Back from Adelaide

We had a great time away, we only managed the overnight part of the trip, not arriving there until 5.15...it takes 2 and 3/4hrs to get to my friend Kells house in the Hills.

I managed some awesome pics and have been playing with a couple of them.

Now i have forgotten which ones i have uploaded....lol im playing with my new Lexmark printer.....it allows you to chose many different sized photos to be added to different sized pages so im trialling a heap of wallet sized and four other sizes to see what they are like:)

Oh okay obviously the first couple are my sweet little petals:) MrFeral is looking lovely as usual and a bit like Yahoo Serious....but believe it or not this is a cool look:(!

The tiny one of Zoe i took the other weekend and i think it is gorgeous

and some scenery from on the trip, thats it for todays short boring post....im tired and off to bed

Oh its our 19th wedding anniversary tommorrow....i CANNOT believe where that time has gone....i dont even feel like im 20 let alone nearly 40 LOL...isnt it ad getting old hahaha

Sunday

Hmmm today is supposed to be a busy day.....painting, scraping pears, paying bills, organising my menu and shopping for the week, help daughter with a project on naked chickens.....yes they are a real thing LOL

I spent a bit of time in my scrap room yesterday on and off as well as doing other stuff .....we should have done yesterday what we are planning to do today...oh well.

We must get the od house painted so we can get it on the market....while it is sitting there it is costing us $1000 a month in interest:(...........

oh just remembered Dh muttereed something about picking apple too.......at least we can do 2 or 3 hours of everything and get a heap done.

Im so not complaining i love multitasking and doing lots of stuff..... you have such a great sense of acheivement when you manage it all

Am posting a pic of me as a littlie....the girls at Chookscraps asked us to post a pic of us as bubs,,,so here are two of mine:)

Have a great Sunday and catch ya later

40th Birthday Party Help needed

It is DH and my 40th bday in july and aug and we wish to combine a house warming with that...can anybody help with ideas please????

Im prob thinking a BBQ here at home with friends from here and away. My dilemma is the ones that come from away need to find accomodation and then buy a gift (if they wish, we arent too fussed about gifts but if any one wanted to then vouchers would be most welcome) would this be tacky to write on the invite.

I dont want people to go to too much expense esp ones travelling. Unfortunately there isnt enough room here for all of them....although some room can be swung for 4 couples to sleep here and we can pop the kids in big tents under the big shed...would that be ok do you think.....

For the local guys i was thinking of asking them to bring a plate......maybe some to bring savoury and some to bring sweets?? Can anyone else shed some more light or give me some more ideas,,,,and would these options be okay????

Thanks in advance.

PLEASE dont be shy sharing ideas and tips,,,,,,ive never done this before and any help is appreciated
Char

Challenge at ScrapBoutique

We were set a non scrapping challenge at scrap boutique this morning so i donned my trusty thongs (or flipflops for the non Aussies)and wandered about the property looking for some Red, Blue, Brown and Yellow things to photograph.

I didnt want to do the usual stuff hence the thong donning and wandering. It is amazing what grabs your eye as you wander about. Im hoping that you enjoy seeing what i have photgraphed for you all.

Okay on with the Red Choices

1 the International tractor

2 a close up of the tractor

3 a closeup of a seeder machine here on the property, also used the wheel as part of my yellow challenge.

So browse on down thru my blog and check out the other pics ive added.

Thanks for stopping by

charxx

Yellow Post

Here are my yellow items of choice.

1 Pears still hanging on the tree

2 a wheel to a seeding machine that is here on the block

3 afron, cherry picker or hydraplat depending on where you live. We usethis to reach fruit in the larger trees.

4 dried pears ready to go to the processing shed to be packed for the supermarkets. Look for Angas Park Brand and you will find our produce:)

Brown Post

Here are my brown choices for the challenge.

1 & 2 are photos of our sultana vines....we had to turn the water off on them this year to save it for crops that would give us a higher return.

3 is one of our brand new chickens we got yesterday...

Blue Post!

Here are my blue choices.

1 The kids made blue pancakes for brekky this morning,,,how could i ignore that photo op!

2 & 4 Abstract shots of our disc blades used to disc up weeds.

3 DH wanted me to take a pic of his irrigation valve

5 Blue gum leaves on our property line

Its raining!!!!!!

It hardly ever rains here........to think 2 weeks ago it was 42 degrees....when they say it will rain here we never believe them!

The boys are going to get wet and cold, they have gone for a bike ride and i dont think either of them have credit LOL

In one of the shots you can see the girls on the motorbike at the end of the row.

First pic is looking over to the cemetary, second is straight out of my front door and third is looking towards the end of the block.

Thanks Krissy the rain dance must have worked:)

Our new babies

Here are the new additions to our family! Yes i know they are ugly and have no feathers and yes we do feel sorry for them but in no time they will be covered in feathers and be so tame their little cages will be a thing of the past!

They wont replace our babies we lost to the dog attack but they will sure will fill the pen:)

The kids have picked their faves and one has earnt the name vulture cause it has a long neck and a big tufty tail......hahaha. I will upload singular pics later on:)

Have a great Saturday!

Should have done this post first LOL

The first pic is one of our pear trees and as you can see they had quite alot of fruit on them...all in all it has been a good year for the pears.

Second Pc is Dh on the afron picking the tops of the trees, these bigger trees were here before MIL brought the property on 1956...so they are very old trees.

Pic three are pears in *sweat boxes* after coming out of the coolroom. We pick them green, they go into the coolroom for 7 days and then sit in the shed for another 7-10 days to ripen.

Pic four is a stack of trays cut and ready to be put into the sulphur tent to be sulphured.
They get about 72 hours of sitting in our sulphur tent and being sulphured then we stack them singularly on pallets....see how there are two trays side by side,,,well we will split them and put just one stack (of 25) per new pallet. So instead of one stack of 50 on one pallet there will be two stacks of 25 on two pallets)

Hope you liked this information.
I am going down later and will take photos of the stacks drying and some that we have scraped off into bins ready to take to Angas Park fr processing.....stay tuned
char......now im off to scrap:)

Pear Photos for those interested

Okay i shall post them and then title them after:)

Wow that worked! Thankyou to Zoe for being the model here:)

We use a triangular shaped knife as you can see. You put the pear with the calyx towards you...(the end bit) put your hands on either side of the pear and push down and away from you slightly very gently.

The calyx part falls into the bucket to be thrown later and you place the pear on the tray which we work on in stacks...

You need to be careful as the knives are very sharp and many a time you get skun oh so very slightly but it stings like mad!

Am going to post again about the picking bit of it...stay tuned and i shall see if blogger will play now!

We are in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have been at the new house for one week today and how fast has that gone!

We have been SO busy im not even going to try to recap what we have been up to.

I will however post some pics but these were taken before we moved in and i shall post new ones shortly as i go:)

The kids have been amazing, DH is absolutley loving this place and i find myself smiling at odd moments when i see him on the tractor or the kids driving around in their ute:)

And as for myself, i too am happy, i am implementing a no junk, and clean up as you go policy at this house and it is working! It includes telling DH to pick up the bath mat and hang it just so LOL.....well it is me that has to do it other wise and he may as well learn how i want it done haha.

DH and i went to the old house on Monday to get some more stuff and u fortunately found four of our five pet chickens dead:( Some dog had gotten in to the yard and killed them,,,,,to say we were upset was an understatement!

The survivor is here and she is doing very well.....and actually she has company! DS and friend brought *frederick* home for her as company. He is the ugliest chicken....and im betting it will be a rooster, he just has that look about him LOL...i must take photos of him. He is soon to be very tame!

The boys are building their pen at the moment. DD has a friend visiting and i have taken 5 mins as i have been on the go since 7.15 this morning...that job was scrubing floor tiles by hand:) Easier than using the mop and i wanted to see if the brown was part of the tile or not.....ummm nope it wasnt LOL

Anyway im going to go for now have to drop the friend home andorganise some tea i guess....im very tired i would love to scrap but all my stuff and i mean ALL of it is in the shed...and my scrap room is full of crap...need to do a fair bit of sorting out before i can get into my room:)

I also have my sister and her 5 kids coming tommorrow so i wanted to do some baking to feed the hungry hoards...not much food at this place at the moment:)

Happy Easter stay safe and have fun!

First pic...part of kids bathroom it is a 3 way one)

Second...kitchen

third ....will be my scrap room

fourth.... dining off from the kitchen

fifth....lounge and down hallway heading down to bedrooms, bathrooms and laundrey.

Busy week coming up!

Monday worked from 7.30 to 1.30 early knock off. Picked up DD from friends house. Visited Scrap shop, i needed some photo squares.,,,,,,im making some 6x6 pages for a project by Julie Stone....Off t visit granny at the hostel, home to get DS then off to the block t cut pears,,,,after that off to woolies for some chockie heehee home for tea dishes bed soon:)

Tues DH has a conference he has to speak at tommorrow for *arrive home alive* he has to talk aboutthe accident in which he broke his hip and his views, the families view and how we all coped with his hospital stay and life after he arrived home.
The diary i kept at the time was very insightful reading it back and they have used it as part of the project. HE has to talk in front of like 150 people and he is so nervous...poor baby!

Wed DS is off to his Airbrushing course, it is progressive and continues on from last years....he really loves it and has talked about it being a job for him later on so any experience is a good thing. He at the moment is passing his resume around town as he is looking for work.

Thurs is our audit day,,,,,,so before this we have to getback tothe block and tidy things up and make sure everything is shipshape...bit hard when you are in the middle of cutting fruit.
I have to be at work at 6.45am this day and will be working until 5pm! *Yawn* LOL

Fri i start at 6.45am again but finish at about 2.30 so that will be nice.

And all of this is a brief outline...we are also hoping to sign the bank papers and really begin to start packing.

Im a little superstitious and am not game enough to start packing too much stuff yet!

Broadband gets turned off on thurs too ready for the move so i wont be travelling cyberspace very fast so it is likely that i wont be about much.,......but no one will miss me i am sure of that!

For the girls i promised the pear pics to, i have taken some and if i can get 5 mins i shall upload them here for you to peruse:)
Cya and take great care charxxxx

Getting ready!

This weekend we have been quite busy. On saturday we went to the block and picked three bins of pears. Tidied up all the fruit that was left in the shed ready to be taken into Angas Park for processing.

Cleaned out the shed a little and gave it a bit of a tidy up all round. In the afternoon we came home and cleaned up the house, this included a little bit of packing.

Im still scared because the bank manager didnt manage to get back to us on friday as he was sick so we are still in limbo really as to whether or not we move....

Darrel keeps telling me that we are but im still scared we wont be able to afford the repayments and will have to live on mince and bread for the next 30 years LOL.......

I am afraid that i cannot get excited until we actually sign the papers and really sign our lives away hahaha. Silly huh!!!

Anyway we will know for sure this week. And i am also scared of letting the owners down and not being able to go through with it all.

Never mind....

Well sunday has proven to be a busy day.......i dont know how blogger will upload my photos so i shall do that first and preview my post the tell you about the photos.....

Okay top two are out near the outside dunny which we have gotten ready to paint, inside already painted, we have eede all along the fenceline.

Next two pics are our new house, they are using it as dining we will use as lounge area:) And continuing along from the chook yard, these are all our fruit trees, nectarines and peaches.

The pic with the blue drum in it is the chook yard, that got all cleaned out today as we are expecting 4 new additions to our pen...making total chicken tally to 9!

The next photos are of the front garden where there used to be roses but they have died. We are going to lay bark chips arund the whole garden before we leave and crusher dust out the front driveway:)

Next we played with *Shelley* she is he funniest bird...she has three balls with bells inside then in her cage and she spends alot of time chucking them in and out of her water and feed bowls.....well now you can put your hand in her cage and ask her to play soccer and she will hrow the balls to you or come and grab them and throw them about her cage....and TALK!!!!!! omgosh....she whistles chatters and cheeps all day long......so cute.

The last photo is dedicated to the moving of the tank. We had it on the other end of the shed but decided it would be better in the yard so we moved it around and will set it all up.

Here where we live we are not on town water and each year you have to divert to tanks for all your water needs while the system shuts down for maintenance for a week.

We also went around the outside of the house and hammered in more clouts to the hardi plank and are in the process of no more gapping ready to paint, how exciting....we have chosen our colours for the outside and a friend who is a painter by trade has offered to get the paint at cost price for us so that is pretty awesome of him:) We were pretty chuffed about that. We save quite alot of money that way .

I have started packing just a few things...like the dvd and video collections.

I was perusing Ebay last night and have bidded on an xbox for the kids, theirs has died anyway while there i got to searching and i have so much junk here to get rid off im wondering if i would get more for it on Ebay rather than a garage sale.....eg i have a dressmakers dummy here and they are going for about the $50 mark...hey id be happy to get that for it:)

I have kids wetsuits here i can sell, books, oh gosh all sorts of stuff!

Im keeping a mental list of things to sell at garage sale, things to give away, things to chuck. Oh i have heaps of For Keeps and some other scrapping mags im thinking of listing in lots of 8 i can get them in a $9.30 post bag.....any takers????

They are all in fantastic condition and i just wont have the room in my new place at all for them Boo hoo!!!!

On a sad note, it was two years ago yesterday since my sister lost her partner to snakebite. She rang me yesterday and we had a chat, she did mention it in passing i had said that i did remember.....the kids didnt rememeber, as kids dont...the two youngest ones (his) certainly didnt remember.....one was 7 and the other 4 when he passed away.

She is in a new relationship now and all is going well..the kids have settled well into city life and although they *apparantly* lol miss us they have settled in really well. Im hoping if we do move they can come for a visit:)

Okay this post has turned enormous and im sorry for that but i wanted to get alot of stuff down at the moment. Trying to capture feelings and thoughts about the move......i am really eager and determined to make it work......i told my dad and mother in law and their reactions were very discouraging......one said *oh Christ, why?* and the other just didnt seem to enthused........:(

So i for one are going to damn well prove em wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay on that note i really am off

Cya Charxxxxxx

BUGGER BLOGGER HAS CHANGED THE PHOTO ORDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it is official!

Just a tease pic...this is my new kitchen:)

We are moving into our new house......OMG i cannot believe it.

We spoke to the owners last night and they gave us 2 dates either the 14th or 28th March, which is really funny because we moved into this house on the 22nd March 10 years ago!!!

We were talking about it last night and it seems that our life runs in cycles of 10 years.

Oh my there is SO MUCH to do...painting the inside and outside of this place, fixing up everything, getting an agent in to list it..our plan is to move and then paint here so there is nothing we have to move about or trip over in the house.......

We will be able to move some of our stuff to our block (which for those of you who dont know is the neighbouring property) We have 2 big containers, the kinds that go on the back of a semi trailer...that we can lock stuff in until we actually need it.

Oh my....i could hardly sleep last night for thinking about it...no second thoughts but still a nerve wracking night....oh its all going to be good!!!!

So unsure????

Okay a quick update...the house we want has actually dropped in price.....now the original price was a big issue but we are thinking we need to sell this house to be able to buy at this new price...that will give us about half of what we need now the big question is

DO WE REALLY WANT TO MOVE!!!!!

Heres the deal.....we will have our house paid out in approx 3 years and we will be debt free totally.......do we bank our current mortgage payments after that and just build a house on our block....(which will be a neighbour to the new house anyway )

Or do we bite the bullet and just go for it??????????????????????????????

We are so unsure...although in todays economic climate staying here might be the best idea.....

can you tell im confused???
LOL

Karen Day wants to say....

"Purple Monkey Dishwasher"http://karen-day.blogspot.com

And it seems the bank has said.....

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well with conditions!! That is...

For those of you who dont know what i am talking about.....we have a 10 acre fruitblock which is a 6km drive from home, to do any work there we need to travel, this means packing up hats, sunscreen, food, drinks, kids, toys, and 100 other things to go there. Then you may also get I DONT WANNA GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this from the kids...anyway i digress

Next door to this property like adjoining it, like stuck right next door, like share a driveway next door is this property! It has a lovely home which i have admired for many years and we told the owner a few years ago if they ever wantd to sell to please give us first notice,,,,well the other day they did!

I have yet to see inside this house but i saw some photos taken fom dazs phone it is a lovely home inside and i will move there in a flash!!!! Has what i want so far. Three way bathroom, ensuite,inside laundrey, lovely kitchen, tiled floors.....
So many questions but hopingto see inside on friday or saturday.

Anyway we have to do some researching about whether or not we can afford to buy it and the like.

After emailing our bank manager giving him the bare bones of the story he said that we have sufficient security to be able to borrow the whole total and costs incurred and he has no doubt that we can make the repayments needed YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All we need to do is get our tax done (LOL) and take in our block one and our personal ones to further discuss what needs doing....

There are only two negatives we can see and they are with the current water restrictions will we have water to grow our crops? and the price is more than we expected!

Later i shall talk more about our everyday musings,,,, and muse we do,,,,there are SO many positives and at this stage without having seen inside the house you know it just feels right. I cant explain it...im not scared or worried just excited and cant wait to get all the balls moving.

We are closer to town, the high school (for leigh and after this year both the kids can ride their bikes to high school), we are close to grans, the skate park, bike track everything.

Leigh is so hanging to go he wants to earn money and being at the block we can go do what needs doing whenever we want to.

If we feel like scrapeing some trays of fruit or want to desucker some trees or just tidy up and move stuff well we can. We can walk the property for exercise like we used to do in Nangiloc...we can walk to the fruit and veg man every nite if we want....there are these and so many more reasons we want to go...

We will rent out this house,we only have 3.5 yrs left on this house. It was a 25yr loan and we have been here for not quite 10 years, so we are a fair way in front:)
We will need to go thru this house with a fine toothed comb to get it spot on for reting,daz wants it *bulletproof*,,,i call it idiot proof. Ive already spoken to the rental agency to find out what we need to do to get it all ready.

We will paint everything before we go,,,goodbye gorgeous suede hallway walls, zoes bedroom is like a musk lifesaver colour...yummy...never mind there are plenty of walls to paint at he new house LOL

Ummm we are starting already to cull stuff and we will have a big garage sale before we move so we dont have to cart stuff we dont need to...

The new house only has like 3 bedrooms and an office...so that will have to become my craft room and trying to cram 3 bedrooms, a study and a craft room into 4 rooms is going to be a struggle, hence the garage sale:)

The kitchen lounge and dining area i think is huge, we may be able to pop the kids computer at the end of the living area and they may just have to have a small tv in their room rather than their shared computer/tv room.

The bedrooms are small with builtins but im willing to sacrifice that room as they will only sleep there...but the main and ensuite is big i believe and there is a walk in robe ( could become our business office with the laptop and a printer on a small desk in there???)

Anyway i am waffling and i guess i should go...

Thanks for listening to me waffle:) Please stay tuned for our next lot of news......fingers crossed the bank says YES DEFINATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If not then it wasnt meant to be just yet:)

Really Cool Site

While roaming about the net recently i have come across this really cool bright looking site, in actual fact i loved it so much i have placed an order with them already.....you should check them out.
They have some really cute clear stamps with those gorgeous Owls on them,,,who can resist them, i even ordered some paper with owls on them.
http://www.scraprelief.com.au/index.php?act=viewDoc&docId=5

It looks like they are going to be searching for a Design team, oh how id love to have a go at that, anyway go check them out and tell them i sent you:)

And while you are surfing around pop on over to my new blog and tell me what you think,,,,,,,http://charmaine-my365days.blogspot.com/
Have a great Saturday

New Years Day

Hi im back......

I forgot to mention that i have had a hair cut.....i now have nearly no hair:)
I work in the food industry and my hair was getting long enough to be pulled back...i hate doing that so i bit the bullet and decided to cut it all off......am attatching a pic, not that you can really tell though.

We had a really quiet NYE....we went and got some movies to watch but not before a major scare with the bank.
Daz had gone to get some fuel for the boat so we could go out in it this morning, he rang me on the way into town to tell me that neither of his cards worked and he couldnt get any money let alone pay for the fuel he had put into the jerry can.

Fast forward to me absolutely packing it because in the morning i had a popup on the computer saying something was accessing and all my files could be in danger yadda yadda yadda and i was panicking to the max!!!!!! Anyway after getting home going to the bank site then ringing them it turns out that they have been having trouble with mastercards not working. The guy daz spoke to suggested going to the bank and withdrawing some cash...that worked and when he went back to woolies it turned out their systems were down!

In all of this all i could think of was someone stealing all our money and not having any money for food or anything....very scary and poor daz was petrified he has never had that happen before.
Alls well that ends well though...phew!

Movie wise we got The Bourne Ultimatum......good action flick as always but a bit unbelievable...i mean how many car crashes can you walk away from....good in spite of.
Shrek the 3rd...hmmmm not as good as 1 or 2 but will watch again my opinion may change.
Last of all, Meet the Robinsons.....okay as a kids flick but as i didnt see it all it would be unfair to comment but will once i have watched it.

In other musings.....we were at the block the other day and daz had aske leigh to move the ute (he has been driving since he was 10) i was sitting in the passenger seat and leigh had to reverse, he is SO gorgeous my heart just swells so much.....he turns around and puts his hand on theback of my seat so he can see where he is going,,,is that just a boy thing? Anyway i just smiled and he sad what mum? I just grinned at him and i had tears in my eyes,,,,i said you are my baby, you arent supposed to be driving waaahhhhhh!!!!!! LOL.

My little girl is sitting here with me and she says mum do you shave your knee caps and i said yes.....she says im glad cause that means im not the only one.....LOL yep she is sitting her with her foot in a bucket shaving her legs with her OWN razor......she was 12 in Nov!!!

Its shocking they just grow so darn quick.....and last night we were sitting outside jsut chatting and i learnt some facts of life from my kids that i didnt think they should know yet LOL hmmmm what an eye opener that ws...my gosh.

A friend and i had just been chatting that mornign about did we think our children were more or less mature than us a t the same age......well i had said definately Leigh is more mature...and then after this conversation I was proven to be correct (lol unfortunately)

Lets just say i was the last to know this information, even zoe was told before me LOL Im just glad we can talk about sex and anything:) Lucky arent I? Then there are other times i just want to give him a smack cause he drivesme nuts! Unfortunately Leigh and I are VERY similar~we know how o press each others buttons big time!

Hmm this is turning into a long post but i also want to get feelings down not just what we have done.
I am also planning to participate on a blog called overlooked but do you think i can find the link in my blogrolls????
Found it! http://thoselittlebigthings.blogspot.com/

I thought it sounded like fun so i may give it a whirl:)
Have a great week and if you have managed the end of this blog post...thanks:) I know it was a longie.

What weve been up too

We have been busy like everyone else through the Christmas rush season.

We have been fortunate that our apricots have arrived early and thankfully finished early. It has allowed us to spend some much needed time together as a family.

We went camping over night on Thursday and had a relaxing time. As you can see from the photo there is water in the Murray River.....i am back at work on Wed and am so not looking forwar to it! LOL. I want more time here with the kids and i would love to get stuck into my house.

I really want to declutter everything!

I am feeling so positive this year,...okay i know it hasnt finished yet but i am looking forward to getting back to the gym and getting into eating healthier,,,,,not that we eat alot of junk, its more a restructuring of the kids eating habits.

I want to encourage healthy snacks.....

We had a very quiet christmas at MIL place. SIL was there and granny, after we had nibbles there we went home and just hung out......the kids were spoilt, they got a nintendo DS for dd and some games, ds received a PSP and some games. They also received some money and zoe a bracelet as well as some DVDs.

Daz got an ipod and ds made us both a pencil case in home ec at school,,,,,he received A's for that subject and we were so pleased.

I received a necklace and earrings from Zoe and the pencil case from leigh i also went to my lss and got some goodies ( a very small bag worth :)) as well as a couple of dvds myself

It has been a productive year tis year and i am looking forward to what 2008 has to offer us as a familyxxx

Have a great New Year and i shall *see* you in 2008.

Any resolutions girls???

Im thinking i should take the time to keep in touch with people,,,,,its no wonder i have no friends LOL

cya charmaine

Merry Christmas to all

Im back briefly, we have had a fun packed week with the neics here.

Weve picked and cut apricots, ben shopping, been 10 pin bowling which was lots of fun, caught in a downpour (it ALWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) pours here in december, especally when the fruit is out on the drying green, you can bet your life on it....so three of us raced 30 kms toget the fruit inside before it rained the other day,,,luckily we did cause we got 12mm that day :)!

We are expecting more rain today and have had some already, they are predicting 10-40mm.....

We are hoping to sneak out in the boat for a couple of hours between showers:) We are also expecting another addition to our family in the shape of a girlfriends child from Adelaide for a few days,,,,she is a good kid and between the five of them hopefully there will be lots of fun to be had! And no fights LOL who am i kidding right:)

The neices will go home on sunday and iz goes on Monday sometime

The gift shopping is all completed and just needs wrapping. We re going o visit mil and granny for Xmas this year...mil is not well and is not coping but we decided just to go for morning tea of coffee and pudding or something and that will be our xmas...a little disapointing but we really dont do much else anyway, if its nice we will probably take the boat out on the river.

Oay just a quick one so im now off for a little surf, i havent even turned my computer on since sunday and it is now friday:) Has to be a record!
BYE!!

A quick five minute breather...literally

Okay the pagent went off extrememly well and i got some lovely photos which i will share some of when i have time.

We got home from there at about 8.45.

I had my xmas work party the night before and got home at about 10.30 which is late for me....hence a very tired girl who had to be at work by 7.30 Fri.



Sat i worked again from 7.15 until 3pm....then went out and picked apricots.



Sunay we spent the whole day at the block frome 8am untl 5.30. We managed to prove a pint to our children, we ended up cutting over 200 trays, which is average for a 6 hr day however our children spent alot of the day with the machine not running but their mouths were LOL.

We proved that you can actually cut one stack of apricots, which is 50 trays in just over 1 hour.....not over 2 hours....



Anyway point made and taken heehee, we sure got a spark out of Leigh that much i can say for sure.



SO that brings us to today...work from 7.30 til 3pm then i spent the next 2 hours hunting for a gift for Zoe...anyone know where i can get an ice blue nintendo DS lite from????????



Tonight we picked up a mate of Leighs who is going to help us cut tommorrow, w got home at about quarter past 8...te is home made pizza,,,yummy and ive had my shower and im sitting here waiting for the oven buzzer to go off:)

Well tea was nice, my computer just decided to do an update and one hour later i am back...but im going to bed now cause it is now 9.37pm

Have a good week and i shall see you wen i get back, whenever that shall be LOL:)

It has officially begun......

The silly season for us that is.......

Last night was the first night of beginning to pick our fruit for cutting and drying....

for those of you who dont know, we have a 10 acre fruit property on which we grow many varieties of fruit however with the severe water restrictions we have actually cut down trees and turned the water off that goes to some of our fruit.

Anyway the fruit has decided to start about 2 weeks early this year and going by the size of it we are going to have some great sized fruit. Daz thinks having to go to dripper irrigation has been the best thing for our fruit.

I worked until 5.30 and the family were already at the block by the time i ha gotten there and had started picking....we got home about 8.15, had a quick tea (which i had par readied that morning, lots of that going to happen now LOL)

My sister rang confirming if another neice can catch a ride back with us when we pick up the other two girls, and at the risk of tkaing two cars, (if i dont wnat to go by myself :)) w said yes okay but that will all work out in the end im not going to start stressing now.

I also volunteered to sew some fluffy stuff onto the cloaks for the king and queen for the pagent so about half past ten was bed time......

So a really short post today just to get some stuff down. Not sure when i shall return...have a great hoilday season and take care
cya Charxx

just a quick catch up....last night zoe and i went to a friends place...we are working on a float for he local pagent....we have an awesome idea we have now completed everything we think, all bar decorating the trailer which will be done next friday.

I will take lots of photos as i have been dubbed the photographer LOL...and im looking forward to it.

We have laid some cement for our new sulphur tent at the block...with out this we cant dry our apricots.....photos to be taken yet.

Work has just flown by this week...i cannot believe where the time has gone.

My Christmas shopping is completed all bar the kids......they are talking (well DS) is talking PS3...yeah right...or Xbox 360...double yeah....zoe wants a nintendo DS ....dh says yeah!!! he has issues with how small it is and zoe is not the most organised child about.....she also asked for a portable DVD player...may be doable we will see.

This is the reason i hate Christmas, it should be banned...i have half been thinking maybe we have big Birthdays for the kids and very small Xmas!!!

Im lounging in my bed typing this at the moment...yay for broadband...its so exciting.

Zoe goes for her orthodontist check up when Leigh goes for his next adjustment...she needs them too.....between the two of them we are going to be broke for a while....esp making two payments each month!!! It will be well over a weeks pay each time....not that im complaining.....the difference it has made to leigh is amazing......must get some pics. The ortho said his teeth are where he wants them already and he is further ahead than expeced...whether that means having them off earlier or not im not sure.

Am supposed to have two neicesc ome from Adel in the holidays to help us with the fruit so they can earn some pocket money...have to make plans on how to get them here,,,,,

Have had issues with DD at the moment with her food.....she is eating LOTS OF JUNK.....went on camp spent birhtday money on lollies and crap...i hate it and she isnt learning so for this last week my good from (hi nise) suggested i make her a little plate of snacks for after school and its working a treat then she doesnt seem to pick after tea as much.

Yesterday i picked her up from school and she asked where her snacks were....quite sad, so when i said you make m a coffee and i will make your snack i got a gorgeous little squeal of happiness...who would have thought huh:)

Anyway best go for the moment, i need some brekky and a coffee to get the energy to go and do this block work...sposed to be 39 today.....ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great weekend galsxxxx