Progress Update

I can imagine by now everyone is wondering just where we are up to on the "Dream House", well its still just that at this point, a dream!!!

For all of my lovely new followers, our dream house got put on hold as the quotes we got to build it ended up being A LOT over budget. After lots of thinking & planning we decided we couldn't abandon our house plans & have opted to sell our investment properties to fund the short fall.

We listed them with the real estate in late November ( bad time of the year to try & sell a house) but hopefully something positive will come our way soon, fingers crossed!!!

My dream guy has however been working adding a driveway from his shed up to street level,one slab at a time. He has done 3 segments over the holidays & has many more to go!

 Next will be some fences & planting a few trees, we feel we might as well get a few things done while we wait.

Dream child no3 is his right hand man on the job & he really does work hard

Daddy's little girl likes to think she helps, but thankfully is bored within 30 seconds & retires to something far more interesting, like....

feeding her face, he he he!!!!

this is all that's left to do

OUCH

another 40 metres until he reaches the top!!

Once a we off load a little real estate we will be able to rev this baby up & start digging a house site

so we can enjoy this view from our back verandah EVERY day

or perhaps we might sit on the front verandah & enjoy this one.

Oh it will be lovely to have choices!

So I need everyone to start thinking "handy house sales for Trish" & perhaps the real estate fairies will shine on me & end this frustration of living in limbo...ARGH!!!!

What sort of projects have you got going on at your place?

CHEERS

Trish xxx

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Fun in the sun

Hey everyone

I thought I would show you a bit of my week!



This is me with my Mum & Dad

We celebrate Australia Day every year with the same group of people, plus a few extras. Its kind of a tradition we began 2 years ago, for all of us Lithgow people who moved to the Hunter Valley.

We have a lovely time swimming in my girlfriends pool for the day, with a BBQ  lunch & dinner.

My 3yr old is a bit of a dare devil & spent her day jumping from the pool wall !!

I am so thankful for swimming lessons, she can dog paddle ALL day. She swam from 11am till 10pm & was exhausted beyond belief!!!

This is my 15 year old daughter  & I think she will hate this photo for ever, I like to call it

 "BUSTED"

 I thought she was spending a few days staying at her friends house here, going to the beach in Newcastle, but it turns out she SNUCK on the train to sydney & spent her Australia Day at Coogee, with a completely different group of friends( after I had specifically said she wasn't allowed to go)

As you can imagine she is officiall GROUNDED from here to eternity!!!

Its a sickening feeling to think your child was in a completely different city than you thought,travelling on trains by herself. "I was fine mum" was her statement when I suggested something terrible could have happened  & we would have been looking in completely the wrong place for her. She isn't old enough to drive so has NO identification what so ever! 

Don't ya just love facebook & the fact that teenagers have to show the world how cool they are, I was a little suspicious when she wasn't keen to chat to me on her mobile or share any of her experinces for the 3 days, especially when my older daughter couldn't stop raving about all of the fun things going on at Nobby's beach in Newcastle.

We also had a visit in our garage from this fabulous creature...

& look, he was only to happy to pose  for a few pics!!!

we popped him in the garden, but I had to try a few shots with the macro setting on my new camera.

Today we are off to celebrate my handsome little nephews 3rd birthday, he is a little guy with a BIG personality, so it should be a fun day.

He is my brothers first child & over the years Glenn has given my children some rather annoying wonderful gifts, so I have purchased "H" a fabulously loud wiggles keyboard. He can play his own tunes or listen to the same 4 songs, over & over & over....

Ahhhh revenge is sweet!!!

He He He

What have you got planned for your weekend?

CHEERS

Trish xxx

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As you know my dream guy gave me my first ever digital SLR camera for Christmas & I am really enjoying learning how to use it.

I have only ever owned a basic point & shoot camera, but even on the auto settings my photo's are sooo much nicer.

I have found some fantastic web sites & blogs that offer so much photography knowledge with tutorials & weekly assignments to get to know your camera better.

I have been playing with the macro setting

I saw a photo taken on a forum at the

Digital Photography School

of water dropping into a dish & thought I might try to replicate it, I was already playing with water, food colouring & would you believe baby oil, trying to do some fun abstract photography,

I gained lots of tips, tricks & inspiration for this image from

The Pioneer Woman

which at the moment she has a wonderful assignment at the moment for everyone on food photography, including a great  post on "Ten things she has learned about food photography" to get you started, some of the images her readers have entered so far are just "delicious!"

I experimented with my macro setting, changing my aperture & even the sports mode on the dripping water.

I have been learning how to use the light meter to adjust the exposure, all three of these pictures where taken one after the other, adjusting the exposure.

I have even learnt a bit about reading the histogram, to ensure you have the correct, or best exposure possible for a perfect shot.

Ive started studying up on adjusting my white balance to suit the light source & ensure optimum colour in my images, like under the shade of these amazing trees.

Ive have gained so much knowledge from a wonderful blog

Life with my 3 boybarians

Darcy has a fabulous series called "31 days to a better photo" which is an awesome resource for us photography newbies

I have also tried to put a lot of focus, pardon the pun, on composition, to ensure my pictures are appealing to the eye.

I must add that NONE of my photo's have been edited in any way, they are fresh from my camera, that would be a whole other skill to master & I am a one step at a time kinda girl!!!

All of the outdoor images here where taken at a lovely little village called Paterson in the Hunter Valley of NSW Australia.

The kids & I went on a photography excursion & had a picnic dinner in the park here, whilst dream child No1 & I experimented with our new cameras.

It was a very fun afternoon & we hope to have lots of little photography picnics in the future!!

I hope these links are helpful for all of you DSLR newbies, or if you have any sites that you have found helpful & inspiring we would love to hear about them!

CHEERS

Trish xxx











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Hello 2011

Hi everyone,

I found myself dropping off planet blog over the Xmas/ new years period,

life was just a bit hectic,

filled with family & festivities!

Here's a bit of an update of how we filled our days...

We did Christmas dinner at our house twice, 

The first time was a few days before Chrissy for our family that were travelling elsewhere for the big day & then again on Christmas day for us & my parents.

It was a really lovely day & I was lucky enough to be given my first D SLR camera....

I haven't stopped taking photo's since, mind you I have NO idea what I'm doing.

Thank goodness for all of those talented bloggers that enjoy passing on tips to the newbie photographers!!!!

Although this is an old photo from my last house, I really did get to share a bottle of Moet with my lovely neighbor & friends for New years.

Maitland put on a fantastic fireworks display on the Hunter river each year & we had a fabulous view of them from our street, which was great!!!

Then it was time to take down the tree & put my house back together, the living area seems so much more spacious without a giant tree in the room.

We have enjoyed some great family days, this is my 2 favourite men fishing at Stockton beach

of course you cant go to the beach without building a few castles

dream child no.1 also got a DSLR off Santa so we had a lovely day snapping the sights of Newcastle & Stockton

My ultra gorgeous little sister is also the proud owner of a fab camera & the 3 of us wandered around like crazy tourists snapping up the sights & experimenting with different features on the camera....sooooo much to learn, soooo much fun!

We have also had to have a couple of skate park excursions for dream child no.3 to hone his scooter skills!

So this is what Ive been up to lately, plus a trip to the movies to see "Mega Mind", a few shopping adventures & several trips to our local pool.

We have so many exciting adventures planned just exploring Newcastle & The Hunter Valley, we don't have time to go on a holiday & that's why I love where I live!

What have you been up to so far?

CHEERS

Trish xxx





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My Birthday Boy

My little man has turned 8 yrs old this week.

I can't believe how quickly he has grown up, especially in the past 12 months. He has matured greatly & is really growing into a nice boy.

We decided to let him have a slumber party this year & he invited the 6 boys that live in our street.he plays with these kids every day, rain hail or shine. we really are lucky to live in such a family filled street. between the boys & girls there is generally at least a dozen kids out in the street on bikes & scooters or just hanging out having a good time!

We call  the boys the scooter gang, 4 of them are 8yr olds & the other 3 kids are 11 yrs old. I was a little apprehensive about the older 3 coming, but they all got on like a house on fire & really had the most fun!

there was a lot of scooter action, they are certainly a daring bunch.

I purchased a NERF gun for each kid, instead of giving the traditional lolly bag.

They had some pretty awesome gun fights & once it got dark they launched a full scale night battle using nothing but lasers to guide them, total boy heaven apparently, or as they put it

"sick as!"

We took full advantage of Halloween & had a spooky theme for our party food.

Skeletons on the cake where a big hit!

We served lollies & chips in witches cauldrons...

Chocolate spiders in skull cup cake papers

&

unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of my best creation....eyeball jelly!

I made jelly in plastic cups & pushed plastic eye balls into them when it was set.

 Yes they where also described as "sick as!"

They went full speed until midnight & got back up at 6am, I awoke to a barrage of foam darts pounding my bedroom door!

They devoured an enormous amount of pancakes for breaky & then back to the gun battle & death defying scooter acts.

Believe it or not, the only injury was by the birthday boy himself...he was walking out of his bedroom & kicked his toe on the tall boy, split it open & it appears to be broken.

I couldn't believe it!!

All in all they had a wonderful time & I am exhausted, so I guess that's a sign of a great party.

Happy Birthday Big T

xxxx





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