Rockbeare House painting Just before Easter, Greg started painting our house for us. Here he is on Day three. From HomeStuff In just over 10 days he’s managed to achieve all this. He has one day left to go, so the whole outside will be repainted by tomorrow. From HomeStuff We’ve
Rockbeare More Monty Monty continues to grow and do well. He got snake mite last week (possibly from the wood we put in which it turns out hadn’t been treated by the pet store) so has had a couple of treaments (more or less spraying his enclosure with a mite spray then
Rockbeare Camping in the Darebin Parklands As many of you will know, Karina is the Vice-President of the Darebin Parklands Association (DPA) that works to improve the parklands that we overlook in our house. One of the things she is very passionate about has been having lots of activities to get kids involved and interested. For
Rockbeare Skirt Making Karina got a new sewing machine for Christmas and the kids have been very excited about it after they were let loose for an afternoon with a spare piece of fabric. I think Ella tried every one of the 50 different stitches. Grandma saw this interest and so when we
Rockbeare Restumping continues The re-stumping continues quite quickly. As I type this (lunch break working from home) the Building Inspector is outside checking off the stump holes and the new concrete stumps which are now largely in place suspended from the bearers.It’s all kind of “backwards” from what I expected. Basically
Rockbeare Termite damage James and John, our builders came by this morning to pull out the termite damaged window to get it remade. Some of the damage the termites left behind. John with the damaged window and James inspecting the damageWith the barge and plinth boards off we can also see the two
Rockbeare Restumping and removing You might remember that before we went away to England (August 2007) we had a brief termite infestation which had to be eradicated. This has caused a small cascade of problems which need to be addressed – we have to replace the window that was eaten out, we thought we’d
Rockbeare Back to School On Monday the kids started back to school. They’ve both been very excited about it and couldn’t wait for the first day back. Jasper is starting grade 2 and Ella is in grade 3. Jasper’s teacher is Emily (the same teacher Ella had last year) and Ella’
Rockbeare On video screens in planes We went to dinner tonight (local Thai restaurant) with the kids and started chatting about where it would be fun to go for holidays. Ella said Japan or China, Jasper wants to go to Africa and they both think Tasmania would be fun. We asked what they think about going
Rockbeare JJ's Birthday My baby turned 7 years old on Sunday, and we celebrated with a pool party on Saturday at the local swimming centre.Jasper definitely understands the difference between your ‘real’ birthday and the day of a birthday party, and was very excited both mornings. We spent Sat morning baking and
Rockbeare Monty's first outing Today we handled Monty properly for the first time. He has settled very well into his cage and relocated from being buried under the newspaper to curling up in the log. When he decided to come out this evening we thought it was time to have our first go at
Rockbeare Monty the python We have new addition to the household. Monty the Murray Darling Carpet Python (or Morelia spilota metcalfie). The kids have wanted one for quite a while now, with Ella insistent on a “snake birthday party” even back in September. We agreed with them if they could save the money, we’
Rockbeare Adelaide We headed to Adelaide on Saturday the 27th of December. As we still only have the mini-moke, we hired a Toyota Prius; it was interesting driving a car that had an on / off switch to start it up! The trip over was very smooth, we travelled in convoy with Mum
Rockbeare Christmas 2008 It’s been a busy holiday period but we have all survived it safe and well. Both Karina and I started back at work today, so it seemed time to update the blog as well before the season is really over!The kids were both very excited (of course) on
Rockbeare Visitors for Christmas Friday was my first day of annual leave for the Christmas break. 17 days off to look forward to! We got straight into the swing of things with a few visitors.Jaspers teacher from London, Miss Bell (Amanda) has an Australian boyfriend, Andrew who is from Melbourne so she’s
Rockbeare Ella's imaginary Christmas Ella was set a task at school called “Just Imagine”. The description was:Just imagine you and your family are stranded on a desert island for Christmas. Write a description of how you would celebrate Christmas.Ella is very proud of her story, although she’s much more focussed on
Rockbeare Christmas is coming It’s been a while since our last post and apart from a cracked rib I managed to give myself when crashing after attempting to show the kids how to jump over a BMX jump, there isn’t much really to report.Christmas is starting to feel a lot closer
Rockbeare Some recent achievements for Jasper and Ella Life continues quietly enough with both kids enjoying school. We are very proud of Jasper for his recent student of the week award after he finally go up to present his first show-and-tell. Jasper inspecting his award at assembly. His certificate.Ella is also very happy because she has gone
Rockbeare Update on the birds Only four days after the last photo was taken! The baby birds have really developed and are already growing wing feathers. There eyes have also opened now. When I went to take this photo, all three of them were begging for food, but by the time I’d moved the
Rockbeare The bird life I’m not sure if it’s because we have been away and therefore it’s more obvious, or perhaps the drought is driving birds to places like the Darebin Parklands more often; regardless we have noticed more birdlife this spring than ever before. This little fella crashed into the
Rockbeare Ella and the olives Ella’s Pa has an olive farm in the Adelaide hills and when he came to visit recently he left us a huge jar of olives from his farm that had been home marinaded by Nanna. Apparently they won a prize recently; all I can say is they taste fantastic.
Rockbeare Karina does a Wii Last weekend we headed over to Doncaster Shopping Centre, it’s not one we’d normally go to although it’s reasonably close, but it has just had a major expansion and re-fit and has gone all “up-market” with a butler service, valet parking and a personal makeover salon.While
Rockbeare The "big" bike ride The kids have continued to get better and better at riding their bikes and are now riding to school most mornings. Karina and I decided it would be good fun to go for a family bike ride together so we all set off to Fairfield which is a couple of
Rockbeare Family party Since the last post, we’ve kept pretty busy. I’ve been travelling to Seattle for a week (no photos this time), Karina’s parents (Hans and Lee) came to visist while I was away for a day and my Mum and Dad (Julie and Barry) have been staying with
