Sunday pictures

These pictures are pretty self-explanatory....first we tried to get all three of us, which Rhys wasn't very impressed about...so we settled for just Eldon and I :)

New Meeting Toy

Just wanted to share this new meeting toy for Rhys! My friend Danielle is a great seamstress and she got this idea from someone at convention. It's basically a bean bag with toys inside and a vinyl window. Going to try it out for the first time tonight!

And of course I couldn't go without putting up a picture of Rhys! He is outside getting absolutely soaked in a rainstorm!

Feeling restless...

Well, I rearranged the house last night (Eldon says I am nesting, but I am not!) so I guess it's time to rearrange the blog too!

Car trouble...again....

No pictures sorry, I mean, who wants to see pictures of our old car anyway... :) Last night after work I climbed into my car (with a co-worker, mind you, who was hitching a ride home), started the ignition, and then there was a popping sound under the hood and then it was dead. So I'm sure if you're a mechanic you're probably cringing at my spectacular description...my husband was when I called him at 10:45pm to try and "explain" what I heard. "What kind of a pop was it, like a small explosion or thud or....and was it under the car or in the engine....and was it metalic or plastic sounding..." I mean, who knows??? I didn't really want to turn the car on again to find out. Anyway, after I decided that the car wasn't going to blow up on me, I found the courage to open the hood. What we eventually found after much humming and hawing was that the battery had completely fried itself and there was a build up of hydrogen in the battery which was ignited when I turned the car on, blowing one of the caps off the battery which hit the hood causing the popping sound. So....our car spent the night in the parking lot and a large part of me was hoping someone would steal it! :) (Guess they wouldn't get very far...) This morning one of Eldon's work mates came around to get the keys and put a new battery in it for me. Thank you!

Oh, but the story isn't over yet! Happy to have a car, I decided to go see my friend Danielle. I jump in the car and realise that Eldon's mate has put the hand brake on...which normally wouldn't be a problem except in our lovely car...the hand brake sticks on! So I try to release it a few times and it seems to be working, but when I go to reverse out, it's very sluggish which tells me the brake is still on. So, I call Eldon again. (Did I forget to mention that he is away for two nights?...just my luck) He tells me how to check to see if it's still on blah blah blah....I'm still fairly ignorant when it comes to mechanical things. So...I think it's fixed so I start down the road to Danielle's...only to feel it being sluggish again. I can't do the speed limit and I'm starting to smell burning brakes...yikes! So I creep the rest of the way to Danielle's and when I get out, the tires are smoking! Another call to Eldon who then calls his mate who then comes round the fix it again! Luckily the brakes release for him and I'm free to drive it again. Danielle and I have a cuppa and discuss how we are going to drive the car into the lake or use it for a bonfire...we haven't decided yet...guess we'll have to have another cuppa.

Fun at the Park...etc....

The weather has been wonderful here...lovely and sunny but not too warm...so we have had a few outings to the park by Lake Moondarra. Rhys and Eva love playing together as you can see by their big smiles!

A kookaburra who came to visit....wish I could have got a clearer shot!

Making as much noise as possible is the name of the game...
...and always egging each other on!

The peacocks and hens are quite used to being fed...one stole the lunch right out of Rhys's hand!

Beautiful birds, though...

Valentines Day Party!

Happy Valentines Day to you all! We celebrated with a little fondue party and games. Eldon helped me make heart-shaped cookies without a cookie cutter...what a great guy! We had three fondues; cheese and ham, rocky road, and butterscotch! Whew...they were are so yummy! And I still have leftovers from the sweet ones...don't know what I'm going to do with them yet.

I ate so much sugar last night, I gave myself a headache...oops! So I'm being really good today to make up for it. :) Sorry Mom, forgot to get pictures of everyone here...we were so engrossed in our game!

Flowers from Hubby

Isn't he a great one? He brought me home flowers when I was having a bad day!

Random facts from our household...

Rhys is now tall enough to grab stuff off the table...moan!

Only 4 weeks until I go to NZ for pre-wedding fun-ness!!! Woohoo!

I now have a job, although I haven't started working yet. I am packing shelves at IGA grocery store in the evenings.

Rhys is now going to sleep in his bed by himself with his nite-nite frog...thanks Darryn!!

It was 36C today...oh man...the beginning of spring/summer in Mt Isa.

Temper tantrums have started...how fun.

Hmmm..well that's about all folks, not much excitement these days. We went to the park by the lake today for lunch and Rhys had fun chasing the peacocks around. I'll post pictures soon. The local swimming pool opens on Tuesday and I am so looking forward to that! They might even have swimming lessons for Rhys. It's getting rather hot during the middle of the day so I am going to have to start walking to town in the morning...NOT looking forward to summer!

Off to see the wide world!!!

Well friends, Rhys and I are off to the States tomorrow afternoon to see our family and friends! Eldon is joining us in a few weeks and then together, we will travel to NZ to see more family and friends! We are so looking forward to catching up with everyone and introducing you to our fabulous son! I'm not sure that I will be posting anything for a while so please don't give up on me. We will be back here in January and I'll have lots of news and pictures to show. Hope everyone has a great few months and great holidays!

Pork Plea

Ok, fellow bloggers and blog watchers...I need your help. I am desperately hopeless with pork! I like to cook boneless pork, like pork steaks or loin cuts, but I only have one recipe that I really like. I do cook pork chops for Eldon every so often, but I would prefer to have a few more pork recipes that use boneless pork, casseroles etc... So...if you have a really tasty recipe to recommend..(pretty pretty please) can you send it to me? My email address is spattjr@hotmail.com which will be easier to use I think.

And no, this isn't a clever way of checking who reads my blog...;)

No news is good news?

Well, I'm not sure! Let me ask you this...is it ok to be stressed out about moving when we don't know when OR where we are moving to? :) We've started packing...just odds and ends at the moment. Our little house is crowded enough without boxes laying about. Eldon's interview was more than a week ago and we still haven't heard anything yet...it's so frustrating. Anyway, 99% chance we'll be out of here first week of November no matter what.

Can you believe that Rhys is 12 weeks old today? I can't. The time has simply flown and yet, it feels like we've had him forever! It's hard to remember life without him now. Although I must admit sometimes I do miss my job. I'm not one of those women who can work and have an infant, but someday, maybe in a year or so, I'll want to do some work again.

He is giggling more and more but I haven't managed to catch it again on video. It takes both Eldon and I to do that. So far he likes bouncing on my knee and playing stand up, sit down and somehow Eldon almost always manages to get a giggle out of him on the change table.

Hopefully the next posting will be WHAT WE ARE DOING AND WHERE WE ARE GOING....but don't hold your breath, it might be a few days! :)

Happy Birthday to Shauna!

Ok, so I'm a few days late! Shauna's b-day was on the 27th of this month....there hasn't been a year gone by where we haven't at least tried to celebrate our birthdays together in some way. It is a little hard now that we are half a world away from each other, but the fact that we are the same age for 4 days every year must be celebrated somehow! In our younger years, we were "twins" for 4 days right down to wearing matching clothes during that time. We always had our birthdays together and had two of the same cake. I especially remember the butterfly cake year. We both feel a little bit like we are missing something at this time of year...one day we might get to share a party again.

This year I tried to make a cake for my birthday to take to work with me...it utterly failed. So badly that I couldn't bear to put it together, let alone take it to work and expect others to enjoy it! So I was feeling very discouraged about my cake disaster when I spoke to Shauna on my birthday. She gave me a recipe for this coconut cream cake and we decided that I would try to make it on her birthday and take it to work! (aren't my co-workers lucky!!) Anyway, I followed all the instructions and it still was beginning to look like I had another disaster on my hands, but I decided I would go ahead and make the whole thing and just see how it turned out. Well, it was a big hit! The recipe made so much mixture that I had enough for two cakes....one to take to work and another little one for home. This is a very different cake, but very tasty. Very very sweet and rich I found, and if you don't like coconut, don't even bother because there is coconut in every part of this cake, right down to coconut cream in the cake mix. ( I didn't say it was fat free!) Anyway, I told Shauna I would let her know how it went, so here's a picture (this is the small one):

If anyone wants the recipe, we both have it! :) Thanks, Shauna!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

My honey bought me these lovely flowers for my birthday! The teddy bear and soap is from my boss...very thoughtful!

Just a quick note....

I have updated our pictures website with a few more recent albums. Click here to view.

Happy Birthday, Eldon!!!

Yesterday was my honey's birthday so we had to have a little party, right? We had a few friends over for tacos and ice cream cake and had a really nice evening. Tonight we are headed out to a barbeque with some of our friends and I've made a cake to take along (Eldon's birthday was my excuse!). Anyway, it turned out pretty good so I had to take a picture of it to prove I can make such a thing!! :)

Pear and Gingerbread Upside-down cake

Birthday present from me....

Happy Birthday, Eldon!

Mens' Brain vs. Womens' Brain

New Desk!!!

My new desk finally arrived!!! It took me two nights to put together but I love it! It fits in our little house so much better! Eldon and I bought an ergonomic chair each also, one for me at home and one for his new office.

Red Shoes on Valentines Day

Ok, so it's past Valentines Day by more than a month, but I've been promising my mother a picture of my new red shoes. So here they are!!!

My darling (and Very crafty!) mother also made me a nice heart swag with family pictures on it to hang on our otherwise bare wall! Don't you think it goes nicely with the sag in our "couch"?

Here Chookie, Chookie.....

We are babysitting a chook. Well, actually, we were babysitting two chooks, but one died on the 2nd day. Fortunately, it died of natural causes not of Patterson poisoning!!!

Anyway, she's a nice chook, but she's old and all her friends had died. We couldn't find a nest so we assumed she wasn't laying anymore! This morning Eldon went out to feed the chook and couldn't find her anywhere. "Here, chookie, chookie...!" He stuck his head around the corner of the house and there she was, all fluffed up behind the tree. "Hon, I think you better come and see her, she might be laying an egg." So off I go...sure enough, she's laid an egg...plus 13 others which she'd obviously been laying for several weeks!

Unfortunately the temperature being so hot up here, most of the eggs had already gone off so I've put them gingerly into our trash bin hoping that they don't get broken before they get to the dump!

So now we are babysitting a laying chook which is nice for the egg supply. We are surprised she didn't get clucky with all those eggs to sit on!

Monumental....

We had a "first" in our house today.....first washing machine!

In Kununurra that is. Since Eldon moved here in June 2005, we've been washing our clothes at his work place in the work washing machine, along with the puked-on plane seat-covers and floor carpet. So you can see why it is an event worth celebrating!

Right at this moment I can hear it gurgling and whirling away....sweet music to my ears! Now I just have to remember how to do laundry (my wonderful husband always did the laundry since it's his work place!!)

PS. Just don't ask where this washing machine came from...if I told you I'd have to kill you!