Another beautiful sunset

And the garden is coming along too!

Just before sunset last week

As the sun goes down...

Plants establishing, S L O W L Y!

What a RUBBISH truck!

Coming home from work this arvo, I saw a cop-car blocking a side road and wondered why...

...then saw that the local bin-truck had cornered too quickly and managed to tip over!

Luckily, no-one was injured, but I bet there will be a 'please explain' tomorrow???

Giant Water Snake!!!

Well, that's what we thought it was to start!

It all started so well...
...Charlie had arranged for just the two of us to take his kayaks to Cannington for the evening. We drove about 15mins from ours and parked at a nature reserve. Beautiful!
10 mins later, we were in the river, beside the weir and foot bridge. Just about to paddle upstream, when a couple of other paddlers, downstream of the weir asked Charlie for info about his kayaks.
Charlie, being Charlie, paddled over to answer the questions, but mis-read the flow of water and Ooops, over he went, towel, camera, clothes and all!

I finally stopped laughing and we went on our way again.

I should tell at this point that Charlie has a HUGE phobia of anything snake-like...

...We were happily paddling away, noticing the wild-life, birds, flora and fauna, when suddenly, Charlie;s stiff voice asking what the @@ing hell was THAT, just 20 feet ahead of him and swimming directly towards him!?!?

I could hardly contain myself as it looked like a huge snake, about 18 inches in diameter and was not a slow swimmer - it looked like the Loch Ness Monster!!!!

Then I remembered, just seconds ago, paddling over some bubbles that looked like air coming out of a hose and realised what the 'snake' was...
...it was a water -pipe that had sunk into the river and had an air lock, that was lifting part of it up, but it sure looked like something you definitely don't want to meet!!!

Poor Charlie - he's not gonna live this down for AGES!!! lol

See what we mean???

 

Mr. G, wringing wet?

LOVIN the storm

Wow - we loved the storm we've just had!

1st rain since last November (no kidding!!!) and we LOVED it!

Enough rain to write off some cars on the freeway (hail damage) and almost flooded our front garden!

The after-math was pretty spectacular too! The sky seemed to be on fire!

The chairs moved by themselves - well, with a little 'wind' help!

Dwellingup, March 2010

A small (overnighter) trip to Dwellingup, where you can almost hear the banjos playing (yes - from the film, Deliverance) with John and gang was a snap decision as we hadn't seen him (away from work) for a while.
 
An hour and half south of home and we're in 'red-neck' country and RED DUST gets EVERYWHERE!

All set up, after an hour or so of driving tent-pegs into rock-hard 'sand' (Almost resorted to the hammer drill, which is why Phoebe's bonnet is up - to use the Inverter to drive the chandelier!)

Noonie, relaxing with her adopted Aussie Poppie (Grandad)

HEAPS of these about!

Never seen a flower without leaves before!

Sunday morning stroll

Pic doesn't do this justice, but this hill is 45 degs UP!!!

Too good to miss the photo...

And Calais, too! (Cait's a magnet for little peeps!)

Tall trees here

Scout camp fire, but there's a complete fire ban until end of March! (bush fire risk!)

Three amigos

Worth the effort

Coming back to pack up!

Cait's party of the year!!!

Tomorrow (Sunday) is Cait's birthday, so last night (Friday) was her sleep over party night.
We think they should call them 'stay up till stupid-o'clock... overs'! as there was much merriment and laughter until 2.40am, well, that's when I fell asleep anyway!

Seven girls all together in the same room, watching DVDs, playing music, doing make-overs and generally doing what girls do was...


...AWESOME!!!

So just a couple of pics to show you the rotten time they had!

From the top - 

Tianah, Noonie, Carly, Zoe, Taylor, Nuttly and Suzy

 

 The human pyramid

 

Decking finished AT LAST!!!

The public holiday weekend last weekend was a good time to use my 'round tuit' (Mom) and get on with it!
A trip to bunnings later, resulted in the rest of our decking now being complete. Another trip also had the gardening (shrubs and Frangipani) installed and some watering has made the lawn green again. (I had some help from a little beetle-destroyer) so - we now have a garden we can sit in and enjoy - Just need to get rid of the pesky caterpillars now! and lay the gravel for the side path and finish the stepping stones and paint the living room... Oooh - I better get on with it again!!! lol

First joist down - That 'sand' feels more like concrete in 39 C!!!

One down - Only 10 more to go and already I'm sweating like the proverbial!

 

Almost there! Staining to go!

  

 Still 38 C, so ANY excuse to take a break!

  

 Last one down - Time for a barby?

  

 All done and my favourite - My baby Frangipani!

  

All done- Best crack a tinnie!

 

Power-line track to York again, but in the DRY and with John this time

We all had a GREAT day with John yesterday.

He hadn't done the Powerline track from Mundaring to York, so we took him to see how well his new 'toys' performed on his ute! (He's fitted diff lockers and 'fat-arse' tyres!)

So, off we went with our camp stove, snags and 'flask'!

It was a different drive from last time, as it's SO dry at the moment - we haven't had rain for 80 days! 

The climbs that we struggled with last time were quite easy this time, but John, being John, made it all look 'TOO EASY'!

Us, posing under Phoebe on a hill

Phoebe - GET DOWN! You'll fall down!

John, making it look easy

Even PP had a go!

Look at that rear tyre!

It's only about 40 k's, but it takes 4 hours!

You'll break it!

Told you!

Still givin' it 'ell!

AIRCON - Yay!

Well, we almost made it through our first Aussie summer in our new home without it, but the 43C temps just got to us in the end!
It's only so much you can take!

Last night, we were able to sleep with a cover over us and we actually woke up COLD!!!

Not sure what happened to the light here, but the installer guys wondered why I was taking pics, so had to explain that you guys back in Blighty were probably unaware of what it looked like to have air con put in? lol

 

No silver elephants were harmed in making this picture!

And, at last, we have what looks like a plastic box on our roof, but it provides us cool, clean, fresh air, when ever we want it!

Bloody typical, we haven't had rain for over two months and today - the day after we had this put in, it's forcast to 'shower'!

You beauty!

Noonie turns into a MONSTER!!!

Well, a TEENAGER anyway lol
Opening some of her prezzies in the morning.

 

And into her books, a little later. She also had her room painted and a new desk. What a MONSTER!?!

Brings back memories...

One of the guys from work brought in a collection of mini steam engines, that he'd made from scratch.
We wanted to see some as we're going to use them as a guide for the school groups to make one, as a project.

Just the smell of meths, burning to boil the water brought back all sorts of memories of when Dad used to fire up the traction engine and get me to pull the whistle, which burned my thumb every piggin time!

memories...

 

  

Happy Birthday 'Peanut'

FAB news today, of the arrival of our great nephew - 'Peanut'!
Noonie was 'displeased' that he couldn't wait another 3 days though! lol
Isn't it GREAT to have a new arrival? We are chuffed!