Monday Slideshow Dec #1

Wooooah, how did it get to be December already???

I know everyone says it every year, but seriously soooo many friends have commented on how quickly this year has gone.  I cannot get over that we are in the final month of 2013 already...it is insane! And so with it brings the usual silliness of the silly season, end of year school parties, end of year dance parties, end of year work parties, and last but not least the worst of the end-of-year-do's... the fare-welling of military friends who are posted out of this location...sob sob...you know who you are!
 
So our weekends are now full up and have been so for the last 2 weeks with 'stuff'' which has prevented us from going on any little trips out to discover new areas around us.  In fact this morning Poppy woke up, ran to our room and burst into tears.  We asked what on earth was wrong and she said, "It's Monday, and we never went on a Sunday drive yesterday, when it was Sunday, and that really upsets me because I sooooo wanted to go"  Bless her!

So after the school run we went for a walk with Red Dog down to Rowes Bay to have a play on the swings, and walk on the beach to collect shells.  She is in her element there and will miss it terribly in the new year when she is at school 5 days a week and can't come on our morning walks. 
*note - I only took my crappy 'when-I-grow-up-I-want-to-be-an-iphone' so the pictures are pretty rubbish but that's all I got folks!!

We often drive past the Nessie type creature, so Poppy was extremely pleased that she got to play with it today.

We welcomed much cooler weather today with a great breeze too.  It was glorious!

At home with nature, just like her sister.

National Servicemen's Memorial, (I didn't even know this was here).

    

It was so quiet out at Rowes Bay, Poppy got to walk Red on her own, which she totally loved.

Ooops!

His leg got caught up in the lead, and the more she tried to fix it the more he just walked on, it was so funny.  She ended up falling on her tush just after this shot!  A few seconds later an older gentlemen zoomed by on an electric scooter and said " what did you fall over for, that was silly"  Thank goodness he carried on going.  The look she gave him...OMG!! Let's put it this way, if looks could kill he would no longer be needing his mobility scooter!

Then she insisted she take her own pictures too...

"Keep walking Mum I'm getting an action shot" She is hilarious.  (I made her stand on the grass, I was convinced she would drop my phone and figured concrete was way too unforgiving - btw, she didn't drop it)

I love how there are work-out zones all through The Strand and out here at Rowes Bay - one day I might even use one of them...one day!

Back to the start and just enough time for one more picture opportunity.

On the way back to the car we found this cute paver...I love that this pic has a happy dog and a pair of tiny feet in it too!

Last but not least I will leave you with my favourite picture of the day, I only wish it was taken on a decent camera.  This encapsulates our Poppy's carefree personality perfectly.  She was wandering along singing Aussie Jingle Bells at the top of her voice, waving her arms around while walking her best buddy Red Dog...with not a care in the world, too cute!

Have a great week people..

Kxx

Going Once, Going Twice, Going Three Times...

...SOLD !! (or the other title was going to be "Oh I do love to live beside the sea side")

 

 

Anyway to cut a long story short, we're moving, shutting up (renovation) shop in the land of sunshine and paint pots, and opening up (renovation) shop on a completely new project!! Yes you might remember us saying this is not our forever house, but the learning house, and what a great learning house it has been. We have learnt new skills, met some great tradies, and made some memories to last a lifetime and all this in just under 10 months. But our forever house needs to be a short stroll to the ocean rather than a 10 minute drive, and as luck would have it (and many months of waiting and a few false starts), we are now the proud new owners of a nice (but tired) new-to-us home just a short 2 minute stroll to the ocean.

Here's the proof, because we are still pinching ourselves to check that it is real and not a dream...out of our front door, walk for 2 minutes, and this is what greets us...

What's even more strange as readers of our blog will understand, is that we are taking a big shift away from what we thought was our ideal style of house, moving away from a 'Queenslander' design to what I'll call 'unloved modern' (there was a time, 1985 - don't pretend you don't remember... *EDIT* - Kate here, I had no idea what he was talking about, apparently it's from The Wedding Singer!) In the house we've bought, we see a home, somewhere to raise our girls for the next 12 years while they undertake their wonderful journey through school. And we also see beyond 'what is', to 'what can be' (which, as it appears, many others couldn't) and it's just as well because before we can even move into it, it will need the entire bathroom renovated.  Giddy up !!

But beyond that short term pain, our plan will be to move into the house and in accordance with Kevin McCloud's guidance and blessing (ok, I've read his book and watched the shows), live in the house for 12 months and get a feel for the area, the house and the seasons, while we plan our renovation and design for the new house. We are thinking it will either be an extension to create a second living area and to increase the size of three of the four bedrooms, or it will be a journey upwards for a second story, housing a parents retreat... who knows, but what exciting times lie ahead?!

The house is not available to move into until early in the New Year, which is just as well as we have those final few tasks ahead of us to get renovation project number 1 finalised and ready for sale by March next year. The new house only has one bathroom, so getting that part of the renovation done first before we move in is essential. But it is exciting (have I said that already) and we can't wait to be in our forever home near the sea. Because "I do love to live beside the sea side, Oh I do love to be beside the seaaaaaa".

 

Here's cheers folks!

Col

P.S. Today is Thanksgiving for our American friends, so in keeping with our adopted tradition, tonight Kate cooked a lovely family thanksgiving dinner for us all. (Mmmmm the candied sweet potato and apple side dish was a.maz.ing)  I for one am thankful for my new career and our family's new 'forever home'. I'm also mindful of those soldiers serving overseas away from their families in harms way tonight, and I thank them for their service, because freedom isn't free. Stay safe guys :-)

Monday 'one pic' Slideshow (Nov #3)

You may think a one photo slideshow is a bit of a cop out, but this one photo means more to me than 100 shots of almost any other subject matter ever could.

This photo, in the past, meant my boy was packing his bags for another trip overseas to Afghanistan or Iraq.

This photo, in the past, meant I was about to lose my sh*t in an airport lounge, while trying not to let my kids see my tears.

This photo, in the past, meant my children were about to say goodbye to their dad for 6 months...again.

 

 

But not today!

 

Today this photo means none of us will ever be doing any of that again, E.V.E.R!!

 

His bags are indeed packed, but they have been packed for the very last time.  And this week all this 'kit' will be happily freaking ecstatically dropped off to the military base Q-store and I can tell you, I am quietly jumping for joy!

 

Have a great week everyone, we sure will!

K xx

Owl's you all doing??

It seems like a lifetime ago that our third bedroom looked like this...

 Then it looked a lot like this,

 and this..

While it went through its transition from spare 'dumping ground' room to new bedroom for a four year old.

So why did it take us so long to get Poppy's room done?  Way back when we moved in we worked day and night to get the main rooms ready for our move-in date and get two of the three bedrooms done. Our bedroom and Sasha's both had air con, the third bedroom didn't, (and still doesn't) remember we moved from a freezing cold Pennsylvanian winter to North Queensland in the midst of summer and although we often capture nice breezes in this raised old Queenslander, we weren't going to put our youngest through her first ever tropical summer in a room with no air con.  So we used that to our advantage and held off on finishing her room so that we could a) concentrate on other more important areas and b) use her room as a holding area for all the 'stuff' we had yet to find homes for. I was convinced I had a photograph of her room packed to the rafters with removal boxes but try as I might I cannot find it.  So for the first 5 months she slept in Sasha's Paris-themed room, you can see what it was like back then, here.  (I will do another post next week on what changes were made to Sasha's room once her house guest had moved out!) 

Once the hot, hot summer had calmed itself and our little Poppy Mae had acclimatised we began sorting all the rubbish in her room and started making it her own.  Much like the rest of the house, we kept it all neutral with the bright white walls and ceiling.  We used the same venetian blinds as the other rooms, and added cute black and white tree print curtains from Ikea.  She shares her built-ins with her sister, so we fitted them out with a modular wire framed shelving system.  As for the theme, while we were still in a hotel back in Feb, my sister had sent Poppy a cute little wooden jigsaw jewelry box in the shape of an owl, she also received 3 owl cards and an owl soft toy.

She loved them all, so it was a no-brainer when we asked her what theme she wanted her bedroom to be...OWLS!!  So without further ado, here is Poppy's bedroom in all its owl and 'where-there-is-space-I-will-put-a-toy-or-book' glory...

Oh and by the way, today as I was taking pictures, Poppy asked 'why are you taking photos of my room?"  I told her it was for the blog, and she said, "but I have already done a blog post on my room and things, they will have seen it all already!"  Of course she was talking about her own blog post back here, when I let her loose with my phone and nexus, so yes sorry you may have seen some similar shots of her room already!

The pink circle on the top left of the curtain rail is a tent light.  Once Poppy started to read, we wanted her to have a light she could turn on and off by herself, both safely and easily.  It is controlled by remote and is perfect for night time reading. It has three settings so she can have it as bright or as dim as she likes...perfect!

She used to have a chair in her reading corner but it has been replaced with the dolls house that Sasha used to own but has since outgrown.

An owl made from Welsh coal that Sasha fell in love with on a trip to the UK when she was a baby, now belongs to Poppy who loves it even more!

The flooring in this house is adorable, I love it!

The built-in robe doors are the only thing that's not finished in here, they are on my list to paint this week

Both girls have this awesome Ikea storage unit, we love them, perfect for all their nick nacks

I photographed the owls on her bed sheets and printed them onto canvas printer paper...

...then tacked them onto her curtains so that it all tied in.  When/if she changes her mind about her rooms theme we can snip off the owls and still use these fabulous neutral Ikea curtains.

She chose her own light fitting, not knowing it would create this glorious pattern on the ceiling

She can display her ridiculous amount wonderfully creative amount of artwork by rotating it weekly on her string hanger.  Simple ric-rac held up by tiny command hooks, then her artwork and photos are attached with paper clips

And there is always space on her bedroom door to display her larger pieces, this one is from her last day at Reef School, 'a leopard shark, sea star and jellyfish dancing amongst the coral'

The little miss insisted on having a photo of her sitting regally on her bed as the last picture on the blog post!! 

Can't believe this little cheeky thing starts school in 2 months time!  She had her prep open day this week and on the way home I asked "Are you sure you want to go to school next year?  Don't you wanna stay home with Mummy?"  "No way" she said "I can't wait to go to big school, it's gonna be so much fun"  "But what will I do all day without you?" I asked. "Well", she said, "you can do anything you want to, but in complete peace".   I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

Kxx

Monday Slideshow (Nov #2)



A very simple slideshow today with an update of our mini vegie patch. You will have to excuse the leaf matter and general untidiness in and around our garden, our whole plot is surrounded by huge trees.  Beautiful shade giving huge trees, that we would not be happy without, but at the same time create an awful lot of mess too.  From rotten half eaten mangoes to carpets of leaves...and of course the lovely frangipani confetti as the kids call it.  That's not messy we love that.

Mangoes

Palms

Frangipanis

Plus numerous others that shed their leaves and scatter themselves about our patch, and to be honest I do not spend enough time cleaning up the fallen debris, so as I said please ignore the untidiness!

We have had some successes with our garden and some complete fails.  We began very simply without spending lots of money on making proper garden beds so that we could test out the soil, drainage and location/sun/shade etc to see what would grow (if anything) and what we would have to work a bit harder on.  So we started with snow peas, tomatoes, sage, chives, mint, basil, parsley  and pumpkin and later added round cucumbers, capsicum, potato and lettuce.



After some initial fails with our Basil, it is now coming on wonderfully

Although our tomato plants have now died off, we got loads of fruit from them, and although 'not bad' they were not the best of flavour so we may try a different variety next year.

The parsley and lettuces grew perfectly, again we didn't like the lettuce variety as much as we'd hoped to :(

These two were accidents. Well kind of.  The pumpkin vine started from a seed that had dropped from the compost bin lid, so it was a definite accident and the potato plant is an experiment from the supermarket potatoes that seeded in the pantry before I could use them in the kitchen.  I have no idea if either will produce anything but we figured it doesn't matter either way and would be fun for the kids to see what grows.

The capsicum and rosemary are both doing well

We are hoping the second accidental pumpkin vine and new capsicum plant will do just as well too

As for the other plants mentioned above, cucumbers, peas, sage, chives etc they did not do so well and died out, at first the peas were looking very good and we were hopeful that they would produce a bumper crop but after a few gorgeous little pods formed, they just stopped.  The sage that went in the ground didn't cope and went bad straight away, although I do have a lovely healthy sage plant in a pot.  As for chives, no luck at all.  In fact I have tried to grow chives many times and in many climates and places but never been successful.  I used to love picking and eating chives from our garden when we were kids, seeing the huge 'bushes' of them with those lovely purple round flowers.  Love them!  But I have no idea why I can't grow them here (or anywhere)!  Even our mint wont grow...MINT!? for goodness sake!! Everywhere else we have lived it has positively taken over.  Here?  Nada!  Tried it in pots, tried it in the ground...nothing!  Very odd!

In all honesty we really didn't know what we were doing with any of this garden so we are surprised that even this much has worked...so I guess we ought to be grateful for what we do have! 

So that's about all so far from our garden, we are currently in the process of re-grouping so to speak and making some cute little 'neater' garden beds, not like the ones we did as a trial, (no sh*t they look like freshly covered graves...Col chose to dig rectangular mounds (really??!!), so we should have some pictures of those in the next week or so.  As for the rest of the blog I hope to be back later this week with an update on the kids rooms.  It was months and months ago that Poppy moved from her shared room with her sister to her own bedroom and I just realised I never did a post on it, so I must get onto that.

Have a great week folks and any gardening tips would be gratefully received...especially anything pumpkin, potato or chive related, cos I have no idea about any of them!

Cheers
Kxx