The dreaded lurgy...

Well I managed to loose my voice - many of you may be laughing hysterically at this point, but still your evil laugh and have some sympathy for poor Jade. She did not cope so well with me not really wanting to talk to her and have copious conversations with her from Thursday!!

It is nearly back, thank god!

4 sleeps until our holidays - can hardly wait!!!

Meet Shilo - hopefully this is Jade's new dog. I have found him on trade me, his owners are moving to Brisbane in August, so when we get back from our holidays they are bringing him out to meet us and to check out our house, to make sure they are happy with the house and his to take over ownership. He is six months old - look how cute!!!!

It is happening..

Not finished yet, but will be done by tomorrow - apart from the wood surrounds painting that Ralf and I have to do.

The view from the outside. Each end window is mirror tinted.

Looking down towards where the spa is going. This window end still needs to go in obviously.
Back towards the other deck.

The new dog door.

Just discovered that we have some paint left over from when we built the house, so that is great, will have to start painting tomorrow night.

Conservatory

The windows are arriving tomorrow morning

The spa pool is draining now.

I wonder whether some windows will get installed tomorrow - that would be cool.

The Finished Deck

Finally got around to putting up some photos of the finished - deck.
God it rocks!!!!

Sat out on the deck with Ralf, Jade and Dave eating pizza and some beers, man did it get cold 10 degrees, but we had to sit there!!! Then Dave went home and Ralf and I jumped into the spa at 12.30am to warm up.

This life rocks

Too Many Cakes and Pies ....

My best friend Mel has been eating too many cakes and pies - nah just jokes, but holy check out the size of that tummy - all baby!!! So can't wait to meet the wee man - 2 weeks and 1 day to go until he is going to pop on out. Mel and Jase are going to make just the best parents, such an exciting time!

He had better not be late. I was so stoked to be able to go up to Auckland a couple of weekends ago for her baby shower - so exciting!

Finally onto some scrapping .....

Well we had a nice weekend away this weekend. The 10d's headed off for a weekend at Waikane, we stayed at a batch we rented and scrapped the weekend away!

So first up is a layout from when we went to the Napier Aquarium last year. Jade loved it, we paid a little extra and went behind the scenes, she got to hold and touch all the animals which was pretty special. Even got to go into the crocodile enclosure (behind a fence) which was pretty wicked.

Next up is a layout I did with no title. Last year we had some portrait photos taken when Ross Street School in Palmerston North did a fundraiser. What great photos, I was very impressed.Well you know how much I dread challenges, Jo came up with this challenge where we had to do a 6x12 layout which is half the normal size. Lucky we were given a sketch, so not too much of a struggle. This one is showing the birds one day in the paddock beside us, one day they just all sat on a post each - funny things.The funny thing is after I had done it once I loved it and did another one!!! I had been wanting to do a layout about the floods back in 2004, so this was the perfect opportunity to have that done.Then a layout of some pictures I took of Jade a few days after we brought the spa. Such cool photos and the saying is so true, she just loves the water. Some how she thinks that the spa is a swimming pool for doing laps in!!!
At Xmas time Jade and I went for a walk up through Mount Bruce which was not far from here. Funny thing though while we were walking Jade kept wanting to know if we had nearly finished, I stupidly said how long it should take and she jsut had to know how much longer!!!

Also at Xmas we had Mel and Jase come down to visit - yay!!! Well I made Mel pose for me, and what else could the title be! She was very fierce, a and strong model, she really owned her look!!!

Only one to go. Jade's Xmas list for last year, if you can't read it, well there was a pet monkey and a million dollars on her list - thank goodness she was not too disappointed to not get everything on her list!!!

Do you like all the posts I am doing tonight - making up for lost time!!!

The Manor Burns Down...

So last week I get home from work to see loads of smoke all through Sanson, what a panic!!! But our house was fine, it was The Manor that is about a kilometre down the road on fire.

This is the view from our place.

I drove down to have a look thinking that I should not really be doing that, but my goodness it seemed as though all of Sanson and half of Bulls had gone down and everyone was sitting on the side of the road watching it burn.

A couple of years ago a young guy brought the property and has been running a maize maze, which you can go through during the day or on Tuesday night they have the trees of terror and also a night time spooky maize where they have actors dressed as monstors etc and jump out at you with chainsaws etc giving you a fright. A very fun time.

So it was very sad to see this. It has not burnt to the ground, but the top half is well and truely scorched, apparently there was a gas explosion in the roof.

The New Deck ...

Well almost the new deck. Dave started building it last week, and apparently will be finished by Friday. Very exciting. Looks way bigger than it did when we had just the string sitting out there. Dave is doing such a great job, great builder!!

The concrete cut out in the deck is where Ralf is having is pond, not totally sure how we are doing that yet, but we will no doubt figure that out as we go along.