the big kahuna! :)

from a travel perspective, shannon and i headed up camping to a place called kahuna for the melbourne cup long week.  we spent three days relaxing, reading magazines, swimming and sunning ourselves next to the river.  i've never done so little but it was a very restful and much needed break for both of us!

we didn't finish the bathroom until mid-october with an entire weekend devoted to priming, painting and doing the trim.  whilst it looks great, if i'm to be completely honest, it's still not finished!  the grout applied by the tiler hasn't dried or sealed correctly and so he's having to come back and re-grout the entire floor L   and the toilet we bought had a leak which caused staining and water damage in our ceiling on the floor below.  we're dealing with the insurance company which is taking some time!

otherwise, we've been doing traditional life stuff and getting ourselves ready for the christmas break!  we've bought all our presents and they're wrapped under the tree which is awesome as the shops are ridiculously busy with people and i don't handle the madness very well J  we also celebrated our first year anniversary at the new house – it's hard to believe that a year has passed already!  it's true what they say – time speeds up as we age :) 

we're heading on a driving  holiday after christmas, driving 18+ hours to queensland for 11 days which i'm excited and not excited about…  that many hours in the car sounds very daunting but it'll hopefully not be too painful!

wishing everyone a happy and healthy christmas and all the best for 2015!

hugs,

s  

home transformation

The new bathroom!!

my dad and his partner, gail, came to visit for august and september which kept us fairly busy with tourist-like activities and home repairs J  i took a few days off when they landed so that i could show them around Melbourne and we headed along the great ocean road for some gorgeous coastal views! it was probably best that i offered to drive as dad spent significant time snapping pictures and ogling the scenery ;)  unfortunately, the weather wasn't great on the second day so we had poor visibility for some of the rock formations around the twelve apostles.  among other highlights, we headed up to the yarra valley to check out a local zoo filled with native animals, went penguin watching and visited a miniature train show. 

in addition to sight-seeing, we spent some time on home repairs.  shannon and i wanted to redo our bathroom upstairs as the shower was narrow and uncomfortable to shower in so dad & I spent a couple of days demolishing it which i really enjoyed!  it was much quicker demolishing it than I has been putting it back together :)  (the bathroom is now a bright green!) we also build some fantastic garden beds for the front yard, stained them and the fences and built sliding pantry drawers which have effectively tripled our storage space!  all up, it was a pretty busy two months, even more so for them as they did heaps of traveling too! 

the weather's starting to warm up and we've had some ridiculously warm days already!  the garden's starting to grow in earnest – we've got broccoli, tomatoes, capsicum, carrots, beans and squashes growing, along with a couple of flowering plants – i'm looking forward to eating some of the fruits of my labour.

take care!

hugs,

s

10 days for the price of 3!!

it's not often you can take 3 days annual leave and end up with 10 days off but that's what happened this year due to when easter and anzac day (remembrance day) landed in the calendar :)  we'd normally have gone on holidays with the kids however they wanted to stay home so shannon and i took the opportunity to head off to south australia and give the new car a chance to show us what it could do :)

we spent the easter weekend in mt gambier, camping near the blue lake.  the caravan park was mad busy with people and their pets which was expected - buddy was happy with all the dogs!!  we spent the four days checking out the blue lake, heading to robe, a picturesque seaside town and port nelson to check out a lighthouse which is a favourite subject of mine for photography :)  i also got to try out a jumping pillow - i understand why the kids love them :)  from there, we headed over to our next base, victor harbour.  we visited hahndorf, a charming town originally settled by the germans, took a number of coastal tour drives and visited some wineries including one with a pop-up old car show - we went in to taste some wines and came out to discover over 400 old american cars parked on the lawn!  it was a lovely holiday and buddy particularly ended up getting to spend time with his peeps!  he's actually a pretty good camper/car companion. 

other than the holiday, we've had one exciting change - we bought a new car - a station wagon with heaps of space compared to the echo and it's automatic so i can drive too!  we've otherwise had typical life events, dinners, birthday parties, etc...  i've started practicing yoga again which is great to de-stress and buddy celebrated his first birthday on 10 may!  we're both happy, healthy and having fun - i suppose there's not much else to ask for in life!

i hope everything's good in your lives too!

hugs,
s

p.s.  here's a picture of buddy on our driving holiday...  he almost looks like he's smiling :)  

  

holidays and beyond...

shannon and i moved into our new house in the middle of december with a strict deadline -  the place needed to be in reasonable shape for christmas as we're having 16 guests for lunch!  we slowly worked our way through the boxes and everything was more or less assigned a new "home" in the house with one day to spare!  we even had the christmas tree set up on buddy's cage to avoid him chewing any of the ornaments!  lunch itself was a great success - traditional aussie bbq - and i was particularly pleased with my my first ever pavlova and mom's shortbread cookies! :) 

post-christmas, we headed down to lakes entrance with the kids and buddy for a week of camping and relaxing!  we caught up with shannon's brother and his family on the way out and a girlfriend of mine and her new addition on the way home. while at lakes entrance, we visited the buchan caves, went lawn bowling and boogie boarding, tried archery and took buddy to the beach!  all up, it was a rather busy holiday though at the end, when asked how the kids enjoyed their holidays, it was given a 6 out of 10, namely because they didn't get wifi in their tents!!  how the world has changed!!  that said, buddy had a great time hanging out with his peeps camping :)

unfortunately, i was sick so we missed out on new year's eve down the coast but otherwise, we've been busy with the usual/typical life events!  and now, we've got this house thing which seems to suck up a fair bit of time too...  oh, and we're both a little addicted to candy crush (blushing immensely)!!

i hope everyone's well and that 2014 is fabulous to each of you ;)

hugs,
s