Hope you are all well and have had a good few weeks since the last update. Not a huge amount to update on – I’m having to wrack my brains to think about what we’ve been up to as it’s 9.30pm on a Saturday evening and I have been partaking of some liquid refreshment of the grape-grown variety and my mind has just got up and walked out the door ;-) (plus I am old now!)
We have been plodding onwards and upwards. The kids have been on holiday for a fortnight and go back to school on Tuesday. This will be Term 4 and after an 8 week term (shortest of them all – hooray!), they will then break up for the summer/Christmas holidays! I must say, it’s been a long year for them. By the time it gets to their two weeks off, they are exhausted. We haven’t really done much this holiday though and concentrated on resting for the last term. Paul’s taken an afternoon off here and there and taken the kids to the pictures (they went to see Barnyard), Darcie had a sleep over at Amy’s and had another trip to the pictures (lucky duck!) to see The Wild. We’ve done lots of shopping and BBQ’s for lunch and it’s all been very relaxed and fun. The kids also did a weeks swimming course at the local pool through a scheme called VACswim. It's run during the school holidays and is based on kids all getting to learn how to swim for a dollar a day. The kids enjoyed it; Darcie had completely forgotten everything she learnt in her last classes and swam like a stone and Sam worked hard, but just missed out on passing his level. The classes were only half an hour, but every day we seemed to be in the pool for two and a half hours! The lure of the water slide and the rapids was just too great and everyday they emerged tired and wrinkly (we know how that feels!)
Paul fulfilled an ambition when we took the boat into Perth and launched it into to Swan River. He has always wanted to Skipper the boat right into the heart of Perth and he got to do that the other week.
We did have some adventure though when we stopped for a picnic and beached the boat (that is to drive it up onto the sand, nose first). We secured it really well and went off for a barbie at one of the many playparks along the length of the Swan River; only when we came to leave, we hadn’t accounted for the tide going out…… The boat was well and truly grounded. However, after lots of strained muscles, the odd hernia and Paul falling into a hole in the sand and submerging himself (to which the kids and I wet ourselves with laughter – much to Paul’s disgust!), we managed to get all aboard and back to open water! We certainly have some ‘experiences’ on the boat! It was lots of fun though, and really gave us a ‘this is what it’s all for!’ feeling. The sun was shining, Perth looked beautiful and Paul was drenched! Life was cool ;-)
There is an X-rated version of what happened on the boat which is VERY funny, but Paul won’t let me publish it on the blog – you’ll have to email me for the full un-abridged version – tee hee!)
Let me think………. What else have we been up to…. Well, the AffinityOne website has been all updated and is very new and spangly. Paul has re-written it and we’ve had a professional company come in and update all the ‘behind the scenes’ bits, so it’s functioning a lot more efficiently. It’s never easy when the kids are on holiday trying to make phone calls and still run the business, but the kids have survived for another break, so we must have done something right (or not throttled them hard enough!).
The builders have cracked on with the house a little more (although the weather has been a bit pants lately and it’s rained a lot). We’ve had the summons for the second stage payment to be made, so this means that the scaffolding is on site and they will be getting ready to pour the second slab for the first floor. The have a poured concrete slab rather than floorboards, but it is ‘floating’ so we can pass cables and stuff around it – I don’t know what that means either, it just sounds impressive! You can clearly see the columns now to the front, and Paul has christened it ‘Battersea Power Station’, I think you can guess why! It is really starting to take shape now and you get a real feel for the size of the rooms.
See what we mean about Battersea Power Station?
We now have columns in place for the covered alfresco area and the garage has appeared (almost overnight!). On a separate note, the Shopping Centre in Secret Harbour is looking fab and will definitely be open for Xmas. We have one third of the ‘Woolworths’ sign. It will make a nice change not to have to drive to the equivalent of Stevenage to go grocery shopping! I believe we are also getting a petrol station and a bottle shop (off license) in the not too distant future (alcoholic drivers rejoice!). The new Senior School is also growing by the week – although I think they’re going to have to get a wiggle on to be finished and open for teaching by February 2007. Every time we drive past there seems to be another ‘wing’ appeared.
Ooh, Ooh, I did some Christmas Shopping this week! Target had another ‘mega toy sale’, so I went a put a few bits on lay by! You pay a deposit and then pay it off every month; but the best bit is the store actually keep it for you until Christmas Eve, so you don’t have to keep it in the house and think of more and more ingenious hiding places for pressies. Brilliant idea – so long as I can actually remember what and where I bought stuff! I can’t tell you what I bought as Sam sometimes reads this, although I took Adam with me shopping and put two Thomas DVD’s in the basket. He was very happy and sang the Thomas theme tune all the way round the store. Until, however, the lady took them from him and wouldn’t give them back! He broke his heart crying and shouted in a very angry voice ‘Naughty lady! Home now – tell Daddy!’ I felt really sorry for him! So much so I bought him a lolly to stop him sobbing.
I also celebrated my first birthday in Oz!! Hoorah! I would like to formally thank everyone on here for my CARD (singular – NOT plural, you notice! ;+) Actually, it was the best one I’ve had in a very long time. Paul had actually gone to my two friend’s houses and knocked (on his own – unbribed) to invite them to a birthday BBQ he was holding in my honour. They came with pressies and food (Amy’s mum even baked a beautiful pavlova for my birthday cake with after eights and strawberries, it was fab!) and we sat in the garden all evening whilst the kids played, eating and drinking and laughing a lot. It was lovely and I was really chuffed that Paul bothered to do that as he knew I would probably be feeling a bit low and missing friends and my Mum. Paul excelled himself and picked out a lovely card (as opposed to what he normally does and grabs the one nearest to the checkout in Tescos!) and gave me money for a shopping trip. I’ve also booked a hairdressers appointment (thanks, Mum!), although after what they did to Darcie, I’ve been a little apprehensive. I might tell you how it went…… depends how it turns out, really.
We went to the Mandurah Boat Show today which was very good. Darcie was off playing at Amy’s so we just had the two moaning, whingers to drag around with us. We bought a waterproof boat cover to hopefully stop the damn thing filling up like a bucket and a small gas fired camping stove for when we go on ‘expeditions’ and want to warm out beans up on the move! We also looked at the next step up for us boat-wise which would probably be something we could sleep on. They’re not too expensive really, so when we’ve worked hard and have a bit of extra cash we can re-look at it. T
Thats all for this week, I think. Keep up, won't you ;-)
