April to May 2011 Update

Finished at Last! (Now I can stop posting boring house pictures)

Plugging the Gaps

Hot on the heels of the driveway and grass, we got a bit of work done on the fence. Joanne's brother Paul did a splendid job of sealing up the corner and now at last, I think that Panda has to stay around the back. Of course, the fence wasn't extended without some fireworks from the neighbours next door. They want a new fence and they're going to make our lives miserable until they get it.

It didn't help that when the neighbour was trying to ask me about the work (which I didn't have time to talk about because I was already late getting the kids ready for tutoring), Paul's dog, "Chops" wandered over into his yard and took a dump - practically on our neighbour's feet. After hastily cleaning it off his shiny grass, I left Joanne to face the music - and what a crap tune it played.

Normally I'd have a kiddie quote but today I have a "Neighbour Quote".

Friendly Stuck-up Neighbour: "You're the worst neighbours we've ever had!"

Joanne: [collapses into hysterical laughter]

Holidays

Joanne arranged a trip to Adelaide to see her best friend and it accidentally (apparently) coincided with the school holidays. This meant that I got to stay home and look after the boys. They really missed her - so we had to distract them by filling up every inch of their spare time with things like trips to the Powerhouse Museum and to my parents house. We also all stayed up late every night and watched movies - and we went to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2.

The powerhouse museum was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed running around pressing every button that they could find. There was an artificial intelligence robot face on display and all the adults around it were asking things like "what is your name?", then the kids asked if it could smell farts (that's my boys).

It wasn't saying much so when it got to my turn I said, "Open the Pod by doors, Hal" and it responded "My mission is too important for you to jeopardize it. I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. Although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." It was very funny but even funnier were the incredulous stares of the non-2001 people.

The powerhouse also had a simulated darkroom and photography studio which the kids had a great time playing in.

There's a really nice park that has just been "refurbished" near my parents house. When we were up visiting my parents, we took the boys there and Kaelan said, "This is better than the Easter show". Great.... It's a lot cheaper too.

Kaelan rides the flying fox.

The park had a little kids area, a big kids area and a teen (skateboarders) area. It also had an exercise track around the outside for adults with exercisers based on body weight. Cool. An excellent free gym.

Tristan builds up his muscles

The obligatory family shot at the park.

Easter

We had a good easter and Joanne's parents stayed the night to watch the Easter Egg hunt in the morning. The kids ate chocolate for breakfast two days in a row - and then it was all gone. At least it didn't drag on for weeks.

I can see a chicken coming out, there....

Shed World

Now that we'd gotten the driveway sorted, and we had some time over Easter, we turned our attention to the garage. We did a massive clean up which took days and resulted in a lot of pain and a broken easter egg. Kaelan's easter egg fell out of the freezer when we moved it - and then Panda ate it. Who says chocolate isn't good for dogs?

We finally got to the point where we can get one car in our two-car garage. We could almost get two cars in there but we have four bikes to store.

So, it was off to shed world to see if we could find a suitable shed for the bikes.

We were in a bit of a funny mood when we got there - probably something to do with chocolate (since it was near Easter). Anyway, I asked the guy if he often got calls from people trying to get him to say "shed" twenty times. He laughed and then admitted that he had no idea what I was talking about...

If you don't know, you need to listen to the clip below;

After looking at sheds for a while and starting to relax, I decided to ask him a big question. "I suppose you've got all kinds of new seals on your designs these days to keep spiders out", I said. "What?", said the salesman, clearly taken aback.

I decided to simplify it. "Do you have any spider-proof sheds?". I'm not sure how he managed to keep straight faced but he replied, "I've been asked many questions at shed world, but I've never been asked that one". He went on to tell me that he couldn't offer any guarantees that spiders wouldn't get in. I tired to say that I didn't expect a guarantee but that if he had some technology that would impede their progress it would be good". Then I stopped. I was feeling like I was in a Monty Python sketch - and Joanne was giving me some strange looks.

The Rest of the Holidays

The kids spent most of the rest of their holidays trying to conquer Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. I managed to get a photo of them in action (difficult when they don't want to look away).

Well, that's about it. There's mother's day of course where Joanne got a GPS, a keyring light, painted glasses and others stuff - and Joanne's parents stayed over again. We had a BBQ and a great day.