a lazy summers afternoon….

spent at the beach,

and its not even summer yet.

Helen xxxxx

a brief outing

Well summer has come early, the heat is on!.  Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.

We did make the most of the warmer weather and take part in a few summer time activities

After 8 months off the road, Steve’s dirt bike actually made it out of the shed and off-road!  After a few major repairs and a lot of hard work Steve loaded up the Ute and headed to the hills for a long-awaited ride…….

…..for a whole 15 minutes until a stick when through his rear tyre and that was the end of that!. On a positive note, the bike ran really well until then and he now has a new tyre so hopefully this weekend will be met with a little more success.

Sunday was hot, hot, hot and with 2 out of 3 children sick, the planned day out was put on hold and we decided to wash the cars, all 3 of them (with tank water of course).  The Chev came out of hibernation for a wash and polish, then she was put back under wraps in the garage until we actually get a chance to make it out of the driveway!.

we washed the other 2 cars and then the fun really started…..A WATER FIGHT!…..again with tank water

the kids could have kept going for hours but we ran out of balloons and didnt want to waste too much of the precious wet stuff , who knows when the next rain will be. It was so much fun. It’s easy to forget what our children are missing out on with the drought continuing.  No sprinklers to run through, conserving every last drop of water. We did feel a little reckless filling up 45 balloons but we have over 3000lts in our tanks at the moment and decided “what the hey!”. Lucky for me I had the camera so Dad was the major target  

Please excuse the less than perfect pictures but I am using the Manual setting full-time and it’s still a bit hit and miss LOL.

Hope you all have an enjoyable week, stay cool ( or warm, for our international visitors) and Uncle John, I will post a picture of Matilda’s new seat next time.

Helen xxxxx

 

he made it,

but only just!  Riley has been pushing the boundaries a lot lately, testing us in every way, but after many threats to cancel his birthday we finally got there

He was spoilt with many presents including a DS (YAY one each now, no arguments) and some “Rollerskaters” , one of which he has mastered and the other is a work in progress.

We celebrated the day with a family BBQ and skateboard cake, which was a disaster from start to finish (the cake not the BBQ).  Even though the cake was falling apart and the icing was melting in the heat, he loved it. 

We will continue with a few mini celebrations during the week , and then start preparing for the next big thing…….Christmas.

Helen xxxxx

 

Flash, Boom, Crack!

Like most of Melbourne, we were hit by a MONSTER storm on Friday night.  Steve and I headed outside with my camera and tripod to try and get a few shots of the incoming light show and this is the result,

Steve’s amazing shot taken from our front lawn as the storm approached,

and some I took from our back garden (at 1am! ) as the storm moved away,

This last shot scared the **** out if me and my trusty sidekick Butch, who was the only one still awake by this stage.  I love storms and head outside to watch from the first “flash” but this was a little close to home,

 

Judging from the “crack” that accompanied this one, it hit just down the road. 

I am glad I got to use my expensive tripod again I am glad I did all of this on Manual and I am glad that I actually got a photo of lightning !.

It took nearly 300 shots of mostly black sky just to get a few “OK” pictures .  I have a new respect for any photographer who tried to do this back in the day of film cameras, must have been a very expensive process.

The other bonus to this storm was that we now have 3 full water tanks to take us into summer.

Helen xxxxx