Day 28 Helping out.

Over the last few weeks we have been popping in and out of Rowena and Trevor’s new house helping out with their makeover type renovations. As their painter starts tomorrow, I asked Rowena if there were any last minute things that needed to be done before the painters arrive. In response we got a request to come over Saturday night, bring dessert and help out with the last few jobs. Hopefully sometime in the not too distant future Rowena and Trev’s house will be somewhere they can relax and enjoy as to this point the poor buggers have been doing the hard yards on it and not getting much time off at all! As it turned out, there were not many things left to do as they had done most of it. The above pic is of Trev and Sean carrying the single bed out to the garage and Declan carrying the old underlay out to the truck to go to the dump sometime in the future.

Day 19 Getting the gear.

Since Kindergarten, Illi has been taking dance classes of some discipline or another. She started with All Stars which did dance drama and singing, then she went to ballet, then jazz and tap, then callisthenics. Now at the beginning of year 8, she has decided she doesn’t want to dance any more. I insist my children do some sort of sport as if they weren’t committed to attending, they would be totally inactive (at least they have to attend a class a week of some sport to get them out the door).

When we were in Newcastle Declan went to Tae Kwon Do, but here in Canberra TKD did not work out well for him and he started Karate with some school friends. For a few months, Declan and Sean have been hassling Illi and she finally gave in and decided to join in and try karate too!

Declan has grown so much in the past year that he needed a new Gi (karate suit). The thing is, he didn’t need the top and the bottom at the same time. So he swapped pants some months ago but only swapped to the new jacket recently. It turns out that we threw out the pants in a bag of clothing going to charity ages ago, so while we had a jacket suitable for Illi, there were no pants to go with it!

I tried ebay and a local sports shop but I was either going to have to fork out $30 for a pair of pants or $35+ for a whole Gi. Then I had a brainwave…what if other people also donate their Gis to charity?? Today’s pic is of Illi checking out things at Vinnie’s at Tuggeranong where we found a suitable pair of Gi pants for $8! At next Tuesday’s class, she will be suitably attired!

Day 18 How to get a child out of the house pt 1

Today I had a fairly busy day going here and there. I also tried to structure my day so that I could taxi Illi to an outing she was to attend. Unfortunately she decided not to meet up with the group of girls but I am still yet to hear a reasonable excuse as to why. So far these holidays, neither Illi nor Declan have done much at all, preferring to play with their computers or watch tv than step foot outside. So today I used one of my back up tempters to get Illi out of the house. She made a comment yesterday that she had NOTHING to read (hmmm…I seem to remember a child who got 2 new bookcases for Christmas, who had no trouble filling them!) so I said that I was going to the library and that if she didn’t come, there was no way that I was going to be at all sympathetic to her “nothing to read” whinge!
The above photo is our much loved library bag with my books and Illi's DVD still in it, Illi has already taken her pile of books and is working her way through them. I have a feeling she will be in trouble for not turning her light out at a decent time tonight!

Day 7 When the boys are away....

Today Declan went to the coast with a friend and his family (and came home sunburnt…but that is another story). Sean went out with Trevor on a mission to get a free clothesline for Rowena (…again, another story). While they were out, I decided to dye Illi’s hair with a dye we bought yesterday. It is a really nice dark brown, a shinier more even version of her natural colour, AND it covers the remnants of the colour she got in October. The pic above is of the paraphernalia on the bench after she went to rinse the conditioner out in the shower.

Day 6 Snuggling with a book.

Today Declan was invited to Questacon by a friend, so Illi and I took the opportunity to do some jobs. One of the jobs involved going to Jacaranda to get Illi’s Japanese text. While we were there, surprise, surprise, Illi found a book she liked. So seeing that she was flush with Christmas money (thanks Ma!) she bought it. When we got home, she curled up on the lounge engrossed in the book. So today’s pic is of Illi curled up reading…I love this side of her much more than the one where she is glued to a computer screen!

Day 5 So many photos!

The past few days, I have gotten to the end of the day and thought “Oooh! I haven’t taken a photo yet!” and snapped something nearby. Today, I started the day considering options.

I photographed the cats on my bed cleaning each other (which is lovely considering we wondered if they would become friends as after we lost Liccy, we introduced Angel to Caramel’s house).

I bought a handbag on Ebay which arrived today and photographed that.

I tried photographing Caramel, curled up in my arms like a baby lying on the lounge (that pic was a fail).

But the one I decided to use is of Sean, Declan and Illi. We went into town to have lunch with Sean. He works just outside the Canberra Centre in the ATO shopfront, so we went into the Downstairs foodcourt at the Canberra Centre. With so many options, we chose 4 different places to get our lunches from.

The pic is when all was eaten and the rubbish was packed up in the bag, just before Sean went back to work.

Day 4 Hello Ma!

My parents live in Nundle (What, you don’t know where Nundle is? I know where [insert town name here] is!). As a result of the almost 10 hours drive from Canberra to their house, we don’t get to visit often. Mum (at 70) is quite into the internet so generally we keep in touch by email and Facebook with the odd phone call here and there. Tonight though, Mum called while Declan’s computer was defragging (and he was whinging about how long it was taking) so I passed him the phone and said here, you talk!

The above is a pic of Declan talking to my mum (Ma) on the phone whilst keeping an eye on his computer to see if the defrag was going any quicker!