What a surprise!

I'm sure you'll all be SO amazed to hear that Dad went out and got himself a new phone today! So I'm back in communication, with his old one again .... sigh! Maybe just as well really, as the old one's been very odd today, turning itself off and on and all sorts of weird stuff! I decided the hallelulia chorus wasn't appropriate for me, and we're a bit disappointed that it's not an option for Dad any more! Obviously we both still have the same numbers!
On a different subject (or two!) .... our proper boxes will be here between 7.30-8 tomorrow morning! Excellent! .... and we're thrilled that Grandad is gonna come up for one last visit, too!
Stay cool, and don't work too hard!

Dispersed backup procedures

As we continue our hunt for an Intel 865 PERL motherboard (supplier number 1 realised that they no longer have any, and now we are waiting for supplier number 2 to decide whether or not they have any in stock) we've decided to start preparing for the worst. (This is for if Plan Z doesn't work.) (Plan Z involves sending our hard drives to Dicko the friendly IT consultant in Melbourne, who has a mate who bought an 865 a few year ago, and letting him work his magic.)

So, could everyone have a look at their computers, and the CDs that they've got lying around, for any collections of pictures that they might have got from us. Some things that I think I've put on other peoples computers include our holiday in Tasmania (still got that Al?) and other holidays and trips away at various times. If you've got any folders of our photos, I'd really like to know that, just in case we aren't able to get the RAID to rebuild when we attach it to a new controller. (Make sense to you, mum?)

The third part of this message is to encourage everyone to backup everything on their computer that they would not want to lose, and KEEP TRACK OF WHERE THE BACKUPS ARE KEPT! When our computer comes back to life, and we realise that we haven't lost any data, we will laugh, and then spend the next day (and 80 DVDs) backing up EVERYTHING, regardless of the fact that "I'm about to buy a 300GB drive to use as a more convenient backup, so there isn't really much point doing it now.)

Bother. Bother. Bother.

... very strange!

After its conniption the other day, and being off for a while, and re-charging again, my phone now seems to be working .... occasionally! Rather unreliable, but sometimes it's OK! So if you text me and I don't reply, assume I didn't get the message, and try some other means of contacting me! Stay cool! I'm off to quilting .... will have a lovely day!

Well we had a good time last night ;)

And so did everyone else there. A special surprise guest also made an appearance - Jimmy Barnes. More details are on Jon's site and also on my blog 

My poem to everyone

Roses are red
Violets are blue
And........
I love you

Here is a joke that I made up all by myself:

Q: What did the yellow bucket say to the blue bucket?
A: You look a little pail.

OSHC gave me yellow hair. My hair was spiked up :-)

We put up our Christmas Tree ho ho ho, and stupid stormy knocked off one of the balls. The cats like climbing the tree.

I have another joke,

Q: What did the hiccup monster say to everyone?
A: huc huc happy Halloween.

Is that a good joke?

Last night I went to Mum's parents house because they went to the gig, I went home at 1.20am!

Love Michael
xxx
()()()

The Beach!

Friday night we went to the beach! Jacob has decided lately that he doesn't want an afternoon sleep (but he really should) so of course at 4o'clock on the way fell asleep! He was completely out to it, didn't even stir when Al put sunscreen on him. Bit of a bugger really! Seeing it was so stinking hot we couldn't leave him there and wait so got him out and he was very sooky and grumpy. We had a paddle (Jacob didn't, he was a bit freaked out and wouldn't let go of Al's neck) but was rather lovely. Sam liked dangling his feet in until the water splashed his nappy - wasn't too keen after that! So that was Sam's first trip to the beach. We then went back to the car and got the prams and went for a walk and got fish&chips and sat on the grass outside the Grand and ate it. Jacob enjoyed it and Sam slept. And of course we followed it up with icecream!

Then saturday when it was still stinking hot we filled the clam up and the boys had a bit of a splash. Sam certainly liked that and looked so cute in his jock bathers! Jacob wasn't quite so sure (and his only bathers are size 1 (i'm pretty sure he's getting a UV top for christmas) so he warmed up to it more once he was in the half nicky noo nar). Sam loves kicking and splashing in the bath so we weren't surprised he enjoyed it, and we encouraged Jacob to 'kick like Sam' and that seemed to work. He is still a bit (or very) tentative so we'll need to keep encouraging him and giving him opportunities to get used to the water. Good times!

Trucks!

Yup, that's what we're into at the moment... hard to avoid them really! Last week work started on the block next door, and they work 7 - 4:30 mon to fri and 7 - 2:30 on saturday. Entertains Jacob nicely! Last week we put his step out the front so he could watch to his heart's content (until it got too hot and he had to come inside). The water truck accesses the water from out the front of our house so we feel like we're right in the thick of it! 7:30 saturday morning while i was asleep it sounded like they were digging up concrete a few metres from the bedroom... cos they were! Doing something with the water pipes, i dunno. It would have been polite if they'd told us they were going to be blocking the driveway for a few hours and if we want to go anywhere to move the car, but, well, good thing we didn't have any plans! They've also removed most of the trees from the edge of the area so looks quite different from our back yard. Especially since a few bits of iron have come off our fence so we've got a gaping big hole near the compost heap - was very strange hanging out the washing while watching them chainsaw the trees! The first photo is what i was greeted with when i opened the front door about half an hour ago, and the rest are pretty self explanatory! I'm sure you'll be updated on progress again :)

my medalion

when I got my medalion Amanda Grahams was there.she is a book illustrator. It was for the premiers reading challenge. Last year I got a certificate. 

Darn!!

Well bother bother bother!! My mobile has decided it has had enough, and no longer works! It could have held out for another two months - we were gonna get new ones when we move anyway, and see what deal we could get at Victor, for buying two! But I really don't think I can cope for two months without a phone ..... mine is the one Dad got the day we headed for Newcastle nearly 4 years ago, so he pointed out it probably doesn't owe us anything!! Anyone know how to retrieve saved messages from a "dead" phone?!

I was very disappointed to have put on 1kg when i weighed myself last week so I've added a block to my usual morning walk. Measured it the other day, and it's 5ks - takes me an hour, and is about 9000 steps! I'm being more careful with what I eat, too - will see what the scales tell me this week!

Of course, possibly a dumb time to increase my walk, as I'm finding with packing, that I tend to wander thro the house a bit, looking for something just the right size to fill a space in a box, and two days this week I've done over 30,000 steps ..... and yes, i AM sleeping well at night! The heap of full boxes is growing, and Dad got some more, bigger empty ones for me yest, so my frustration over yet another delay in getting the proper boxes, is eased a bit! Latest is, they should be here Wednesday! Which is 5 weeks from M Day, and in that 5 weeks we've got two lots of lovely visitors and 3 trips away! Oh well .... I'm sure it will all happen!

Loxton Lit Up with big bang last night, and Martha's had about 15 visitors through, plus about 10 of our own folk, so we were quite pleased! There were 7 of us "working" there, which was more than we needed, but we enjoyed the fellowship time together! Jill and Jaap came in, and a couple of their Motor Home friends, and Mickie and Les from next door. There have been a few frustrations with things not happening - like our flashing sign out on the footpath runs off a car battery but the battery was flat! and we didn't have a baby Jesus - so Sharon went & bought a baby doll, that lights up - it's AWFUL!! But wrapped up in the manger it's OK ..... just gives me the shudders! And we haven't got the messages on our manger yet ... the taped messages Natalie did last year .... the technology just hasn't got set up yet .... we got there to set up Fri night and the extra tables weren't there, and half finished banners were all over the place, and the people were asking ME what to do - I stepped down from that committee a month ago! My BP was up a bit by the time I came home, I suspect! But I can see the funny side of it now! It all looks good, and by next week we might have some of the glitches sorted! I even sold two Christmas Veggie Tales DVDs to a lady ... and I'd been going to buy one myself! Oh well!

Dad's gone to Renmark this morning, left 7.30 .... next time I'll go with him, for his farewell!
I should say farewell and go get ready for church! Love you all! Mum/Gramma/Nanna/Karen

Update from Mum re: Michael's carols night

Hey there,

Just to let you know that his Carols night is actually Wednesday December 6, not the 7th has he quoted in his post. This will be his last carol's night in junior primary school. He starts transistion on Monday to become a full fledged primary school student. He will attend classes for year 3's and learn how they conduct their daily routine and learning pattern.

He also has another post for tonight in regards to a special award that he recieved, but I will leave that up to him to tell you.

one of my carols songs

one of my carols songs

dashing through the snow
in a one horse open sleigh
over hills we go
laughing all the way
ho ho ho
bells and bobtails ring
making spirits fly
this is our carols night
Here we go

jingle bells jingle bells
jingle all the way
oh what fun it is to ride
in a one horse open sleigh
hey

One that makes me upset is

Light a candle
There's a sign of hope in your hands
Light a candle
For the child who sleeps in the cold

Thats all I remember about that part.

It makes me upset because there is a child sleeping in the cold

My carols night is December 7th at 7pm

I wish you could come, if you could that would be great.
Love Michael
xxx()()()

well, it seemed like a good idea at the time

I installed a watercooler for our computer last night. (A Zalman Reserator 2, for those of you who are interested.) Very spiffy. Shiny blue coolant, a big radiator. We could hardly believe how quiet it was when we fired up the computer without all of those silly fans that oldfashioned people still use for cooling their PCs. We could also hardly believe how long it took for the monitor to appear, and how long it took for it to actually boot.
After a great deal of troubleshooting, Tony realised that we'd used the wrong screws to brace the CPU cooling block, and had scratched the motherboard, and it wasn't actually booting. Oops.
Tony is currently investigating options for rebuilding the Raid Array all of our data is stored on, without losing it all, and having to pay some data recovery specialists hundreds of dollars. Tony has lent us his PC in the meantime (he's been having fun playing with one of the Lamp style Macs, so he can cope without it.)
So far the most awkward thing is not being able to watch the cricket, while the kids watch kids shows.

my week so far

At the start of the week,i went swiming with my class. I met my new teacher for swimming, and before I was a seagull, but now I am a shark. We call her Mrs Shark! On Tuesday and today we played stuck in the mud. I didnt caught once yesterday, but today I did. Yesterday there was a struck of lightening and thunder. I hate loud noises, so I said "I hate loud noises", but then I got over it.
Bye for now,
Love Michael
xxx () () ()

Some old Christmas artwork...

While mum was cleaning up, she came across this poster done by Heather in 1985... Thanks Heth! It is a good reminder of what Christmas is about.

Oh, and I went to the first 'last time at Loxton' thing today and was farewelled. (A chaplaincy support meeting at the High School.) How do I feel about this? A bit strange - so we really are leaving soon! [43 sleeps?!]

Jacob the Rock Star

Rock Star 'like Colin' + bonus singing. Very Cute and yes we are very bias! Enjoy!!!

what we did

hi everybody
At the city for lunch mum&i had A chicken salad wrap yummy.................! bye for now love michael

Ummm... well... actually....

Stuart is home again now today, but not to look after me! The poor guy has a sore stomach and is keen for some rest! Oh my goodness!!!

Ok, let's review: Natalie has been sick, Calvin has been sick, Heth has been sick (hope your feeling better now), I'm recovering from being sick, Al is also recovering and now Stuart is sick (wasn't Dad K ill in there somewhere too? And I'm sure I remember Sam not being 100% either). So it really is time for a bit of health I think. Or maybe a nice lie down. ;P

Guess where WE went today...?

Yup it was our turn to visit the hospital... Al was feeling very crook after his exam (I think a combination of stress, over tiredness, dehydration and having this cold for a week or so) so went straight to bed and unfortunately couldn't keep any fluids down. I managed to convince him it would be best to go over to the repat for some drugs and a drip before he felt any worse, and it was certainly easier to go at 4pm when Repat casualty was open and Jacob was still in care. Much better than taking two tired boys to Flinders and having to wait a few hours just to be seen! He went in after about 15 minutes and got a jab of maxalon in his butt, and didn't seem dehydrated enough to need a drip. He rested there and kept some water down and an hour and a half after we got there we went home! We picked up Jacob on the way home and Al went straight back to bed. He did get up for an hour or so a while ago and had something to eat and even managed to put Jacob to bed. He's in bed again now and i'm sure that after a good big sleep he'll be feeling heeeeeeaps better. So that's our drama for the day!

I think that might be enough for the hospital trips for this family for a while - don't anyone else get any ideas!

You'll never believe it, but...

Debbie went back to hospital today!

Of course it was to sit in the back and hold the blood soaked rag on Calvin's finger!!!
Stuart stayed home from school today because I am still feeling rather unsure of myself (light headed, nauseas, stiff and sore) and I keep finding new injuries like a big bruise on my knee and my neck is now really stiff.... anyway, back to Calvin. I was sleeping in and Stuart was with Calvin and Calvin decided that he really needed to cut his apple with a REALLY sharp knife. Sadly he cut himself and I came out to the kitchen to find Stuart standing over Calvin holding his bloody hand with big spots of blood on the floor. I quickly dressed and we raced Calvin up to the hospital where they cleaned up the finger before sending us to the Dr's surgery for stiches! Calvin was very brave at the hospital, though the whole thing made me quite light headed. We also got the see the cut for the first time and it is a whopper! Right down the middle of his finger (on his left hand). When the Dr saw Calvin she suggested no stiches because it is quite stressful and so his wound is just stuck up and well bandaged (as you can see). On top of that Calvin still has a running bottom, poor little guy.

Ahhhhh. Would be nice not to go to the hospital tomorrow! Though Calvin and I will both go to the Dr on Thursday for check ups.
Hope that YOU are all well and safe out there. I think we ave done enough for the whole family. And now it is back to bed with me.

Cruising for a bruising

These bruises just keep getting better.

Awesome, hey?

Michael went to the Magic Cave

Yes we took Michael to the Magic Cave. It was a surprise visit for him, we told him we were just going to the city. We got to David Jones and parked on the same level as the cave, sadly only to be let in at 11.10am, so there went our idea of going up to the level to get to the cave faster! Grinch, I mean Rob, had a good whinge about that in the line ups! We waited in the line up to see Father Christmas for 10 minutes and then, when an assistant put up a sign saying "An hour wait point" miles in front of us, we figured, forget it we will wait for the local shops!
We took Michael inside the Magic cave, and waited almost an hour for him to ride on Nipper (for 2 minutes!!), he also went on the carousel, and had fun with the magic mirrors. He got a balloon, fairy floss and a lucky dip. We then left the cave and went to the food pavillion for lunch, for a walk down Rundle Mall, and then had a look around DJ's and then went back to the Magic Cave floor to leave.
By this point the line up for Father Christmas had dimished as it was around lunchtime, so we decided to give it a go. We waited for 45 minutes and finally got to see Father Christmas. I am glad that we did decide to give it a go, as the Father Christmas we saw was fantastic. The first thing he said was "Is that you Michael? Well you have grown since I saw you last year" He then spoke to Michael for about 5 minutes, and then he had his picture taken with him. The service was very good. Michael was very good in the line up - he just had some behaviour issues that marred the day a little, but all in all, it was definately a great day. We are now very tired (we did grocery shopping afterwards at Colonnades). I will post more images on my blog. 

My eventful day.

Oh, how I do love bruises. Today I went over to Port Pirie with a few friends for a birthday party for Caleb. The party was Paintballing! It was quite warm, and I was ridiculously sweaty inside my face mask, but it was awesome. As you can see, I did manage to acquire a few bruises. I've also got one under my other armpit, and down on my lower back, as well as a funny mark on top of my head, where I was struck few glancing blows.

My day was made a bit frustrating, because I twisted my ankle last night as I was bringing Natalie in from the car. We'd had a late night 'cos Debbie had organised a farewell party for Matthew and Sharina Morton, friends of ours who live round the corner. Thursday night our sleep was interrupted on a regular basis by a vomiting Calvin. Then Debbie got up at 5am so she'd be able to finish a video for the party - I think it was 11ish when she got home after packing up the church. Anyway, my ankle is still really sore, and I've been limping around all day - not an ideal situation when you've got people shooting little pellets of pain at you.

Given the difficulty I've been having walking, I was quite surprised at how little I was shot. The bruises you see in the picture (and all of my other bruises, with the exception of the head wound I mentioned) were obtained in the very last firefight. You see, I'd managed to be on the winning side of most of the battles, making a contribution to the very end. (The way it works, is that once a paintball bursts on you, you're out.) But at the end of the day everyone who still had paintballs left had a big all-in "last one standing" battle, and the rules went out the window - while you had paintballs, you could keep shooting other people. It was great fun, going all Rambo on everyone, and running round corners, and into rooms in the face of an onslaught of fire, getting hit, standing ground and returning fire at close range. Awesome fun, and if it wasn't for that, I would have come home without a single bruise, which would have been disappointing, to be frank. (The cluster of bruises you see in the photo were actually put there by one of the judges, who standing on the sidelines as I fired my empty weapon at a callow youth who was cowering in a corner.) Anyway, I WANNA DO IT AGAIN!! Port Pirie is kind of central. How does April work for everyone?

And THEN, on the WAY HOME, the other carfull of guys pulled over in front of us, and one of them hopped out and ran over to us and said "Stuart, Debbie's been taken to hospital in an ambulance." But for that story, you'll need to wander over to the Cozens Blog.

U2

I don't know where to start! The short version would be it was great! Certainly the best show I've been to, great atmosphere and excitement cos U2 really are the biggest band in the world if not the universe. Would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if i didn't sneeze every minute, and nanna and the boys survived their evening too.

The slightly longer version... It was all super! We went with Jules which was great cos she was contagiously excited. My excitement and enthusiasm was slightly dampened by the worry of how the boys would be, and Al seemed to be partying on the inside only (he was a U2 veteran, he saw them at the MCG last time) but Jules had enough for all of us! We had seats about half way between the stage and the back, about half way up the grandstand so were pretty stoked. Great atmosphere! We also had binoculars which were very useful!

There were so many 'best bits' but one of the awful things about something like this (or anything in life really!) is that now it's over and i'm not going to remember every moment, every note, every word. Be great if we could but I guess we'll just have to wait for the tour DVD.
During Beautiful Day they changed the bridge with Adelaide and South Oz references which was so nice! I'm sure somewhere in cyberspace we could find exactly what he said but I can't be bothered today.
In Sunday Bloody Sunday he got a young guy (maybe about 12 years old) to come up and they sat on the stage together. Bono talked about for his generation we need to say 'No more!' to poverty, war etc. Very awesome.
One song had a huge AV presentation thing which was very cool. Apparently the Zoo tour was 2 full on hours of this kinda stuff, and Rattle&Hum was much more acoustic (well as acoustic as a U2 show can be!) but the Vertigo tour was a good mix of both.
At the beginning looking out over the crowd you could see people holding up their phones to take pics or video or whatever. Later on Bono got everyone to get their phones out and make it look like a Christmas tree and it looked gorgeous all glittery and twinkly! And of course then SMS your full name to show your support to the Make Poverty History campaign... then at the end everyone's names were shown on the big screen as a thank you! Well not quite everyones, mine wasn't there but I did recognise 1 or 2. But then after I got home I got an sms from Bono! 'Hi it's Bono... thanks for texting... please go to www.makepovertyhistory.com.au and sign up to be part of the generation that says no to extreme poverty'
There was lots of audience participation singing etc as you'd expect!
Very much liked One (really like that song anyway and it reminds me of Stu! I think cos it was on the first CD I bought and listened to on Stu's CD player. The things you do) And the usual, Desire, Streets have no name, Beautiful Day, Sometimes you can't make it on your own etc etc etc.
So many highlights!
Thats about all I can think of now.

When we got home the house was dark and quiet but Nanna and Sam were asleep in the rocking chair... They did survive the night but there was lots of screaming from a hungry Sam (pity I couldn't express a bit more for him!) It wasn't all bad, there were some giggles too. And Jacob was good.

I certainly did have a cold or something - sneezed so much and was feeling a bit crusty but managed to not get up til 10 on Friday! I fed Sam when we got home about 12, then about 5:30, so was thinking he was having a really big sleep but he'd been up since a bit after 9 playing happily with Jacob and Nanna. Heaps better today just sound a bit shocking.

Thank you Very Very much to Nanna for looking after the boys so we could go! You're worth you're weight in giggles :)

U2 - The verdict?

So Heth how was it? I cant imagine you were too much into Kayne, he doesnt strike me as your sort of artist - but how was he? What sort of tickets did you have - general admin or reserved? We have reserved for Robbie, so I am thinking of rocking up later - never heard of the support act.

About 20 people went from my work went, and only 1 person out of that lot said it was a good show. The rest complained it was too quiet, too gossipy and just not up to par - that would be a disspointment if that were the case given the fact that the tickets cost almost as much as a mortgage repayment! LOL ;)

Looking forward to Robbie in 3 weeks and Jon in 2 - wicked.

Howdy

Just thought I'd say a bit of a hello and fill you in on life in BrockLand... Al's currently handing up his last assignment (Yippee!!!) and after his exam next monday will be all done for the year! Don't worry he won't be sitting round twiddling his thumbs, the list of 'Summer Jobs' is getting very long! I've included fun things like picnic and pedicure as well as the other not quite so fun things (like fixing the fence and moving the little shed) and we've crossed something off already.

Sam seems to have recovered nicely from his cold but is not sleeping through the night as beautifully as he was... Had to feed him twice last night (I did one night last week too) didn't know what had hit me! Can't expect too much I suppose... He'll be 4 months on Friday and is very much on the move now. Started rolling over on Friday and likes to kick and wriggle all over the place. He was lying on the quilt parallel to the couch with his head toward the TV, and wriggled around 180* so he could see the tv... and then a bit more too. Nothing's gonna be the same again! I don't remember Jacob wriggling that much - that's not to say he didn't, but i don't remember. Sam had a great time in his jolly jumper the other day too, and Jacob thought it was great as well!

As you'd expect Jacob has got Sam's cold but doesn't seem too bad really... We've had some good days and some bad days with him in the last week (typical 2 year old stuff i imagine). One of the biggest struggles has been going to bed at night - out of the blue it's turned into a huge battle which is not fun at all! It does seem to be settling down a bit now but he still wants us to stay in there with him a lot of the time. I'm not ready for him to not have an afternoon sleep just yet tho! It was lovely that a particularly horrid day we had was followed by a particularly angelic day - he was back to his gorgeous happy self and as he was headed out the door to Bunnings with Dad he said 'I love you mum!' Was soooo cute and makes it all worthwhile really!

We're looking forward to U2 on thursday night! It's a bit surreal really, it seems to have come around very quick but will be awesome! Sure hope the boys behave for Nanna...

Anyway much love to you all and hope to hear from you soon!
Love Heth

Yippee!

Our move is confirmed .... Allied Pickfords will pick us up Thurs 4/1, and deliver all our wordly possessions to Victor Fri 5th ... hooray!! And VH Removals will deliver all the Gladstone things about 7.30am Fri 5th before the AP truck arrives, so we'll have everything all there together!! I'm SO pleased! And what's even better, storage is only $7.50/week, and collecting our goods and delivering them isn't as much as he thought, so we're probably looking at only about $400 all up! So isn't that terrific?? I'm VERY chuffed!! We'll head for Victor once the truck's loaded here, and will camp in the Manse ... will be fun! So it's all really gonna happen! wow! Now I should go do some packing .... oh, the proper boxes should be here by next week! Bye!

52 sleeps

Well we have some belongings in Victor!! Andrew rang Friday night to say the fellow was collecting our goods, and where did he have to take them! So I imagine by now they're all well and truly installed in storage at Victor, and we'll be "re-united" in a few weeks!
Saturday night we met Lyn and Jeff K at Barmera and had a lovely meal and evening together ... was very spur of the moment, but excellent .... sort of our first "goodbye"! They're good friends ... Jeff was one of Dad's referees, and said the Adare folk had asked is he good at taking time off - they don't want a work-a-holic!! Jeff was pretty stunned at that!! He's never heard of a church doing that before! Very encouraging .... altho I'm not sure if he told a porkie!! Mind you, Dad IS much better at taking time off than he has been before, so that's good!

Dad went out visiting yesterday and came home very snuffly and miserable - he plans to stay in bed today ... well, most of today - he has a meeting at the high school at 11, re chaplaincy, but will be home the rest of the time!
I plan to ring Allied Pickfords to see if they can confirm our moving date yet! And ask when we'll get our boxes! Will keep you posted!
We had some lovely rain yesterday, altho of course not enough to "break the drought"! But the gardens are certainly enjoying it ... still very black ominous looking sky today! But I'll hang my washing out anyway!
Take care! Love you all!

Michael's beanie kids

As promised here is the list of Michael's beanie kids so that incase you wanted to get him one for Christmas, you wont duplicate on what he already has.

This list as it stands at the moment is:

Doodle Doo Peep Googally
Vroom Zena Brainy
Spikey Bamboo Torpedo
Snap Super Beanie Ryan
Bonza Rainbow Otto
Waddle Moggie Gummy
Harley Bouncer Wattle
Scruffy Mosh Pounce
Perry Power Girl G’day
Boris Congo Bongo Ringo
Princess Prickles Jane
Ouch Dot Snozz

Also has:

Beanie Kid Master (in transit)
Rex (at school somewhere!!)
Patty (MIA, but will replace if unlocated!)

Currently bidding on ebay:

Creamy the cow
Prancer the reindeer/prezzie the bear

Hope this helps!

furniture and Christmas

Hi all! Well at last our furniture from Granny and Grampa's is going to Victor! The Removalist rang and said the truck's on the way to Tennant Creek, and will be back at Gladstone (empty!) on Saturday morning, to collect the sideboard, piano, chest of drawers, and sundry chairs! Andrew's able to go and help the fellow load the piano, so that's great - saves us a trip over there! Then this morning we found out the sideboard is still at John's!! Fortunately he can take it to Andrew's tomorrow, so it will all be collected together ... well ... in two stops instead of 3! The piano's still at the house with the tenant, but the rest is out in Andrew's shed ... all complicated and I'll be VERY glad when we're finally there with all our bits and pieces, from all over! The removalist will store the Gladstone bits for us .... wonder what 2 months storage will cost us?! Guess we'll find out!

There's going to be a "Kitto Christmas" at Maria and Andrew's on Boxing Day, which will be excellent! Maria's asked me to find out who of our lot is likely to be there ..... so please let me know! We plan to go there from Adelaide Tuesday morning, and come home Wednesday to finish packing! It'll be good to catch up with the cousins etc .... but we've got gifts for them all so you don't need to worry about that! Will let you know what the food arrangements are nearer the time!
Take care! Love you all! Mum

Natalie Update

I had a few people ask how Natalie is getting on with the long days and long week at school and I think she says it best. "I like recess, lunch and EVERYTHING. Reading, writting, drawing, cutting and glueing. My teacher's very nice. I play with my new friends."

Now add a grin on her face and you start to get an idea about her feelings on school. Staurt and I are obviously VERY excited that she likes it sooooooo much, but the really amazing thing is that she is coming homw with so much energy! I thought that she was just want to fall in front of the TV, but she has watched less TV this week than ever before I think. When I collected her yesterday she wanted to go and play down the beach! Will be interesting to see if this level of energy continues.
Anyway, so far school is a fantastic experience for her and we are all very pleased about that.

Wriggly Welcome Home

We've just arrived from our few days in Adelaide, at Synod, and were somewhat startled (to say the least!) to see a snake wriggling across the driveway, a metre or so from the study door, heading from the shed towards the empty block next door ..... via our garden ...... ew!!! Not terribly impressed! Apparently the block next door now has some pegs on it, marking out a new house to be built ... but a few pegs shouldn't have disturbed the "wild-life" that much! I'll be watching my step ve-ry ve-ry carefully!

On a happier note - welcome, Grandad, to the Blog!! We look forward to hearing what you're up to, and are really pleased that you can keep up with what the rest of us are doing too!
Love you all!

Does this look like a Scottish Villan to you??

Well it is! ;)

Michael and I just put his name into Google, and up comes a fair amount of matches and images to a Michael Kitto who was a notorious Scottish viliian! There is also Michael Kitto from Cornwall, and many other pages that we didnt go to.

The things you do whilst waiting for bids to end on ebay, and speaking of which Michael won a bid for the Beanie Kid Master, the rarest beanie kid of them all (and the most expensive I might add :( ) It will arrive from England in a couple of weeks (I hope!). He is very excited! 

Hilltop Hoods

A little belated, but still better late than never. Here is a picture of Michael waiting in the queue to get into The Gov to see the 'hoods. I think that they actually spent longer in the queue than they did in the venue!
All up they stayed for 5 songs, and Michael had trouble hearing them rap due to the fact that he was wearing ear plugs, and really could only hear the bass apparently. They were home by around 10.30pm, but still its an experience that not many 8 year olds can have!
I'll be at The Gov on November 26 to see Jon live, but Michael will be staying at Granmoo and Opas that night! 

Trust the boy to get his head stuck in a bucket!

"Ummm, mummy and grandma, I seem to have a bucket stuck on my head!"

"Oh well, if I put this hat on no one will ever notice."

"See mummy, I can live a normal life even with this bucket on my head!"

We did manage to eventually remove the bucket with a little water and some helpful conditioner. What a funny little man!

That kids and I headed over to Orroroo this weekend just to get out of the house and let daddy have some irresponsible, free, alone time (which I think he enjoyed [though he may have to share that himself] with a game of tennis and poker thrown in as well). Both Natalie and Calvin enjoyed creating with the craft Grandma (and Grandpa) got for them and there were plenty of walks around. I managed to get all four tyres on the car replaced and we had a lovely lunch with Grandma Jean. Calvin and Grandpa went out to do secret boys business on the farm and later Saturday afternoon Grandma and mummy had fun trying to work out how to get the toy bucket off of Calvin's head (it was REALLY stuck) but we got there as you can see above. Then up early this morning to get back to Whyalla before Sunday school.

Does it get much better?

At last after knowing for 2 weeks and having to keep a lid on it, I can blurt it to the world. Jon is headling the Clipsal 500 entertainment for Sunday night - Yippee.. We were fortunate enough today to attend the official launch and watch Jon sing. Media passes are a great thing :)

On a personal note, tonight is the first time I havent had to work until after 11.30pm for EZYdvd this week! And I also worked a large chunk of the weekend, and in between I have been upgrading Jon's website (feedback would be good??), so yeah tonight I am feeling a little lost as I dont HAVE to do anything! :) I might just go and read a book I think! - wicked!!!! 

Graduating Kindy!

Natalie had her last session at kindy today. The very last one! No more!! All finished!!! At the end of the session she was presented with her work from the year as well as all of the paintings and crafte she has done. She also received a kindy certificate (her first qualification!) and enjoyed hugs from all her teachers. Now it is all about school.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Sorry we didn't get this here yesterday but we were certainly thinking of you and are so pleased you had a great day. Jacob was writing 'I love you Natalie' and sang Happy Birthday to your photo (and sang his 'I love you everybody' song in the mirror). Sam just giggled. Love seeing all the photos of your day, you sure are beautiful! We love you very much... Love Jacob, Sam, Aunty Heth and Uncle Al xxxx