A Random photo essay

There are always other things going on that are worthy of note, or photos of MacK that are particularly endearing!

A couple of weeks ago, I "coached" our work rugby team. By coaching, I mean that there is every chance that I might have played. But never more than three games per day in the tournament we played! We ordered our playing strip from England, and had it presented to the team at a work function.  We were lucky enough to have Ben Roberts-Smith attend to present our playing shirts. He is an incredibly humble bloke, who also happens to be a man mountain. I know whose side I would like him to be on in a fight...

The team with RS

And MacK meeting a true Aussie legend!

I had the opportunity to carve out a pumpkin for Harry this year. It is the first time we had ever thought about Halloween, and it was lucky we had chocolate in the house, as we were door knocked several times!

MacK has built a special relationship with Special Bear.

This one was taken when David and Jess stopped through on their way back from South America earlier this year. I don't think MacK has bounced quite that high since...

Australia Zoo

A couple of weekends ago we took MacK to Australia Zoo to show him some of the incredible animals that exist on this amazing planet. Good friends Raf and Susan, with Lachie and Zara met us there, and we had an amazing day.

It is a brilliantly designed facility. Even though the carparkswere full, for most of the day we felt as though we were the only ones in the park. As well as the reptiles and kangaroos we expected, there are also tigers, giraffes (so cute!) and a family of rhinoceros. I don't know that I can describe it any better than our pictures will, so here goes:

It took a little bit of convincing to get MacK to touch the little guy...

But he climbed straight into the mouth of the big one. Go figure!

Is there a cuter animal than the wombat? They had one being led around the zoo on a harness later in the afternoon. We sat and watched them for ages - they were fascinating!

These kangaroos must get sick of being fed and pampered. Wouldn't you?

Mack and I got to ride a camel. They are funny to ride. Every step feels like the legs are going to give out from underneath you. 

The rhinos were just incredible. I don't know if I can describe a purpose for their being, or a reason for how they are put together. Not that it matters, but they almost seem to not belong in our age. They look prehistoric - a paleontological hangover. Again we just gawped at these guys…

Naturally the kids found a rock to play on…

And convinced Jane to play "Ring-a-ring-a rosie".

Frosty fruits were a very necessary addition to the day!

I reckon it took MacK all of about 3 minutes to fall asleep in the car on the way home! The zoo is one that we would visit time and time again. It is just an excellent day out.

Fruits and flowers

Jane and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary in June this year (I have already apologised for the tardiness of posting…) and we wanted to do as we usually do, which is to exchange gifts according to the traditional schedule. The fourth is fruits and flowers, which presented challenges. Short of giving each other fruit trees for the farm, I had no idea where we might go.

Now, every Saturday after MacK's swimming lesson we have coffee at our local cafe. The barista is also a fine artist, and has several pieces featuring flowers on display. I decided to commission an artwork for Jane, even though we had decided that we wouldn't invest in any more art until we had built the house. Our plan was to see what we needed, and then buy it as we found it.

I commissioned a single poppy, as below…

I love the work she has done, and can't wait to see it framed. What was truly astounding that Jane, completely independently, also decided to break the no art edict and commission an original artwork by a friend of ours, the brilliant Selena Smith. As you can see, it is also poppies… Nice to know we are in synch!

What is special about this one is that the backing for the poppies is taken from old Army Catering texts. Yet again, my beautiful wife has gazumped me!

What was old is new again

A couple of months ago I wrote about the oven we had bought, intending to recycle/repair/recover for eventual use in the house we build on the farm. The project is finally almost at an end (thankfully!). We ended up having to replace almost all of the working parts, but now have an almost brand new oven range that looks a bit battered on the outside. We weren't able to replace the bakelite handles, but that just adds to the oven's rugged charm!

See below for a mid restoration photo, and what it looks like now! And before you say that I haven't finished the job, I have no intention of polishing the outside just yet, as it is going into storage until we build the house. It will be cleaned prior to going into the kitchen!

At this point, the only think that looked salvageable was the frame! I really did think I had taken on more than I should have...

 It all works. A little battered through time and neglect, but we are able to give an old girl a new lease of life, and save ourselves around $10,000 in the process. Wins all round, I say!

Gingerbread Men

I found a really good recipe for gingerbread recently, and MacK is always looking for opportunities to help in the kitchen. Gingerbread biscuits will form a central part of many of our Christmas presents this year, so we gave it a bash last weekend. As you can see from the photos below, MacK loved it, and is steadily chewing his way through a batch of biscuits so we have to make another!

MacK was fascinated by everything else on the bench at first 

He got a bit more excited when he realised that he was going to be able to play with the dough and a rolling pin!

Look Mum, all on my own!

For the record, the biscuits are delicious. Just the right amount of spice to warm your mouth, without being over the top. Excellent 'dunkers', I would suggest!

Stuff kids say...

Before I get into the subject of today's post, I need to apologise. We had dinner with a friend last weekend, who told us that she really enjoyed our blog, but that we must be busy this year as the blog isn't as regular as it has been in the past. 

The year has been busy - stupidly so at times, and at this stage shows no sign of slowing down. We are hoping that a large part of that is the 'Brisbane effect'. It takes so long to get anywhere that weekends just seem to disappear. I seem to be spending a couple of hours extra away from home each day also due to the extra commuting requirements (Maybe Townsville wasn't that bad after all…!).

In any case, we are about to move to Wodonga, and we hope that we are able to find a few more hours in our collective weeks. The house we are hoping to rent is only 7-8 km from work, yet friends tell us it is out in the sticks! I remind them we are currently in Brisbane!

Back to the stuff kids say….

MacK still has occasional trouble with enunciating the letter 'l'. New words tend to be fine, but words that he started saying without the 'l' still don't come out quite right. His favourite cartoon character is Buzz Lightyear (of infinity and beyond fame), and he would wear the one shirt he has every day if he could. In MacK's vernacular, Buzz Lightyear becomes Buzz Ikea. Jane and I laugh every time we hear him, as we imagine a flat pack hero, saving the universe one allen key at a time!

MacK still crawls into bed between us at some stage each night, and generally settles for the balance of the night. A week or so ago he started asking for milk at about 2:30am. We tried to avoid getting out of bed, but he kept pushing the point. Jane told him there was no milk, to which he replied "Yes there is Mummy - it's in the fridge!" No dummy our boy…

He has a habit of correcting us regularly. In his swimming class we sing a song with lyrics that include "I'm a little pancake nice and flat". When he hears that now, he says "I'm not a pancake, I'm MacK". He is inclined to do this too if we ask him if he is hot, or cold, or anything else. No… I'm MacK!

When MacK was very small (he genuinely was small, once), Jane made up a rhyme to sing to him on the bed. If you get the chance to bounce with MacK on the trampoline, you should probably remember this one, as he now likes to bounce to it. It goes a little like this:

Boing - a - boing - a - boing - a - boo

MacK's a bouncing kangaroo

Bouncing here

Bouncing there

Bouncing around 

everywhere!

Will and the Horses

Several weeks ago, we decided that we couldn’t stomach any more Bob the builder, Shrek, Madagascar, or even Shaun the Sheep (although Shaun is pretty cool). My suggestion was that we had a quiet night with a DVD. We would plonk MacK on the couch between us, and give him a bottle. Naturally he would go to sleep… We chose “Ladder 49” (stars John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix in a movie about Boston fire fighters), as there is little by way of bad language or violence.

Well… MacK didn’t go to sleep. Instead he was absolutely intrigued by the movie, and couldn’t take his eyes off it. He has since watched it so often, that he can narrate the movie. He calls it “Jack and the fire engine”, and regularly spends time putting out fires.

After a couple of weeks, we inevitably got sick of Ladder 49, so switched out for “A Knight’s Tale”. This has now been rechristened “Will and the horses”, and MacK looks for sticks that he can use for jousting.

It has been a really nice couple of weeks. We haven’t had any commitments on weekends, so have been able to spend quiet weekends at home, which is quite novel for us. Mack was sick overnight – we think he picked up a bug of sorts, and vomited a couple of times. He had a very quiet day, and didn’t really pick up until later this afternoon. It was really lovely – He and I lay on the trampoline, and just looked at the clouds scudding across the sky. He told me the most wonderful stories, and really cracked me up at one point. He was talking about superheroes, and I asked him if he was going to save the world. His response:

“No, I’m not going to save the world. I’m going to have dinner and go to bed”. Nothing like knowing when your day has been too tough!

We haven’t posted about the house and farm for a while. We have put the project on hold for a bit while we ruminate over the house plan. It is still developing, and we want to get it right before we commence the build. We have built a scale model to allow us to get a better perspective on how our floor plan goes together. It is interesting, as it has allowed us to challenge a few of our thoughts and preconceptions, and to make what we think will be positive changes.

We are still looking at doing big things on the farm next year, and will definitely keep posting through that process.