Photos & Art

Here we have Dante's pictures from today and yesterday, above his fish, below his bird.

And below is Kai's asian mountain home and para troops...

And Raven's fish... puffer/heart fish/elephant fish. He told us that and it is obvious once we were told, but I did initially think it was people.

Some photos: Kai, Raven, Monika and Andrew, 3 youngest and dad, group shot of the children outside HJs, Dante, Monika and Labyrinth...

Sometimes its hard to shift Andrew out of bed, which means having to either go without lunch or do as we did today... no not eat at HJs, we just get their free refills and grabbed a parcel of chips from across the road. They don't ever seem to mind. They got a good play too.

Also today we went and did pricing for building materials from Bunnings. I know it isn't the rock bottom cheapest place but its there to give us a good ball point figure (and hopefully save even more). We're certainly not against 2nds and 2nd hand building materials, and using what we can provide ourselves. We are bringing this to a bank too, costings and so forth, to get our little project off the ground much faster.

We also trialled so called Awesome Water for a week. It just didn't taste great and if I'm paying for it - it should! So, we will send it back... Also discovered FaceBook and spent far too long on it. Its a great thing but too addictive. Also reading Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways...a third installment to the Howls Moving Castle series. Now time to sit back and enjoy my cuppa chai tea and chill after a busy day (after I got Andrew motivated.)

New Toys, savings and comprimises

Our newest acquisitions, a limited edition PSP3000 to apease Andrew, a new Sony CyberShot, which is to improoove my photograpy with this blog in mind and scrapbooking too. Andrew actually had to talk me into it and told me it was important for me to get something simple as my shots were never the best, and I am so glad he did, it is true, I don't have the best eyesight (astigmatism) and it is for my readers enjoyment as much as my own, plus I don't wish to be trying to figure out shots when they need to be taken asap (so many opportunities lost, and while we endeavour to get our new home built this will be definitive to our story! With this in mind I agreed. Also above is Little Monika's new potty. It has a shell lid too for Raven (yep he still needs to be helped onto the toilet (he's 4! but so small)... and later for Monika. Below is a few shots taken with the new camera, aren't they great? Sigh....

Also put on ACDSEE Pro so I can hasten my conversions to upload (oh, i'd forgotten that joy, done in such a tiny amount of time!)

The comprimise of getting the expensive items (Andrew had to pursuade me), was for the road and the long time between having all of our stuff accessable while we wait and while we build.) Part of the pursuading that took part was we now have $150 savings as of today (stupidly I thought we had over $600)...(OH, I know it ain't much, but by mid next month it will be around the $4000 dollar mark.) Secondly, we'll be putting at least $500 into savings from now on each fortnight, and thirdly and most importantly, Andrew has finally agreed to look into what I've been telling him (and him dreading as he didn't understand) how we can get this off the ground so much faster by ... you guessed it.... living in a tent for up to a few months then into a caravan we own. We could be putting away $1500 a fortnight plus, and seeing some beautiful places like national parks along the way and having a very relaxed wait.

Ideally we could pick up some work here and there like seasonal fruit picking too. Anyone got any other ideas? Work offers? Anything?

Tomorrow is a trip up the east coast for a picnic and to pick up all the packing boxes we need (hopefully)...Q