December 2007 Archives

This year is quickly drawing to a close and I must say, I've had some highlights. The biggest one of course was Anthony coming back into my life. What an absolutely fantastic thing that was. And yes, fantastic, because it's something I used to lay awake nights thinking about. It happened nothing like I expected it would, but it happened, and that was the best thing.

The birth of Riley and Scarlett were the next best things to happen. Two more beautiful grandchildren, and one whose birth I had the privilege of attending. That was another big highlight, and one I'm not likely to forget in a hurry.

Alex finished primary school with a sigh of relief, after not being allowed to go on the Year 6 end of year camp. He was warned enough times so it was no big surprise for him. Not being allowed to go to the Year 6 pool party hurt him more but he did a good job of feigning that he didn't care. He's looking forward to high school next year.

Carly and I have had a tough year, with plenty of clashes. She played the best game of touch football this year that I've ever seen and I was never more proud of her. She was a credit to the team and gave it her best. I'd like to see her put that same effort into her school work next year, when she's doing Year 10. On Wednesday she went to Narooma with her friend Lisa and Lisa's family and rang a couple of times to tell me what a great time she was having. I think Anthony was disappointed when she left, but it gave him some special time with Alex. Carly will be home today some time.

This morning I made the reservation for 5 nights at the Chidori Court Gold Coast Resort. It's only a minute from the beach and has a nice pool that I'm sure we'll take advantage of every day.

This will be a new area of the Gold Coast for us to explore, we spent no time at all around Main Beach on our last trip. Shopping and restaurants are within walking distance, with Pacific Fair only across the highway and Sea World a short stroll down the road. Not that I was planning on visiting Sea World, the kids have their hearts set on Dream World, but we'll see once we're there.

We fly out on January 26, Australia Day, and I'm thinking of hiring a car from the airport, so when we leave on February 2 we can leave it back there. I haven't looked into what a week of car hire is worth, but since we're on holidays I suppose I'll worry about how much it all cost once it's over and I'm back to reality at home.

Now that all the details are taken care of I'm getting quite excited about it. During January though I have the last project for my TAFE course to complete so I won't have much time to think about Queensland. With a bit of luck it won't be busy at work, January is traditionally the time when all the builders have their holidays, so the time will be spent working on the report I have to submit all about the Impact of Household Stormwater on Urban Salinity. Yes, sounds like a lot of fun, I know. The panic hasn't set in yet but as the submission date draws nearer I'm sure it will.

We spent a lovely Christmas Day with family. For a change we weren't up with the birds, and all opened our presents together. Carly and Alex went to their father's for lunch, and Anthony and I went up to Mum's and we had a hot Christmas dinner there. It was nice and I'm glad Mum invited us. She and I enjoyed a bottle of wine, and Anthony got to know his Grandmother a little better.

He said it felt like three Christmases in one day. I guess that's what it's like at our house. First we do the gift giving in the morning, we do it again at Mum's place, and again later in the day when Emily and Lauren and their families come over.

Next year I think I'll buy very little for the evening meal. There was so much food, and Lauren brought over her famous layered salad, but very little got eaten and so there's a lot of food that the dog will end up with. It's such a waste. We had a great night though, and it was 11 before Lauren and Daniel left.

Boxing Day we stayed home and really had a holiday, with no-one doing much of anything. We ate left-overs and laid around all day. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Anthony arrived on Sunday evening to a very packed airport. Three planes arrived one after the other and his was the last one. Lauren and Carly came to the airport with me and we left a very upset Alex with Daniel to look after Zeke and Rielly. He wasn't at all impressed that he couldn't come. We went straight back there with Anthony though and spent a little time there before going to Emily's house. It was reunions all round, and introductions to Scarlett who Emily was still pregnant with when Anthony was last here.

It's Carly's birthday today and we all went out to tea together, and she invited her new boyfriend for the family to meet. He seems like a nice young bloke, very open and friendly. After tea we went to my sister house and Christine and Kate were still wrapping presents. There was the smell of roast chicken and Xmas decorations everywhere. We stayed for about an hour while we exchanged gifts, then drove around looking at Christmas lights. So many houses were lit up, it wasn't hard to find many. Of course, we went down Athol Street, and it was crowded with families and cars. We drove along it and I was impressed to see that most of the homes in two blocks had their house and yards decorated. There were lights strung across the street and it looked like the church was set up for Christmas Carolers.

We dropped Jarrod home and went back in to pick Anthony up, who'd gone to a meeting. It was probably 10:30 before we got home and I still had to do the kid's stockings. Mum made them both a beautiful Christmas stocking each that neither Carly or Alex knew they were getting.

After such a big day it wasn't hard to get them to bed so I could do the last-minute Santa run.

Yesterday was the last game of cricket for the year and we managed to get it over before the thunderstorms. The Touch grand finals were in Wagga later in the afternoon and Alex's team won the Under 14s this year 6-3. It was a great game and all the boys displayed some excellent touch skills. Our boys have been winning this competition for years now, but yesterday's win wasn't an easy one.

The girls Under 16s team also played in the grand final, and although they lost 6-5, it was one of the best games they'd played all season. Carly was outstanding, and hurt herself a couple of times, once even having to be helped from the field. She was only off long enough to catch her breath and was back out there. I was very proud of her and it was a shame they lost.

We had a blackout for a little while last night with another thunderstorm, and Alex managed to get the house lit up with candles everywhere. I was in the middle of wrapping Christmas presents and had to abandon that project until the lights came back on. We've had a fair bit of rain lately and it's been good, especially for cooling down the hot nights.

With only a week of school left I know I'm going to have a battle on my hands to make the kids go. Last week Carly and her friend Lisa were sorting the school's textbooks and she's been complaining about having to clean up instead of doing any real school work. I still have to go to work though, and it's bad enough when they have official school holidays to get up and go to work while they're laying in bed. I'll try for three days and might relent for the last two.

I'm looking forward to Christmas. Anthony is coming down from Queensland next weekend and it will be our first Christmas together. He'll also be here to celebrate Carly's birthday, which is December 24 and we usually go to Wagga and go out for tea somewhere. Work finishes next Friday and doesn't start back until January 2nd, so I'm looking forward to the time off.

My Nanna is a resident of the Cooinda Court Aged Care Hostel and today friends and family had a special Christmas lunch with the residents. I picked Nanna up and stowed her walker in the back and we met my Mum at the Club where about 150 people gathered for the occasion.

I ended up having 2 1/2 hours for lunch, I'm so glad I have good bosses at work. We had a smorgasboard of Chinese food and it was a pretty slow process as we made our way, table by table to serve ourselves. Santa and Mrs Claus came with gifts for all the elderly residents, and Brian Beasley, Junee's local bush poet, did a few poetry readings between courses.

This photo is my grand-daughter Scarlett with her great-grandmother and her great-great grandmother, taken about a month ago.

Today was a nice change from the awful week I've had. Monday I went to Wagga to get the new (old) wheels on the car and while I waited for the wheel-alignment I decided to get some photos printed. I went to pull out my specs, and they were broken. I've been wearing a $2 pair of magnifying glasses while I wait for my prescription ones to get repaired. It hasn't been much fun at work, busy as we are, I can hardly see!!!

Why is it that when something good happens, something bad has to happen to even things out? This week I got a pay rise and great back pay and was looking forward to going to Wagga on Monday to do the last of my Christmas shopping. Saturday afternoon on our way to Wagga for touch football I ran over a rock on the road and manage to destroy both the wheels on the passenger side of the car. I couldn't believe it!! Two flat tyres, and then to discover that the rock had wrecked the inside of the mag wheels.

Initially I rang my son-in-law, Daniel, to come to our rescue. I had Alex and his friend Taran with me and they got the spare tyre and the jack out of the boot getting ready to change one of the wheels over. Then a fellow and his wife stopped and the man ended up taking both wheels off and putting the spare on the front.

Daniel had arranged with a tyre place in Wagga to bring one of the wheels in and have the tyre fixed, but after we saw the damage to the inside of the wheel I needed a new plan.

I put the mag wheels on the car 5 years previously when Lauren and Daniel got married because it was one of the wedding cars. I gave the four wheels that came off it to my step-father because he was building a trailer but the wheels didn't fit and as far as I knew they were still in his garage. So I got on the phone to him and he brought two of the wheels over from Junee.

Meanwhile Daniel took the good 17 inch mag off the front of the car and put it on the back so both rear wheels would be the same size. The wheels Reg was bringing were 15 inch rims. The spare I had was from the original set too so Reg put one of the wheels on the front and left me with a spare.

I managed to get to touch footy in time to see the second half of Alex's game and on the way home I took a photo of the rock I drove over, and noticed the hole in the road it had made when we hit it. There's lots of railway construction work going on along the same stretch of road and I presume the rock fell of one of the railway trucks. Same sort of rock they used along the edge of the track.

Getting some sort of compensation from the railway is probably a dream, but I plan on writing them a letter and including a few photos. Tomorrow my plans for Wagga have changed because now I need to go over and get the old wheels balanced and the car will no doubt need a wheel alignment. With Christmas this close I'm not even going to think about trying to replace the two wrecked wheels.

Talk about a rotten Saturday!!!