a container in the freezer.....

Now, if that wasn't enough, then I got my 4LTR Port Barrell... I've wanted this for AGES, so Rob had organised it quite a while back, and had filled it... so not only did I get the barrell, but it was full.... not that it really helps me at the moment... but in a years time... that Port is going to be FANTASTIC!...

(mind you - I am allowed a little every now and then - so I definitely will have some over the next year..)

Anyway, enough of the birthday talk.... the reason for the weekend was the trials event... and this year - Rob decided to compete (although - he entered as non-competitive.. but he still had a good day)...

I must point out, Rob is riding MY bike - so that's why he had such a good day.... (plus he also had to borrow my riding shirt - because he had no idea where his had ended up after going out on the bikes the weekend before).

If anyone gets to watch any of the footage from the day, if it's bad - you can blame Greg - he did the first lot of filming....

Jade doesn't seem too sure about which hat she prefers, although she seemed to realise later that her hat didn't suit Mom.

Singing, "Little Peter Rabbit" (had a fly upon his nose.... and the flies that day were most annoying... however it beat having mosquitos hassling us all weekend).

I think Jade was seeing if she could dig into Greg's head ....

Shayne had a good ride too, including a few clean laps....

I blame Greg for all of Jade's bad habits!!!

Can watermelon ever be eaten without making a mess?

(Clearly not in Jade's case)

(Away from the Computer - and smiling - never thought we'd see it!!!)