More holidays

We've been out and about the last couple of weeks. It hasn't done wonders for J's sleep (don't think he's a fan of the portacot) but it has been good for us!

So, where have we been?

Supporting A doing Tough Mudder in Sydney.  A long day for spectators but certainly an eye opener!

Visiting the beach for the very first time

and taking lots of walks in the pram. This one is on a visit to Nana and Pop.

J is 16 weeks today! He's a total cutie, but I am a little bit biased! He's just started rolling back to front and has front to back so worked out it's difficult to get him to do tummy time as he just flips himself over! Cheeky monkey!

Other than that, I went down to my parents place for a week while A was still at work and came home to a tidy and rearranged house with no remaining reno tools inside. What an awesome husband I have. We still don't have a bath. We are getting a new fence. I need to take a picture of what is there at the moment so you can see just how much we need this to happen!

I want to do a house post but we'll see how J sleeps this afternoon to see if it is going to happen!

Hope you are well!

Hanging out and holidaying

Is what we've been doing.

We went on our first little family holiday to the snow. It was awesome, I even got out for a couple of runs myself! We then drove down to Victoria and stopped in with family and a couple of friends who have a daughter a couple of weeks older than J. J was a little champ with all the travelling and sleeping in different places, we were so proud of him!

Since we've been back we've been seriously working on day sleeps, I was getting sick of the 45min cat nap and resulting grumpy baby and the 'I'll only sleep in your arms' thing we had going. Thankfully we are making progress in that department. 

I'm loving spring and the sunshine it has brought, being able to get out and walk, walk, walk. I calculated that I've walked at least 20km in the last week! Thankfully J loves the pram and is perfectly content being pushed around and sleeps like a dream when we are walking!

Other than that, I'm just being a Mum. It's pretty wonderful even though it's the hardest thing I have ever done and I doubt myself a bit too much. J was 13 weeks last Thursday. That's a whole 1/4 of a year! I can't believe how quickly time passes. I want it to slow down so I can savour every moment and all the cute things he's starting to do - this week it's babbling away to his toys and us, it's so cute my heart melts. On the other hand, I can't wait to see what is next!

I'll leave you with some photos of the last few weeks. I will do a final bathroom reveal when we get the bath. *insert eye roll here* Please cross your fingers for us that it doesn't take 8 weeks! J will totally be too big for the baby bath in a couple of weeks, let alone 8!

Hope you are well!

Musical mobile never fails to please

"You're funny Mum!"

                 

Family photo at the snow

Getting the hang of tummy time

And we're home

We're just home from our little holiday to Jervis Bay and a night in Sydney. It was so lovely and relaxing and despite a forecast before we left of a week of rain the weather was really good!

We did lots of beach walks and snorkelling, book reading and tennis watching, the Picasso and Harry Potter exhibitions and by pure good luck in our timing the Chinese New Year parade and fireworks too! Oh, and my first ever trip to an Ikea store!

Back to work tomorrow, but only 10 weeks until I finish up! Hopefully I'll find time between the unpacking to catch up on your blogs in the next couple of days. Hopefully I'll find the other camera cord so I can share some beach and snorkelling photos too! For now though, here's a couple of pics I love!

Axel getting in the way of A's packing!  "Please take me with you!"

Illumination in Sydney during the Chinese New Year parade.

Hello Holidays

A quick celebratory beginning of holidays post before I go and collapse into an exhausted, sniffly heap. I just can't kick the cold but at least I've got a bit of time to relax now. We don't have any big plans for these holidays but we do have lots of people coming from Melbourne to visit us for a change! So apart from entertaining I plan on ....

1. Hanging out with the curious chickens. They are far to brave for their own good. More and more often I am finding myself chasing them back down the driveway and off the street. The other day two of our neighbours were standing on the sidewalk having a chat and the chickens marched straight up to them to say hello and started scratching around their feet!

2. Planting some more veggies. This is our first home grown carrot. A little pale in colour but delicious! I've planted seeds for corn, cucumber, eggplant, celery, pumpkin, spring onion and some marigolds and nasturtiums which are supposedly good companion plants in terms of pest control. Waiting patiently for them to pop their little heads through the soil!

3. Heading out to Floriade if we get some decent, warm weather.

4. Visiting friend J who just had a baby boy called Oscar. Such a cool name! I have to finish her baby gift first though.

5. Painting and paving.

For now though, I'm going for a nap before the first lot of visitors arrive!

Holiday adventures - heliboarding

Slightly scared but ready for the first run of the season.

This is where we sat for lunch. Not too bad, huh?

The view from 2400 metres. We could see Mt Cook in the distance.
Incredible.

The real purpose behind our NZ holiday was to do some heliboarding. A had been wanting to do it for ages and we figured we ought to do it before we have kids. I will no doubt feel less inclined to head off into avalanche territory once we do. So off we went. After a week of bad weather and wind we were finally good to go. Our first two days were with Methven Heliski who were fantastic. They were organised, friendly, dealt well with differing skill levels in the groups and made an absolutely delicious picnic lunch.  

For the uninitiated (sorry if I'm stating the obvious), heliboarding, as we did it, means climbing into a helicopter with a guide, being flown to the top of a mountain and then boarding down to a point where helicopter can pick you up. Repeat. The guide checks the safety of the slope and goes down first taking the biggest part of the risk and also picking the best lines to follow to get the best snow.

I was a bit intimidated by the whole idea and I'll admit that at the top of the first run I had a few frozen-with-fear-sh*t-that's-steep-I-can't-do-this moments. I was the only girl and all the guys had been talking up the places they'd been and the powder they'd skied in (as they do). Then the guy before me fell over. I felt so much better. That sounds cruel, but the snow was so soft it might as well have been cotton wool - I saw that he was fine and figured I would be to. So, with the fear gone, I was off. It was incredible. The snow was so deep and soft and quiet - none of that on-piste, icey, scraping sound. You felt like you were floating and gliding rather than slipping and sliding. At one point, our guide stuck a probe into the snow to see how deep it was. The probe was 2 metres and it went all the way in. Wow.

We boarded past the remains of a glacier, into wide bowls, down valleys with steep walls of rock and snow. The boys were in it for the adrenaline, to go fast and to try and hit that jump. I just enjoyed cruising along and checking out the scenery.  It was definitely the highlight of the holiday. And for the non-skiers, if you are in NZ get on one of the helicopter scenic flights as the views really are amazing. 

Before we went some one told us that it we liked Tasmania we'd enjoy NZ as it is similar but on a grander scale. They also said that if we liked NZ, we should go to Canada and it's similar to NZ but on a grander scale again. I think we'll have to start saving for a Canada trip sometime in the future!

Stunning New Zealand

Driving from Ohau to Omarama

The stunning Lindis Pass

Reflections somewhere near Twizel

Wanaka sunset

Back to reality and work this week and it's been full on. But, just for a moment I'm going to go back and bask in the beauty of New Zealand.

It was incredible. Sure we had some dodgy weather and not as much snow as we'd hoped, but you can forgive all that when these are the scenes you're lucky enough to see when the sun gets to shining!

We did have some brilliant days on the snow. We stayed in some beautiful places. We saw stunning countryside. We ate delicious food. We laughed a lot, particularly at NZ radio DJs. We almost got stuck there the day we were flying home as it snowed all day but it was not to be. So we are home sorting through photos, settling back into routines and feeling incredibly grateful to have been able to have the holiday we did.

Have you been anywhere exciting lately? Or, are you heading off somewhere soon?

What I've been up to lately....

Photo thanks to Kevin from Methven Heliski

Life is good!

More to come once I've settled back into the whole work thing necessary to fund such adventures!

Weekend madness and holiday goodness

It's come to my attention that we may be a little crazy. On Friday night we decided that we wanted to go to our friends' son's Christening on Saturday. Sounds reasonable, right? Except that it was in Victoria and we were in Canberra. No matter, we got up at 5:30 Saturday morning and started driving. We got there, met little T, went to his lovely Christening spent a couple of hours with friends, A and R, and then drove home again, pulling into the driveway sometime around 12:30am. It was well worth the trip but I don't think we'll do it again in a hurry!

One of the reasons we did such a flying trip is that we needed to, once and for all, get this chook shed built. So we raced back to Canberra so we could spend all Sunday building! The rate these chickens grow is incredible. Just two weeks and they were starting to get cramped in the nesting area that A created. So, we started at 10am. We hammered, nailed, measured, sawed, drilled, stapled and cable tied (what did we do before cable ties existed?) until it was dark. Then we got out headlamps and torches and worked a bit longer. At 8:30 we were exhausted and decided to call it a night. I could finish the final touches and make sure it was secure the next day.

What a weekend. Luckily though, the holidays have rolled around again. I spent the first day checking over our creation. It's not square and looks a bit amateurish but it is secure, has survived the crazy wind we're having and the chooks survived their first night in it so all's good!

I'm also happy to report that after a week long process of trial, error (and more emotional trauma than you would believe - chickens can be so mean) the injured chicken has finally been successfully reintroduced to the others. She's on her own now as we're heading off for a little holiday. If she's still around when we get back, I'm naming her 'Lucky'.

Back to the holiday talk, A also has some time off and we are heading away for some snow very soon leaving the chooks and cat in the hands of our trusty housemate. Anyone out there know a New Zealand snow dance? We've got plenty here but there's not much there yet!

Hope all is well!

Holidays!

Yep, I'm on them again as of 30 minutes ago. And, to make it even better, A also has the whole two weeks off. These are the happy fireworks going off in my head right now!

Tomorrow there will be a massage and facial care of my new SIL, it was our wedding present. Over the two weeks there will also be some football, comedy, friends, camping, family and house and yard improvements.

Yipeeee!

Week 6 already?

Time flies when you're having fun!

I'm slowly digging myself free of an avalanche of marking and getting excited not just about wedding things but the fact that in 5 weeks I'll be back here!!

Let the countdown begin!

Back to school...

Back to work yesterday. So sad. I love holidays. So much fun stuff to do and no stress - except maybe on my credit card. But seriously, I had a really productive holiday!

I painted the hallway - it is now a nice beige instead of yellow - phew, just got the lounge/dining to go now

Before 

After

I hunted down some old drawers and turned them into underbed storage. See the start of the project here.

 Loving it!

I cooked delicious macaroons from here

I started exercising again - very necessary as a result of the macaroons, ouch

I started sanding back a set of drawers to use as bedside tables

I finished painting the bedroom door which A hung - a door? For the bedroom? How novel!

I caught up with my lovely, talented teacher friend who has been busily making all sorts of lovely things for a local craft market - can't wait to see the final products

I tried really hard to convince A I'd make an awesome house-fiancee rather than returning to work - to no avail.

10 weeks until the next lot. And may they come quickly!