Away

Finally we get the internet working properly again just as we are about to take off. Teacher only day at school tomorrow so we are heading down to Auckland early. It is my brother's 40th birthday on Saturday - yay looking forward to that.

Mum is coming back up with us on Sunday and is going to stay with the boys while Andy and I take off for some much needed "us" time. I wonder if we will find enough to talk about without the boys interrupting and fighting the whole time. A real whistle stop tour with a night each in Rotorua, Napier and Tauranga before heading back home.

So my blog will be quiet for a bit, but you are already used to that lately anyway. Have a good week and Happy Thanksgiving!

Internet

I love the internet and the ability to stay in touch and access so much information. But boy, when I can't get my connection is it frustrating! For 2 days now we have had incredibly limited access only getting on at 9pm. I need more of a fix than that! I ring my ISP and they say it is telecom's fault, you ring them and they know nothing - sounds like my kids. I want a reliable connection.

CJ Sneak Peeks

I have had a very productive wet weekend. Andy took Alistair over to the lake to throw down a bit more grass seed and add some fertiliser, the other two boys have been here with me watching tv. I managed to get stuck into Jo's circle journal and finished that, this is a sneak peek here. The second pic is a sneak peek of Gina's journal that I finished and passed on last weekend. I am really enjoying doing these journals, seeing all the different ideas and styles of scrapping is great and really good for my idea banks too.
 

Life Lessons

It has taken me a while to get to posting about this, but now that everything is OK, I figured I would put it here. Monday last week Alistair was experimenting with a can of petrol and a cigarette lighter. He was in the section next door and had poured a small amount on the ground and lit it. The flame was quite good, but he wanted it bigger and decided to pour a bit more petrol on it. Big mistake. Long story short we ended up at White Cross where they treated him for burns to the tops of his fingers and thumb on his left hand. 2 second degree burns and the rest surface burns. For the first week we were up there every day after school for dressing changes and then this week everything is healed enough to have his hand out in the open. I rang my homeopath and I am sure the remedies and solutions to bathe in have really sped up the healing process.

Alistair now knows what happens when you pour petrol on an open flame and has learned a very painful lesson (I am so relieved that it was such a minor lesson). He also knows that there are many men out there who have tried similar things with varying results and that if he asks there will be someone around who can help him experiment safely. I can't get over how many horrific stories I have heard from all the adult men around me.

Happy Birthday Mum

Hope you have had a wonderful day especially after having to listen to us sing happy birthday this morning. I know my brother and sister and their families were all heading on over to have dinner tonight, wish I could have made it too, but unfortunately that wasn't to be today.

Altered Projects

Finally after this little organiser has sat on my desk in an unfinished for the last 3months I have got round to decorating it. I have been wanting to do this since I first saw Yolande's work in Up 2 Scrap. So much fun making this, I loved playing with all the paints and mod podge. My family does not appreciate my art though. Every single one of my blokes queried why I had painted over the edge of the paper and Andy really can't cope with the fact that the letters aren't stuck on straight. C'mon guys, I wanted it to look like that!!

The last few days have been so nice and warm and the bush of daisies up our driveway has been looking particularly good. I went out with the camera and had a play with the macro setting. I think I have a pic here of every flower in our garden. We don't have green fingers and the only flowers that grow here are very hardy ones that need no care. 

Thank yous

"Dear Mrs B...
We appreicate your help. with making the candy floss you are skilled. You must like it better than housework. You won't beelieve how much money we raised $1057. What would you have rather done made candyfloss or go to the guy and stayed home. Without your help we would not have made 500 bags of candy floss.
Yours sincerely
Tommy B..."

"Dear Mrs B...
We very much appeciate your help. Was it a yum job? Well it tasted gretat at the Country Fair. Thanks for helping us we could not have raised $1057 without your help. Do you know me I am Alex. What I enjoyed most was stick in the sand.
Yours sincerely
Alex ..."

"Dear Mrs B...
I enjoyed rock climbing and bandey jumping. Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely
Lachlan ..."

"Dear Mrs B ...
Thank you for helping us with the candy floss you were a big help. Everyone loved the candy floss. My favourite part of the country fair was the climbing wall it was $2 for two goes. I thought it was $2 for 1 go on the climbing wall. We raised bucket loads of money $1057 that about 500 bags of candy floss!
Yours sincerely
Daniel ..."

Splash Day Fun

What a wonderful day with glorious weather over the whole weekend. We had a huge turnout for Splash Day with a whole pile of new kids turning up. We managed to teach them a huge amount of water confidence with 2 of them going out on the tobaggan for the first time, it is such a reward to see their smiles of joy as they all come in having done something new.

Handicaps on Sunday morning saw lots of puffy eyes as we pulled them out of bed, I think it was too early for Nick as he didn't have a good slalom session. Ali though being the first skier on the water managed to qualify for the Nationals which was a perfect start to the day for him. 

Tricks.

We have been looking for a new trick ski for Alistair. He has been struggling on a ski and just wasn't getting the tricks despite all the practice. Glen leant him his longer 42" ski and Ali was getting all the tricks - guess this boy is getting bigger. He and Andy were checking out the different options online yesterday and found the weight system was used in gauging what size to buy. Asked Ali to jump on the scales and he was 140lbs - yep all American weights because the skis are American too. I said to Andy that must be about what I am and jumped on the scales to check. I had absolutely no idea because I always weigh myself in kilos. Turns out my guess was way out and Ali has a bit of catching up to do or I have a bit of work to do! No more shirking on the workouts and no more sneaky packs of chips or the odd pie to reward myself after a big workout!

Sticky messes

School fair is on tomorrow. Tommy's class is making candy floss to sell. I volunteered this morning to help make some of the 500 bags they are wanting. What was I thinking when I turned up in my good clothes? Well surely making candy floss can't be too messy right? Wrong! Check out the sexy suit they gave me, still at least I only came home with candy floss all over my face and not my hair and clothes as well. The kids had a ball helping to make this and catching all the bits that keep floating up all over the place. Do you have any idea how itchy it is when candy floss lands on your nose and you can't scratch it?
Anyway fingers crossed for fine weather for tomorrow so we get a good turnout both for the school fair and the splash day we are holding over at the lake. 

Rural Delivery

We have been dealing with the frustrations of the rural delivery mail service over the past few months. We buy quite a bit over the internet and with the change of ownership of our mail run we are now mainly having to go into the main post office to pick up parcels that are "too big for the box". The previous drivers used to bring them to our door. Fair enough, but when we have paid something like $30-50 for postage in the first place then I expect to have the parcel delivered to my door. It is not like we are even miles out of town - a whole 7km from the very centre of town, and the area is now very built up - the city has now come to us. Andy has been working hard on the information mailer for our Nationals coming up, with all the email hassles we have had lately and the file not getting through it was couriered to us on Monday morning from Auckland. We received it in our mail box today - not a very good service NZ Post!

We figured it was about time that we were on the regular delivery schedule so we can have couriers come direct to us. This morning though we started to rethink. Tommy and I were having an early morning cuddle in the lounge when we saw something moving in the back yard - we take a second look and yup, there are 3 cows standing under our puriri tree - hmmm maybe we are still a little bit rural after all.

Quiet

It is very quiet at our house at the moment. Nick left this morning on a school trip down to Auckland. They are gone for 2nights and get to enjoy all sorts of things such as the Zoo, ice skating, Rainbows End, and Waiwera thermal pools on the way home. He was so excited and upset both at the same time last night. He was really going to miss his family. That was a real 'aha' moment for me because I figured he couldn't wait to go - I was definitely looking forward to losing all the fighting for a couple of nights.

Tommy has been a real lost soul all afternoon and is really quite bored already without his brother to tell him off and annoy him and thump him at least a dozen times in the space of an hour. I know Nick will have a wonderful time, but we also want him to come back soon!