Monty got lost - Again!!!

On Wednesday morning of the 7th, Micayla and Bailey were out the front picking roses and left the front door wide open. The dog got out and didn't come back in with them. Didn't even realise it until an hour later when it was time to put him out and take Micayla to school and Bailey to creche. This made me angry that he'd got out again, so I took Micayla off to school, had a little look around the estate before taking Bailey to creche, which made him late. I was meant to be going to Ringwood but decided to come home, call the council, the pound and have a good look around trying to find him. I gave up and went to Ringwood anyway, there was nothing else I could do and the pound had my mobile number to contact me on if he turned up. I got back home around lunch time and by this stage I was getting really upset. It was lonely at home without him. He is always following me around the house and sitting at my feet. He had never been gone 5 hours before.

Finally at about 4.30pm I received a phone call to say a lady had my dog. It turned out he'd been playing with her dog all day in their backyard 2 streets behind us. Her kids had picked him up and they put him in their backyard while she went off to work. She was running late, so she decided to deal with it when she got home. I was just about to put up big sob story missing dog posters up in the shops. The kids were so excited to see him back home. He was totally oblivious to our stress while he was having a ball on a 'day out' with a new friend. He came home so filthy from rolling around in the dirt with the other dog. He was going to the doggy hairdresser on the Friday but he had to have a bath before I took him there. He was so dirty I was embarrased to take him like that and I thought that the clippers might hurt him if his coat was dirty instead of soft. It's a bit like cleaning your house before the house cleaner arrives though LOL.

This is a photo of him taken at Loch Sport, but as I am typing this he has since been clipped.

Now he looks more like this:

But this photo was taken back in November 06

Gymnastics

Micayla has given up dancing and started Gymnastics at the Leisure Centre in Berwick on Monday 5th Feb. This is where Mel teaches. She absolutely loves it and she is pretty good at it too. Does great cartwheels for someone her age and has been doing them well for a couple of years. She has a smile from ear to ear the whole time she is there. Sometimes when she was at dancing she looked like she didn't want to be there. Sarah and Brandon Peters has also started there and Micayla is very excited to have Micayla there too. Julie thought it would be a good idea for Sarah when I told her about Micayla doing it. When they are at the river Mel always has the girls doing gymastics and then Brandon and Bailey join in too, the boys look so cute. When Bailey is older I'll probably let him do it to if he wants to, because he loves all the climbing and jumping around too. But they had karate going in another room and Bailey seemed to show an interest in that.

BBQ at David and Laura's

On Saturday 3rd February we went to David and Laura's for a BBQ tea. Life has been soooo busy lately that it's been a while since we've done that. Steve and Mel were there too. Steve has just had an operation on his shoulder. After dinner we played poker. It was very difficult for Steve to hold the cards and play them as well so his turns always took ages. After the game of poker was finished we played reverse 500, which I had never played before so they taught me. Adrian couldn't sit up at the table for long cause he'd hurt his back 'again' and he ended up falling asleep on the couch with Bailey in his arms. You can pop over to Kaytie's Story on the link on the right. There is a photo of Bailey and Adrian asleep over there.

Australia Day Weekend in Loch Sport

On Thursday 24th January Marty and Julie and their kids met us at our place to travel up to Loch Sport together to meet Scott, Tania and the boys at their family holiday house.

Marty had previously borrowed our bike trailer, so he came to our place with it and we loaded up all the bikes on the trailer. The trailer has been used quite a lot and needed some maintenance done to it, so while he was at it Adrian has modified the trailer so we could fit Adrian and Marty's bikes on as well as the kids two mini bikes. Worked great! Thanks to Uncle Tamme for helping with this modification.

On Friday we took the kids fishing and then to the beach. Tania took Micayla out into the waves with the boogie board and helped her to ride the waves. Thanks Tania. I hate the surf, she would never have had that kind of fun via me. The kids were having fun in the sand and here is a photo of them after Adrian buried them in it. The boys wanted to go back and watch the cricket and we were going to stay at the beach with the kids, but I was keen to go back too. I HATE the beach (I'm a river person), I was getting a bit burnt anyway. Didn't realise how much until we got back to the house.

We went out to dinner at the pub at the Marina on the Friday night. The meal was delicious. We moved outside to where the 'band' was playing but it was way too cold and we soon headed home where we relaxed with some beverages and some movies.

Saturday we took the kids motorbike riding. The weather was a lot cooler so I'm glad we did the beach thing the day before. The boys rode their bikes out to the track while I towed the kids bikes on the bike trailer. 3 little mini bikes looked rather cute on the bike trailer. We were having lots of fun. I even had a ride on Adrian's bike. First I rode pillion with Adrian and then he let me take him for a ride. Marty and Adrian have the same bikes they bought less than a year ago. I decided I'd take Bailey for a ride on the JR50. The track was sandy and I was turning the bike around when Bailey revved the bike full throttle and the back wheel spun in a sandy patch and laid the bike down sideways. A stick tore threw my favourite jeans and this is the damage it did to my leg.

Bailey was fine. A few tears but hopped back on to ride again. Now he keeps talking about Mummy and Bailey falling off the "momerbike" as he calls it, and the bike "laid" down. It didn't really hurt that much. It looks worse than it is. I suppose I should be greatful I only fell off the JR50 and not Adrian's big bike. I was more upset about ripping my favourite jeans.

For the rest of Saturday we just relaxed. The boys watched the cricket while Tania, Julie and I went out for a long walk. Later Scott discovered a leak and Scott and Adrian ended up digging up the ground looking for a blockage in the sewage tank, eeewwww, they can have that job on their own. Ended up calling someone to come and empty it out. Turned out to be full of Tea Tree roots. Sunday we packed up slowly and headed home after lunch.

Thank you to Scott and Tania for inviting us so we could share in another wonderful and relaxing weekend.

Monthly Drinking Session

Last year was a great year for developing new friendships. I have met a lot of wonderful new friends from Micayla's prep class. We have now formed a group of 10 couples who get together each month for drinks. We all bring our own drinks and each couple provides a plate of nibblies. There is always way too much to go around. Us mum's see each other almost every school day and have become good friends, so it's a great chance for the husbands to get to know each other too.

Just before Christmas we visited Emma's house for Christmas drinks and for the kids to play and have fun looking at her house all decorated with Christmas lights. On Saturday night they all came to our house. It was raining so the kids were confined to indoors. The house looked like a tornado had hit it, but what can you do when they can't play outside. Even though it was raining it was quite warm.

The adults sat outside where we had the music set up and we were having lots to drink. Everyone was enjoying the music, some of it took us back to our younger years. We were all having so much fun, letting our hair down and we have decided that we need to have a girls night out, except it's going to be an allnighter. Maybe even get someone to drive a minibus for us and go on a pub crawl. Something none of us have done in years. Then we were talking about a girls weekend away and of course the guys spoke up and said if we were going away then so were they the very next weekend. It's great to see everyone, husbands and all getting along so well. We got to bed around 2.00am with a couple of sick and sorry bodies the next day. Me included! All I can say is I'm glad Adrian decided he was too tired to be bothered going on a bike ride, because I couldn't pick myself up off the couch until about 4.00pm on Sunday. Gotta remember not to mix my drinks. I blame Sherrell for making cowboys, he he he, it had nothing to do with a bottle of wine, some vodka and then some bicardi.

Back to Cropping

On Friday 19th January we started back at our first crop night for 2007. This was at Arty Pants, who will now be holding crop nights weekly, however I'll only do it monthly with maybe the occassional fortnightly one thrown in as well. It was great to get back into scrapping layouts again. Before Christmas I was making gifts, cards and bon bons, then I've been reorganising my scrap space into something more workable. I'd grown out of my space so I had to rearrange the way I stored things. I now have lots of room to fill again. Gotta make way for more stuff I plan to win again, like in 2006. I go to crop nights with Tania Graham and Laura Overdyk. This time though Laura also brought Michelle (her sister) and her sisters friend along, another Tania. It's a huge group gathering at the Arty Pants crop nights and it's always the same friendly faces, so it's a fantastic social night with people just as addicted to scrapping as us. Here are the layouts I did at the crop. I managed to get 2 double layouts done, which is really good going for me. I mustn't have talked as much.
It's hard to see but there is Heidi Swappe bling around the photos of Micayla and the dance title on the right hand side (thanks to Arty Pants, I purchased this with my voucher I won on their last online challenge). I've also added a couple of diamontes to the doodling on the bottom of the left hand side. You can get a closer look by clicking on my photobucket link, in the scrapbooking folder and click on the image to enlarge.
There is also some doodling coming out of the flowers on this layout and some white dot doodling on the title.