Miss J came to play

 

 

Ellen had a friend over for a whole day today to play with, and was she ever excited (as was Miss J apparently!). We managed to cram in lots of things, including:
- making triple choc biscuits (on their own no less)
- Ellen's swimming lesson and a play at the pool
- watching a show at the local shopping centre
- a spot of grocery shopping
- lots of trampolining until a blood nose curtailed that activity for a while
- dancing crazily with teddies to some kids CDs
- a visit to the library to read half a dozen books
- a play at one of our favourite parks
and then it was time for Miss J to be dropped off to her Mum.

I don't know about the girls, but I'm feeling rather exhausted about now!!

A little bit more...

 

Now the floor joists are on - for those who keep asking for updates. I'm sure the builders will get sick of us taking photos nearly every day soon, but perhaps the excitement will wane as the temperatures continue to drop?!?!

Timber!!!!

 

 

 

The first timber was put on the house this week - the beams for underneath the floors. The final photo is of the boxing ready for the concrete pour for the slab of the garage.
Greg is very excited about the build finally happening (as are we all), so we are getting semi-regular updates on what's happening and where things are up to via his iPhone camera. The pics above were taken from inside the car - today was around freezing at the time of the photos being taken....BRRRRR!
Glad I'm not a tradie up here in winter! No slip, slop, slop required!

Pouring day

 

 

Well, yes actually, it did rain today, but it was also the day of the first concrete pour on the house. The posts are in now, and the footings for the slab in the garage, so things are moving ahead. Not sure if I would like to be a builder in this climate - wind, rain and just plain cold out there!!

Nearly a week on...

 

 

 

 

there's been some visible progress and with all the holes drilled and prepped, and the mounds ready, they will hopefully pour the foundations early next week. This is the exciting part, when things are happening fairly quickly - I'm sure there will be times when we wonder what on earth has been done from one week to the next, but for now we're enjoying the process!
As you can see it was bold this morning - even Greg had to resort to a jumper and long pants, and that is unusual! The girls and I were quick to huddle in the shelter of the car after our initial investigation, while he took in things from every angle.

Scraping through

 

 

You can tell we're excited - two blogs in two days about the start on our new home! They scraped the block and were marking out the pole placement when the girls and I called by this afternoon to get some progress photos for Daddy. The girls were far more excited today and didn't want to leave, but I don't know that the workmen were all that keen on such an enthusiastic audience - even if from afar...

It's starting!!

 

 

Tomorrow morning the bulldozers and other assorted diggers will finally break ground on our block of land to start the construction of our new home - and are we ever excited!!!!

Will try to post semi-regularly to keep you up to date with the progress. (And no, before you ask - we won't be in before the new baby arrives...)

Mini-break 2

There's something wonderfully relaxing about the beach - listening to the waves crash on the rocks while lying in bed, walking in the sand and doing mindless things like looking for shells and making water channels to direct the water where we wanted it to go, sitting in rock pools, searching for crabs and so much more...

Mini-break 1

 

 

 

 

Well thanks to the Queen's Birthday we finally managed to get away for our first 'mini-holiday' in our 'new' caravan. We've had to do work on the van to get it up to spec enough to use, so it was with a little trepidation that we headed north, and....well, we had a ball. Everything went well, the girls thought that it was the best time ever, and we were able to relax and even defrost a little under the warm coastal sun!

Greg's parents also came away in their van and parked next door, so the girls had a great time in the two 'little houses' as they refer to them, and they swapped bunks each night so that they had a turn on each at least once. My sister and her family, and Mum and Dad also stayed nearby (although they were a tad more upmarket in a 3 bedroom unit with a spa!!)...rather nice to visit though, and we even managed to fit in a hit of tennis (although Jason is really the only way that actually managed to hit the ball consistently!). The kids had a lot of fun together playing in the rock pools, digging sandcastles etc. etc.