New Zealand part 1

Well, after procrastinating about it over Christmas (do we go to NZ or Nth Queensland for the last part of January) we decided NZ was the way to go. Unfortunately I had been less than organised before Christmas - I know, unusual - ha - and the kids passports needed to be renewed. So After New years - everything in Canberra shuts down until then - we hurriedly put together the applications, and waited. (I won't mention that a certain DH used to work in Passports and knew who to call to hurry things along..). Anyway, after Henry and I spent a week sweltering in Mulwala, we came home, picked up his and Meaghan's passports on Friday, booked the flights Sunday and flew out bright and early on Wed morning. Phew..

We had only booked two night accommodation in Aukland and winged the rest. And it turned out ok mostly, internet is good!

And now I have more photos to scrap - yay! These are fairly random though.

On our first day we went to Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium in Aukland - Penguins - coolest animals ever -

In the middle we went to Henry's favourite place Hobbiton, possibly only behind the yet to be visited lego world - The quality of the craftmanship here was astounding. Although the hobbit holes were only for the most part doors and gardens, all the indoor filming happened elsewhere, the location and the settings were just perfect.

The only possibly downside was that you have to leave your car in the carpark and catch a bus with a guided tour - all fine until we returned to the car and realised that I had left the boot/trunk open for the 2+ hours we were away - all our travelling stuff was on display for the world to see. Luckily it was also entirely intact - Geoff was not amused...

This was the most famous of the hobbit holes - Bilbo's home. The actual bench were Bilbo and Gandalf sat and chatted - eep...

 Many more pages about Hobbiton to come, I promise!

And related but on our second last day, we had a tour of the Weta Studios in Wellington, where they make all the models, armour etc. Again, highly recommended!

We really enjoyed New Zealand, very easy to get around, and I got to catch up with Louise F my long time scrappy friend, has made me want to do a round the world tour of all my scrappy friends. The instant easiness and friendship after years of sharing a hobby was just wonderful!

The tale of the bad back and broken glasses can wait - am now going to rest as we have more visitors - apparently if you have a new house your visitor numbers skyrocket - we are constantly welcoming friends and family, which is fun but I am looking forward to downtime next week.

have a good one. x

Explanation (finally)

Nothing too exciting but my last post had this Lo

all due to the fact that I was in a bit of a hurry to post on The Lilypad's forum and could not remember my Flikr account password and I couldn't put it in my normal gallery for various boring reasons...

The Lilypad is having a month of challenges, which I  love but have already acknowledged that I will not  come close to completing, so I am picking an choosing at a nice relaxed pace. The above Lo was part 1 in a do over challenge - this being one of my first digi efforts. I gave Matt a complete makeover and finished with this -

more my current style (and at least I have some vague idea of how to use Photoshop now!)

A couple of others I have completed came from our quick trip to the mountains just after Christmas

 (yep, be impressed, I walked to the top of Australia's tallest mountain - ok, so maybe 5 yo's were skipping past me and my knees gave ot on the way home, but hey, tallest mountain people!!!)

 and an Arty page (which I really like)

Lots of fun.  I'm off to Mum and Dad's tomorrow - forecast of above 40C every day - but they have aircon and a pool, so all sweet. Possible last minute holiday may be planned when we get back, madly trying to organise kids passports just in case.

So Lizzy and Mitra, sleep well now I have explained my odd boring previous post xxx

temporary

Ignore this, will explain later...

The Undie Tree

The elder two children really dislike putting up and decorating the Christmas Tree - Matt's girlfriend Alex was far more enthusiastic about the whole thing this year than the other two - Henry still enjoys it although is very easily distracted by just about anything really.

Anyway, when Alex bought her chrissy presents around this year for us (including my guaranteed best present for this year, which she insisted I open - more of that later), Meaghan whipped up an impromptu tree with anything she could lay her hands on. I'm not sure how long I looked for the duct tap she had in the infrastructure before I gave up and fixed my slowly dying vacuum cleaner with sticky tape - not ideal!

Anyway, to get the lush green look, she delved into the pile of clean washing i had yet to sort (ok, nearly a permanent fixture in the family room) and came up with Matt's undies - and so the Undie tree was born. It's shelf life was limited by the inclusion of a real banana- but it did last for quite a few days. The kids were very disappointed to have to pull it down.

Inspiration for this Lo came from Em's Page Drafts Blog - so many great sketches to choose from - go check out what the talented bunch of Girls did for Christmas!

And these are the great presents Alex made for me for Christmas -

She has Matt's crossed arms attitude just right - I told Matt that if they ever broke up, I may very well kick him out and adopt Alex instead...

Coming into summer, this is the first house we have been in since Matt was a baby, that does not have Air Conditioning (it deserves capitals!). And with limited blinds, and very limited greenery outside, it seems so much hotter. Upstairs is unbearable, downstairs slightly better. Matt landed home with 5 friends yesterday and Meaghan turned up with 3 more. At least two of these had pools at home but chose to swelter here instead - crazy...

Geoff is trying to arrange air conditioning to be installed as soon as possible - although this is the worst possible time, hopefully we will get it before the end of summer..

Anyway, as my blogging has been less than stellar this year, I will take this opportunity to say Happy Christmas, hope you get all you need and have a peaceful New Year! xx

You May have Noticed...

or not noticed really, (silence from my long departed readers) but I haven't been a big presence on the net lately. I have kept my hand in at The Lilypad scrapping and checking out Facebook but that is all I can be fussed doing at the moment.

The reason boils down to our new house I think - ok I know. Don't get me wrong, I love our new house, it is  all we could hope for(almost - no pool- sorry Jo..)  and I was afraid that if I blogged before this I would just be complaining and I have absolutely no right at all to do that. I will say only this my life now consists of waiting for plumber, builder, blind installer, telephone/internet or just about any other tradesman you would care to name. Just about all good guys but waiting for someone between the hours of 8-2:30 or 12-5 which is the closest most can get with appointments - eats up most of my days. Tree men coming tomorrow to charge enormous amounts to clear power lines of branches.

But all worth it for our new house, more importantly or new way of life which actually involves socialising here - at home - anytime- with friends - anytime. It is so cool.  We have never been able to do that before.Our neighbours, who moved in while we were renting, are proving to be a bad influence with a steady flow of alcohol and children for Henry to play with.

 Downside is I've had to actually do housework - who knew it could take up so much time??

Anyway, here are some pages I've sort of done about the house -

                                                             the front entrance lights

 

Henry walking through the kitchen -

 

Henry in our spa bath

which is in our ensuite that looks a bit like this

 (with Henry apparently holding Meaghan Hostage in the bath..)

Yep, gives you very little idea what our house looks like yet - sorry. I have been neglecting photos lately, unforgivable. 

And on a happy note (@!#$!!) this is the second attempt to get enough tiles to finish our flooring, only had to wait 8 weeks for them - right near our entrance -

Not quite enough - again - and that may be the last batch that match the rest of our tiles - fun times ahead sorting that not so little problem out. 

So to any readers I have left (possibly none) thank you for coming back, I will try harder (but don't hold your breathe)  - I may just be saying that to myself though...

Panic now..

24 days until we move - so much to do still and the timing will be tricky. And the day we are planning to move, Henry has a party (good) Meaghan is babysitting (she's not that impressed but needs the cash) and we have a trivia night (should be fun if we are not too wiped out).

We have had a bit of a nasty week here healthwise  - i think the house building is taking it's toll. Geoff ended up in Emergency with chest pains on Thursday but luckily they think it was just stress with work and the house. I had a bad cough and ended up straining (tearing?) a chest muscle which I am just getting over. I also had a fun 24 hour blood pressure monitor on (last check up, my BP was high for the first time ever - see house stress above!!) but the numbers it was putting out seemed to be around the normal mark again so that's ok. Kids are well (and ignoring the house still although Meaghan is getting desperate to see it now).

So in honor of this, a couple of house Lo's (all these are for various challenges over at The LilyPad) -

 and then to realise that instead of all this stress, we could be having this trip instead - sigh..

Only joking (partly), we know we are going to love it, almost there - we are feeling it is just like having a baby.Although instead of people patting my stomach, they are driving past - although it is nice that everyone is taking an interest.

Back to my panic attack now..

xx

Get Creative Guest spot

You know how much I love the Get Creative challenge site and I always have fun when I guest there - this month is no exception!

Irini, clever lady and one of my favourite people, has come up with this very versatile sketch -

and I have come up with this -

One of the better weekends we have had camping - weather was kind to us and we were meters from the beach.

Would love to see what your interpretatin of the sketch will be!

Meaghan's friend Nada had a birthday over the weekend (so did Matt but more of that later) and she asked me top do a couple of pages for her ( I love it that Meaghan actually likes the stuff I do enough to give to her friends) and I came up with these couple

She hasn't seen them yet so hope they are ok (well too bad if they're not..)

plus she wants this one I did earlier in the year -

And the big event over the weekend (no, not Geoff's insane sister visiting, that was a highlight for different reasons...) but our boy turned 21!!

He chose a quiet day at home with us and Alex, his long term girlfriend, lots of presents, a nice family day - in between us running to  soccer and the house a couple of times) and then out to his favourite eatery for tea. back for malteaser covered cheesecake and then the unveiling of our major present for him. Alex is off next year studying in England for 6 months so we will pay fro Matt to go over there at some stage to join her. He was momentarily disappointed it wasn't an axolotl 

but quickly got over it... (guess what he is getting for christmas??)

We will also throw a party for him once we are moved, more for us than him I suspect...

Time to do some pretend housework

xxx