Visitors...pump...gate...gifts

Krysti and her kids MJ and Jessica are visiting again from Canberra. They have been here for a bit over a week already and will go back home next Tuesday. Lani and Krysti have taken the kids to the Broadwater for a swim and play in the sand, Movie World and the kids have played a lot outside on our trampoline, swing set and slide.

Last weekend I finally connected a pump to my water tank with little trouble at all. Most jobs I do around the house always seem to have some unknown hitch giving me trouble but this job went relatively smooth. We also recently received our water tank rebates so the total cost of setting everything up was only a few hundred dollars.

On the weekend I was hoping to take a day to build a double colorbond gate into our side fence to enable access into the lower part of our yard to park our boat. Unfortunately the job was a little tricky and more difficult than I first anticipated. I started to dig my first post hole with a heavy crowbar and hit rock about 10cm down. Over 3 hours later I finally chipped away a 60cm deep hole. After all the effort I noticed I had developed 5 blisters in the palm of my right hand and one on my left hand. I decided to tape up my hand with an adhesive bandage so I would be able to continue working. The bandage worked a treat, I dug the second post hole with ease in about 15 minutes and I got both posts concreted into the ground ready to do the rest of the gate and fence alterations on Sunday. That night as I pulled the bandage off it also ripped several blisters off with it and left adhesive all around the wounds. Next time I will use a sterile pad then tape over it. On Sunday I wore some decent leather garden gloves and finished the job in the early evening. Still have a few minor adjustments to do but I am pretty happy with what I have done. Learnt a few lessons for next time I do a similar job and saved us some money doing it myself.

For those that gave James money for his birthday, he bought several things on the weekend with the money. Two Nintendo Wii games, Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean, a deluxe Star Wars Light Saber and the full set of episodes from the first series of Sponge Bob Square Pants on 3 DVDs. I don’t mind watching a bit of Sponge Bob myself, I find it quite funny.

2nd cousins...double digits...surf's up...lost!

On the weekend 7-8 July we looked after Lani's cousin Jacqui's kids Michael (14yr) and Ammon (3yr) while Jacqui and her husband had a mini break together on the Gold Coast. Both kids were not a problem and seemed to have a good time mucking around with James and Jazz. Lani took Jasmine and Ammon to MovieWorld on Saturday afternoon and Ammon really enjoyed it.

On the 10 July James celebrated his 10th birthday. He received some cash from family and plans to buy some good stuff for himself in the near future. We had his birthday party on Saturday. We picked up 3 of his mates in the morning and went to the 9:30am session of Harry Potter – Order of the Phoenix. For lunch we had McDonald's then came back to our place to play. During the afternoon we filmed a movie with a bit of a Ninja theme. It was a little chaotic with all the boys having different ideas on plots and scenes. Lani and I had to take control because they couldn't agree on things and were getting frustrated with each other. It was a challenge to complete the filming by the planned going home time of 5pm. Both Lani and I had headaches at the end of it all.

Recently I bought a sleeveless spring wet suit so I could surf throughout the year. Yesterday we all went down to Main beach and I tried my wet suit out for the first time. At first the water seemed a little too chilly (19 degrees) when I put my feet in but after some hesitation I just took the plunge and it was refreshingly fine. The surf wasn't too great but I really enjoyed getting out and having a paddle.

After I had finished my surfing Lani and James decided to go for a jog/walk up the beach to the next set of lifeguard flags and ended up going all the way to the Seaway and back (over 8km round trip). Jasmine followed along after them but Lani and James didn't notice her close up behind them. I watched them run off seemingly together, thinking Lani saw Jasmine then I laid back and relaxed. Unfortunately Lani and James were unaware of Jasmine just behind them and they ran away from her as Jasmine stopped to pick up some shells. Jasmine said that after picking up the shells she looked up and had lost them completely. Jazz continued onto the next flagged area but Lani and James were nowhere to the seen. She waited there for a while then came back to me saying that Lani and James had disappeared. I was a little shocked that Lani would run off and leave Jasmine behind and was concerned that Lani and James were possibly in a panic looking for Jasmine further up the beach. I decided to stay put with Jasmine and wait. Jasmine wanted to go tell a the nearby lifeguard about the disappearance of Lani and James, thinking we might also appear on one of the surf patrol shows on TV. Nearly an hour after Jasmine had returned to me reporting Lani and James had disappeared, they both returned totally oblivious to the drama they left behind.

Stuff...

We had a pretty good weekend. On Friday night we went to an end of financial year get together for the small company I contract through. It was at the company owner's house, the kids played inside and watched a DVD while the adults sat outside. I had heard it was going to be inside, so Lani and I didn't wear very warm clothes. We were both a little cold but it was wasn't too bad.

On Saturday I bought a magnetic resistance exercise bike. It is pretty quiet so you can watch TV and not be too distracting for anyone else watching. I have put on a few kilos lately and don't really enjoy carrying around the extra weight.

On Sunday we went to a BMX track / park at Jasmine's request. Jasmine really enjoyed it and got plenty of exercise but James didn't want to ride and mucked around on the play equipment. Lani and the kids had been there before but I hadn't. The track is really quite good and has plenty to offer for a young rider like Jazz up to serious thrill seeking rider. Next time I will be sure to take my bike also.

James had a tooth come out on Sunday. He bypassed the tooth fairy business and cashed the tooth in directly us. We will just seek the tooth fairy rebate on his behalf.

Yesterday Lani's cousin Jacqui and he kids visited our house. The kids played around the house in the morning and then went to Southport Park on the Broadwater in the afternoon.

It's not rocket science!

Back in January we had a bit of fun trying to get a rocket to launch in our back yard. Here is the video...