Sunday, April 28, 2013

Gardening is hard work... I need a jam sandwich!

 While Jason was getting another trailer load of dirt, and I was shovelling the dirt into the new garden Ethan decided that gardening was hard work and he needed a snack... so Ethan went inside, got the jam from the fridge, the bread from the cupboard, a knife from the draw and, with dirty hands and all, he made himself a jam sandwich! Using a little more jam than I would have!

 After all the jam, Ethan needed to wash it down with some water!

New Fence and landscaping Part 2

You may recall reading about our new fence and landscaping in a previous blog post (read here). Well over Easter weekend 2013 we made some massive progress on the landscaping!

We needed 3 cubic metres of dirt to fill our new garden (4 trailer loads), so as Jason was getting the dirt and dropping it off for me., I was filling the new garden up. Its been a while since I have shovelled dirt! It was great... until the next day that is hahaha.

Next up was the selection and planting of the mature trees. We had scouted a shop out weeks ago and pretty much decided that we wanted to plant Chinese Tallows in this garden. This is due to their shallow root systems (the garden goes over some of our sewerage pipes) and the fact that they are deciduous (we wanted the shade in summer but the light in winter). Unfortunately, despite advertising being open for all public holidays the nursery we went to was closed for Easter! Luckily we had our phones handy... a quick google search and a phone call and we were off to what worked out to be a much better nursery for mature trees. 

After a slow drive home (we wanted to minimise the trauma on the new trees) Jason set out to plant our new trees. With Ethan's help of course!

The next day we chose the remainder of the plants for our garden. As you can see we went for varied colour and heights.

Jason spent the afternoon planting our new plans and the end result was just stunning!
There's nothing like the sun shining through the leaves of the new trees!
A few weeks later our new trees turned into stunning reds, oranges and yellows as autumn hit!

The final stage in our landscaping will be the completion of the upper tier of the garden... this is gfoing to be a pond/water feature. We will need to wait a few weeks before we finish this part of the garden, but the photo below shows the space that we are working with.
I'll keep you posted as the pond work develops!

Sunday, April 7, 2013

You mean I am allowed chocolate for breakfast???

 I know Easter is more about chocolate but I just couldn't resist posting the following sequence of pictures....

Am I really allowed to eat it Dad?

Ok I'll take a bite!

Boy is this a real morning treat! This is way better than the be-bix (weetbix) that you normally give me!

I'm biting the wabbit's ear Dad!
 
Sheesh this rabbit is pretty big! And I have this "bus" of eggs as well.

Hello Mr Wabbit...

OK bored of the rabbit now. How do I get into this bus load of eggs.

I can't get into it....

I think I've eaten way too much chocolate this morning, can I have some be-bix??

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Ethan at 22 months!

 Wow, our little boy really is growing up fast! Here are a couple of my favourite photos which were taken exactly 22 months (to the day and hour) after he was born! As you can see he is really becoming a real little character and will now interact with the camera again after a good 6 - 7 months of turning his head away every time he saw the camera come out!



Monday, April 1, 2013

A weekend of sport!

Last weekend was all about sport in our house!

It started with an outing for me to the Basketball at the new Perth Arena on the Friday night (Perth Wildcats versus the New Zealand Breakers). I was hosted in the Alinta corporate box and it was an amazing evening with great atmosphere. Check out the video I took (for those on email notifications click here).



Unfortunately the New Zealand team lost, but it was still an amazing evening.

On Saturday we had Jason's 2013 Water Polo grand final match! It was a beautiful day and the boys were quietly confident (having put the 2012 Champions out in the first round of finals).

Here's Ethan just waiting for all the action!
 Jason was looking nice and relaxed for his game!
 It was a tense match. After a good first quarter which saw Jason's boys with a handy lead they went scoreless for the whole second quarter which let the other team have a glimpse of victory  However throughout the match Jason's team managed to stay 1 goal ahead.
The final quarter was punctuated with many team time outs and strategising as each team tried to work out how to win the game. But, for the first time in 5 years of making the Grand Final, Jason's team prevailed! Taking out the low scoring final 5 goals to 4!

Jason was exhausted.... but happy!

 The team was over the moon... and the celebrating began immediately!
The following morning Jason and Ethan went to jungle sports while I headed out into the Perth Hills for the Darlington half Marathon (12km uphill then 9.1km downhill). I have been working hard on my running lately and I was hoping for a good run. The day was clear and a little cooler than normal which suited me as I tend to run slightly better in the cooler temperatures.

Once I started my warm up I knew I was going to meet my target time for the race! I just felt good!

I had given my coach a 2 minute target range for the race, and I am really happy to say that I came in exactly in the middle of my target time range!

This was with a stop during the race as well.... the night before my race Jason and I built Ethan a mini trampoline. When we were doing it we lost a washer and could not find it again. 10km into my half marathon I felt what I thought was a stone in my shoe. Given the start of the race was on a gravelly trail I wasn't surprised at all. I scrunched my toes up a bit to move the debris into a more favourable spot in my shoe and then carried on running. Unfortunately as the KMs ticked over the "stone" felt like it was getting bigger and bigger until I finally stopped and whipped my shoe off to see what was in there. Low and behold it was the missing washer!!! It left a nasty blister beneath my big toe as well! But I must say it was a much more pleasant final few KMs sans washer that's for sure.

Here I am at the end of the race. Pretty happy with my effort!
In terms of results, I won my age group and was 12th female overall. So things are starting to go really well for me running wise.

After I got home from the half marathon Jason and I took Ethan to his swimming lesson. Ethan's swimming can be pretty hit and miss... sometimes he enjoys it and sometimes he hates it! Well this time Ethan had a ball and was just amazing! The teacher said he was an absolute joy to have in class as well!

For his efforts Ethan came home with a merit award as well (for climbing out of the pool unaided).

So all in all it was a very successful and fun sporting weekend for the whole family.