Just another Friday at the office

Today (Friday) was the end of term 3, so we had the usual Barby for the lads and a bit of a play!
John, above, had a go on Gary's scooter, whilst we got through several kilos of meat on the barby! Yum!

The lads brought in a go cart, they made, so it would be rude not to have a go wouldn't it?
And John on the Scoooter again!

front garden in!

They mamaged to dodge the showers today, to get the rest of the garden in. It'll be complete in a couple of weeks, when we get a week off, so I can build a small retaining wall for the little gem Magnolia, which will be going in, in front of the front door. This will be Kipper's Tree!

Yay! Grass!

At last - a bit of green, where it used to look like a builder's yard!

They laid the lawn at the front today, which was good timing as it 'piddled' down almost all day!

At least it'll be well watered?

Phoebe all better now!

It's OK!!!!
I managed to fix her, so I didn't need to send her away to those nasty guys at Toyota!

John at work managed to convince me that I could do what the specialists would do...
...and it worked! He already wears a Superman Tee-shirt, so we'll have to open the big doors for him to leave next time! There will be no living with him!

Thanks John - You ARE a star!

Just a peek at the 'bits' we took off to find the problem, which was a sticky valve!

Sump off the transmission.
Valve block split - there are 12 plastic Ball Bearings that MUST go back in the correct places!
The other half
The bit that splits the two halves - Gasket, that cannot be broken or twisted or bentBut when it all works, The relief is great, and to come home to this image, makes you feel like there is a pot 'o gold! lol Grass down next week too! (new trees went in last week!)

Is it Furthest or Farthest?

Well, which ever one is right, I am talking about a 'little' trip East today, to Kalgoorlie.
700kms to be presact!
I was invited to deliver a day on RPL (Rocognition of Prior Learning) at Curtin Uni for their trades people, an all-expenses flight to 'Kal' was booked and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Kal is a mining town and is rather 'unique' in many ways!!!
The architecture is similar to York, where we went a few weeks ago, but Kal is bigger. It's only had a bitumen road for a few years! Before that, it was red dirt! It feels like you're walking into a western movie with cowboys etc?

Lots of 'hotels' of 'reputable' fame??And MASSIVE holes in the ground, which are gold mines! The red circles I've put here are hard to see, so click on the picture to see a bigger version, but the circles outline those super-trucks you may have seen in quarries? Each one carries 250 Tons of rock and only every eighth truck contains enough gold the size of a pea!!! They make 8 to 10 bars of gold per day and this super-pit is almost a kilometer deep!!!
I asked why they dig all the rock out with such tiny trucks, which amuzed the locals, so they showed me a bucket that each truck takes THREE scoops to fill it up. Only then did I realize just how piggin HUGE these things are!
Then on to the local 'entertainment' in the bush, which 'used' to be used for 2-up. A gambling game. The hut below is the 'Hilton' of Kal. It only has 2 metres of gutter, so when it rains, you're the lucky one if you get to stand under it!

Oh Dear!!!

Oh dear were 'almost' the words I used when we took Phoebe 4WDing with John and Finn last weekend!

We were going great guns until we found a 4-ft deep puddle and decided to go IN!!!

Well - we got through the puddle, but couldn't get out as we went in at the wrong end?

The result was 4 inches of brown river water throughout the INSIDE on the carpet.

We were going to take Cait to basketball after our 'fun', but had to abandon that when we saw her uniform floating across the back of the car!!!

When I arrived at work the following Monday, everyone knew about our day, so a photo was taken of my car, with a new no-plate, saying "U-boat commander" Ha! It's only borrowed - they will have some back, as I've managed to get SO far on England winning the Ashes!

Finn - going for it, and HIS carpets were like mine just last week!
John showing off - going backwards!
The 'aftermath'!!!

This is how much clay was left under the car AFTER I washed off 2 wheelbarrow-loads!
You gotta give students SOMETHING to do!Eeeeeowww!

The decking gets started... ...and Noonie is EXCELLENT!!!!

We've been in our new house for only 3 weeks, and already, we're fed up with the 'desert' outside!
So, we've bitten the bullet and have started to install our decking as our alfresco. This leads from the back door to the hot tub, so our feet don't get sandy every time we walk from the house to the tub. Next in line, will be a new gazebo over the tub and new outside furniture for the deck - Bunnings, here we come!!!

Measure twice, cut once!!!!
Nearly there! The chair was a 'helping hand to hold the 4m lengths of deck, whilst I cut them to size... and for PP to 'direct' the show.

"Bloody get on with it!!!"
OH!!!! And Our Noonie won a medal of excellence at school, for all the hard work she put in over the first semester. It paid off at last! Well done Noonie!


The Dean of Murdoch University presented her with the medal yesterday (Thursday) at a special ceremony at school. There was whole of school assembly with parents and teachers, and only 7 pupils in the whole year were awarded them, so she did REALLY well!

The front...


And the back!

Kippers Day!

Just a quick one here, to show you what we did for our wonderful Kipper last Weds.
We made paper boats with messages on them to sail down the stream as we remembered all the lovely times we had with him and to say our farewells. The sunset was spectacular, so we wanted you to share those moment with us too!

Girlies treated us to a slap up meal!

Just before we left the old house, the girls decided to treat PP and I to a slap up meal that they chose, prepared, cooked and served to us as a farewell meal to Lycett.

They even designed the menu...

Cut up the onions. Notice the eye protection? and Nutty didn't lose a finger, even though she used the biggest knife she could find...
Noonie washed the veggies...
Nutty did the frying...

We're IN!!!

We're IN!!! at last.
Sorry, we've been a while letting you know, but we moved into our new house a week ago last Weds, the 22nd July!
After MUCH jumping up n down and reaming a few new 'holes' in certain people at the banks etc, we managed to get em to do their job and we collected the keys! Yippee!

Here's PP opening the door for the first time...

Noonie, reading as usual! although her boxes are still unpacked!

Nutty unpacking...

PP amonst the chaos...
We're really pleased to be in as we actually own this little piece of Oz now!
More pics as we start the garden and decorating!!!

Driveway DONE!

Well - the drive is done at last!!!
Several tons of soil shifted, more tons of pavers laid, cut, wacked and more soft sand brushed into the gaps - we did it! I can see why the professionals charge so much - they'd need a new back after every one! The pic below is of the girlies standing on the last shovel-full that we shifted to lay the crushed limestone and sand.
Once the lime stone and sand was done, we went to collect the pavers. Phoebe came into her own again, with two trailer-loads of pavers, each weighing over a ton!
The first few were easy... My back was intact then!
Nearly done!
At least the winter weather held up for us! This was the last of the soft sand brushed in!
There - ready to move in and have the landscaping done! (When the bloody bank pulls their finger out and allows the builders to give us the keys!!!)

Little track to York

Yesterday (Thursday) we had a beautiful English summer's day, weather-wise, so made the best of it and went 4WDing with Finn, from work!

This is the start of the track, from Mundaring Weir road, where we turned off the bitumen, onto the start of the power-line service track, which goes almost to York, which was the first inland town of WA. We've done some of this track before, about 5kms of the 30km track, but Finn has done it several times. He even towed his son home from half way through it!!! This is a real trick as you'll see from the pics of the terrain!

This is only part of the track - yes, it goes beyond where you can see! and it gets BUMPIER!

A slippery part of the track, which was a bit demanding, so we went up the track just to the right, which was a bit less slippy?

Some of the 'smaller' lumps?

We finally arrived at York after 4 hours of fun off-roading. It's like stepping back in time, with architecture from years ago and shops to match.

This was a photo, asking to be taken - it's inside a bottle shop, of all places, so it'd be rude not to go in, wouldn't it? (Talk about discouraging drinking n driving!)
A closer look at that sign on the front of the car! Worrying how I agree with most of 'em!

The motor museum, which used to be in Freo.

Main St.
The Court House