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Today was cup cake day for KR at Jack’s school. This was where all Jack’s class (KR) had to bring in cup cakes to sell to the whole school. Money raised will go towards equipment in the classroom.

Of course, Sarah spent all Monday making cakes and excelled herself yet again. Pictures in the gallery.

Jack, Grace and I spent most of this morning cleaning bicycles, and unfortunately, I couldn’t get Jack’s stabilisers to fit back onto his bike. With a bit of persuasion we took their bikes to the Foreshore Park for a ride.
It wasn’t long before Jack was flying around. Just a few tumbles but he was always wanting to get back on. Now he does not want the stabilsers back on and he’s ready to go racing!!

Jack came home from school on Friday very excited as he’d won an award.  It was an ‘Award of Merit’ for excellent listening.  He had to go and accept it from the principal during assembly.

It’s very chilly here in Newcastle at the moment.  It’s nice during the day while the sun is shining but it is getting very cold at night, especially when the only heating in our house is a wood burning stove.  I’ve been lighting every evening and the living room warms up nicely but is can be cold elsewhere.

We had a good couple of days last weekend.  Saturday we pottered around the house all morning and then to Zara’s (Gordon and Tracie’s daughter) party in the afternoon.

Then I was up early for a duathlon.  After waiting 30 mins for the seniors race, an hours race, recovery and a barbeque breakfast, I still got home beofre the others were up!!  Then we went off to some local markets and to see Shrek 3 which the kids enjoyed very much.  They must have seen the first 2 hundreds of times in the car while we were on our road trip.

We had a bit of dissapointing news about our land.  It was supposed to be registered with council by the end of July, but, because of all the recent rain, it has been put back.  The construction company is saying it will be completed by December, but it looks almost ready to me, the trees are in around the streets and the street signs are up.  We’ll be on Costata Crescent, ah well, you can’t have everything I suppose.   Were in the middle of deciding on the kitchen at the moment, while the full plans for the house are being drawn up.

Newcastle’s latest tourist attraction, the 40,000 tonne cargo ship, was finally dragged off Nobby’s beach last night.  It has been sitting on the beach since the storms 3 weeks ago, and it has taken the salvage team 3 days of high tides to pull it over a reef and out to sea.

There was a worry that oil might leak from the ship, but this does not seem to have happened.  the ship is now 25 kms off the coast and is being inspected by divers before being towed away for repairs.

Every day there have been crowds of people around the beach looking at the ship, as it was a very impressive site.  It was dwarfing the few buildings around the beach.  They do not look so big when they are out at sea.

On Sunday we went out on a trip to the Hunter Valley to find some snow.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we went to the Hunter Valley Gardens.  This is in the heart of the wine region and is a display of many different types of gardens.

We planned to go there as there was a show on for the kids and snow fall (really horrible sticky stuff that came out of a fan), but it still looked almost right and all the children had a great time.  There is snow in the mountains of NSW, but none very close to us.

The gardens were really good to look around.  Lots of different designs using plants from around the world and giving us ideas for our new garden.  It is definately a place to go back to.

Last week, we finalised the designs for the house we want to build, and then we put down a deposit on Friday.  So we’re all ready to go.

The land is looking better each time we drive past.  It is expected that the land works will be finished at the end of July or early August, then we will be ready to submit our plans to council.

Now we’ve paid our deposit on the house, full construction drawings are being prepared.  Meanwhile we have to choose the look of the house, kitchen and bathroom design and all the extras we’ve requested.  We’re trying to minimise the extras as they push the price up, but we want to make sure we end up with the house we want.

Once the plans have gone to council, it could still be another 12 months, so we’ll be where we are for a while.