Tiling, tiling, tiling

Tiling, tiling, tiling. That is about all I have to report at the moment. We have now stuck up all the wall tiles in the main bathroom/toilet and laundry including grouting. Lani did a sensation job of sticking up most of the tiles and grouting while I did most of the cutting and fiddley bits. Now all that is left is for Lani to complete the silicon work and some finishing touch ups while I will install the new vanity, toilet and laundry tub. The new shower screen was measured up today and should be installed in about 8 working days. Hopefully it will be done before Mum and Dad visit at Easter.

Once the bathroom and laundry are complete that will be the last of the major projects around the house for a while. I hope to do a lot more leisure activities like fishing and swimming at the beach. I’m looking forward to a pleasant winter.

Beach...Garden...Playground

Had a good weekend. Jasmine had a friend stay overnight for a sleepover on Friday night. On Saturday morning we went to the beach. I took the wave ski down this time and caught several good waves. I felt like I was just starting to get into it when I realised I was surrounded by blue bottles. So I caught the next wave in and told the kids to get out of the water. The kids then played for a while at the back of the beach on the small sand cliffs that had formed from the recent storms eroding lots of sand away (see photos). After getting all sandy the kids wanted to go back into the water. The blue bottles were not washing in anymore so I went in with them for a while until I spotted some more blue bottles. So we called it a day and had a swim at home in the pool.

I did some plant moving this weekend. Hopefully I haven’t killed any in the process. I tried to plan my garden reasonably well a year ago but sometimes some plants don’t perform while others explode in growth. I should have paid more attention to Don Burke who once said to check out what is growing best in the area. I didn’t notice so much before but now I just see the same plants everywhere. There are obviously some good plants that don’t require too much watering and thrive on the Gold Coast. I think I’m getting it right now.

This afternoon we also went to an adventure playground at Pacific Pines with the kids and one of Jasmine’s school friends.

Bathroom and Laundry progress

The next stage in our laundry and main bathroom renovations was completed today. The tiler set the bedding for the floor tiles and will be back on Monday to lay the floor tiles. We considered getting the tiler to do the wall tiles also but doing it ourselves will save us over $500 and give us the satisfaction of doing the job. Hopefully Lani and I working together will be able to knock over the job within a week or two.

Tomorrow morning we plan on going to the beach. Last weekend we went to the beach but only stayed for about 30 minutes because it started raining. The kids were quite excited about going and were so disappointed when we couldn’t stay because we had no umbrella. The weather forecast is good and the water temperature is 25 degrees, so I am looking forward to having a paddle.

Naval gazing that beggars belief!

I don’t really consider myself a political enthusiast but the amount of navel gazing going on in the Australian Labour party simply beggars belief, to put it in their words. Over the past few months I have consistently heard so many of the senior labour politicians use the phrase ‘navel gazing’ and ‘beggars belief’. They are like parrots. Since the Mark Latham debacle they have continued on a trail of self-destruction allowing a somewhat shambolic at times Liberal government to plough ahead with little or no opposition. The public are apathetic because the opposition is laughable and doesn’t offer a credible alternative.

I know my comments are a little out of character for our family news but I just felt compelled to express my disillusionment with the current political environment in Australia. It is laughable but sad. It could be a hell of a lot worse but then again it could be a hell of a lot better.

Rain...Tang...Award...WOW...Sick

For the past couple of weeks we have spent most of our time indoors because we have had a lot of rain up here. I was hoping to take my wave ski for a paddle or go fishing but weather was pretty ordinary and the ocean treacherous.

The Tang kids popped over for a bit of a play recently. Mark, Chantelle and the kids now live in Ormeau (about 15 minutes away) so I think we will be seeing a bit more of them now. The boys get on quite well with James and Jasmine so it is not a problem when they come over.

This week Jasmine was awarded Student of the Week for trying her best in all areas of her work. She was quite happy with herself and we were very happy also for the effort she is putting in at school. She is getting more confident with her reading and general academic abilities which has been good because she is at least now not so afraid to extend herself.

James has been having some issues with his teacher at school. He felt a little intimidated by her and finds her a little too inconsistent in the rules and things she says. We went and spoke to her the other day just to let her know mainly about the intimidation factor because it was definitely affecting James emotionally. She seemed quite nice to us and genuinely interested in the kids. We think she just has a very dominant personality that James is having a little trouble handling. She really drives the kids along with a lot of strong vocal reinforcement. If anything, she has been quite good for James because she has at least been able to ‘motivate’ him to improve his handwriting, which has improved dramatically this year.

James’ new passion lately is playing World of War Craft. It is a massively multi-user virtual mythical world adventure game played over the Internet. I wasn’t particularly keen on him wasting a lot of time on the game but it motivates him to get ready early for school and get his homework done so I can’t complain too much. Luckily his Uncle John who introduced him to the game and plays it himself has given him access to a game account.

I’ve had an absolute shocker this week. On Monday night I came down with a gastro bug and had severe stomach cramps all night and throughout the day on Tuesday. I was completely wasted, one of the worst times of my life. Luckily nurse Lani was on hand through all the ‘ugliness’ of the illness and helped my get through it. Hopefully no one else in the house gets sick.