Building The Vegie Patch

We wanted to have a go at growing some veggies. I decided to build some raised garden beds so we could add a large amount of soil to give the veggies we planted the best start.

Over a weekend I had a go at building and rendering them as well. I must admit I was very happy at the end result. I am sure our veggies will taste great.

Now we just have to sit back and watch the veggies grow.

Halloween

Picture: Carved Pumpkin

For the last couple of years we had celebrated Halloween overseas so this year I decided that we would do the same back here in Australia. Our neighbour was taking his children out trick a treating so we decided to tag along.

We made sure that we had prearranged with some of our other neighbours that we would be popping by so they could have some sweets ready for the kids.

In the spirit of things I decided to put a little scene together near our front door which I think turned out really good, Paige just loved it.

It was very surprising that we where not the only ones out trick or treating I think we saw a total of another 20 children doing the same thing so it just goes to show trick a treating is becoming more popular here in Australia.

Picture: Bernadette being creative




Picture: Scary skeleton man that made scary sounds when moved

Picture: Paige dressed up as a princess



Picture: Our group stopping by to get some sweets

Picture: Out trick a treating



Picture: Another stop for trick a treating

Picture: The kids happy with their buckets full of sweets

Trip To Melbourne

In October we headed to Melbourne as one of my sisters was getting married.

Visiting Melbourne there never seems enough time to catch up with all my friends and family and once again this trip was no different. So much do but so little time.

Picture: Flinders Street Station



Picture: View of the MCC from The Eureka Tower 300m high

Picture: Paige standing with street art

Durning our visit Paige and I played tourist we saw many of the city sites. Paige just loved the trams. Taking Paige down to Williamstown to feed the swans was a walk down memory lane as I have fond memories of doing this as a little girl so it was nice sharing one of my past times.

Picture: Paige feeding the swans in Williamstown

Ben arrived on the day of his 40th Birthday which we spent tucking into bowls of "Pho" a beef soup which we come to love from our time living in Hanoi, the memories ...............................

On the 10th of October my youngest sister Narrelle married Tony. A long a waited wedding day for them both. Years in the making they where blessed with perfect weather, beautiful surroundings at The Vines Restaurant and joined by their family and friends as they said "I do".

Picture: View of back of Narrelle's wedding dress

Picture: Narrelle & Tony durning the ceremony

Picture: The little people

Picture: The wedding cake

Picture: One of the tables at the wedding reception

Picture: Bernadette, Paige & Ben at the wedding

Picture: Cousins, Emily & Paige

Picture: All the sisters, Bernadette, Kobie, Narrelle, & Belinda standing with Tony

Picture: Matthew, Narrelle, Tony & Mum

Picture: Dad, Narrelle, Tony & Cathy

Working Around The House

Making changes in the garden and in side our house will always take time not to mention a bit of hard work. A couple of things we have done so far are is we have had two very large palm trees removed from the back yard, pulled out the very large rock wall away from the front of the house and pulled up all the tiles in three of the areas inside. Its nice to sit back and see what we have done so far, who knows what other changes we will make but since being in the house for less then a year we are very happy in the progress and hard work we have put in up until now.

In the back yard

Picture: A palm tree starts to come down
Going

Going

Gone

In the front yard

Picture: The rock wall starts to come down

Picture: Paige stands next to the huge tree stump which was uncovered

Picture: The rock wall is no more

Picture: A blank slate awaits

Inside

Picture: The tiles which where on the floor


Picture: Pulled back the carpet to find the tiles sitting 3cm high

Picture: What we found under the titles

Visiting Margaret River

In June while Sue , Ben's mum and partner David was visiting us here in Perth we decided to take a short trip down to Margaret River, none of us had ever been there before. Margaret River is about 272km from Perth which takes about three and a half to four hours to get there. The area is a "renowned wine region and tourism destination, an idyllic town and river that meanders its way to the sea" one of the web sites stated when I looked the area up on the web. All in all yes as described that's what Margaret River is and the couple of days we spent I found wasn't enough to scratch the surface of visiting all the wineries. I found Margaret River a great place to relax and explore. When it came to the kids I found there didn't seem a lot to do while the weather was cold. Maybe in summer the beach would be a great place to take the kids. One of the things we did do was go to the Yallingup Maze. Getting lost and trying to find our way around the wooden maze was quite funny. Paige loved running around. It was so nice to visit some where new in WA and spend time with family and taste a nice drop of wine along the way.

Picture: Paige & Ben

Picture: Sue & David


Picture: The cottage we stayed


Picture: Outside the Colonial Brewing Company

Picture: Ben & David sampling some beer



Picture: Yallingup Maze

Picture : Inside the maze

Picture: Ben trying to find his way out

Picture: Paige & Ben at point three inside the maze


Picture: Stacked wine barrels

Picture: One of our stops




Picture: Bernadette, Ben, Sue & Paige having a coffee before the drive back to Perth

Home Sweet Home

Well what can I say, its been a while since I posted a blog so a big SORRY to people who have sent emails requesting an up date. I thought I better up date everyone on what we have been up to since getting settled into our house here in the Perth hills. I think the best way to describe our time in one word would be "adjusting" to the change. Getting back into a normal life so to speak back in Perth has taken sometime. The nightmare of unpacking all our things from storage and overseas just went on and on but the positive to that was going through and sorting the items we wanted to keep and the items we didn't.

Pictures: The whole back yard was just about taken up with packing boxes

Over the past couple of months Ben started his new job where he works away for 8 days up in the Pilbra area and is home for 6 days area each swing, Paige started at the local primary school in the PP1 class and me well I have been taking each day as it comes. I seem to ask myself where does the time go?. I am sure there will be blogs on that later. The process of sorting the house out seemed to take ages and seems never ending. When we moved into the house there where a number of jobs around the house we wanted to do like replace the old green plastic roof in the out door area, put a fence up around the pool area, replace the pot belly stove and so on, so we had been busy working on all the items. I am glad we can say that we are nearly at the end of the list for now. We are really happy with the area in the hills suburb we chose to buy. Rents here in Perth are just crazy. The area has a real country feel about it with lots of trees around the streets and the local shopping area of Kalamunda is not far away, everyone seems really friendly. We have some great neighbours which at times I feel truly blessed for all the help they have given us. With Ben having to go to the airport quite often the drive there only takes 20 minutes.

Here are some pics below of the house we call home. We hope in a couple of years we will look at extending, as at the moment our house is a 3 bedroom by 1 bathroom home. Who knows it may take that long to finally get sorted........................................................ at times it has felt like that.

Picture: Standing out the front of our house looking to the right of the street

Picture: Standing at the front of the house looking to the left hand side of the street

Picture: Looking out the front door

Picture: The front of the house, standing at the road

Picture: Walking through the front door entrance

Picture: Looking right from the front door entrance

Picture: Looking left from the front door entrance into the lounge room

Picture: Looking back towards the study (left) and front entrance (right) from the lounge room

Picture: Looking from the lounge room towards the back yard

Picture: Looking from the lounge room through to the study area

Picture: Looking from the dinning area through the study to the lounge room

Picture: Standing at the entrance hall looking onto the dinning and kitchen area

Picture: Standing at the back sliding door looking into the dinning area and on left is the hall which leads to the bathroom and bedrooms

Picture: Looking down the hall from Ben and Bernadette's bedroom

Picture: Ben and Bernadette's bedroom

Picture: Looking from the hall way into the guest bedroom





Picture: Looking from the hall into Paige's bedroom

Picture: Lookin into the bathroom from the hallway

Picture: In the bathroom looking towards the hall door

Picture: Looking from carport to the backyard

Picture: Looking from the pool area back towards the house

Picture: Looking from just outside the back sliding glass doors into the outside patio area

Picture: Looking down towards the back patio glass sliding door