Christian is HOOKED

Since getting back from Easter holidays when I took Christian horse riding for the first time, he has done nothing but bug me about riding again.  So I asked around for a good riding instructor in the area.  I was referred onto a FANTASTIC intructor so I booked him in for a 2 hour lesson. 

His lesson was booked for 3 in the afternoon and all day he kept asking me what time it was.  He was obviously looking forward to it.  The lady that referred me is Christian's old best friend from school who he hasn't seen for ages.  He asked me if Huey was going to be there, and I said no bub this lesson is for you.

His lesson would consist of learning how to catch a pony, take the rug off, brush, clean the hooves and tack up, followed by an hour's lesson.

We arrived at the most beautiful property and we were both excited.  Him because he would be riding and me because I would be around horses.

Bec his instructor was lovely, very kind, gentle and welcoming and fantastic with kids.  She had organised a special surprise for Christian - she has organised for Huey to take part in the first part of the lesson.  Huey was on his way with his own pony.

Christian mounting Tilly, who is such a gorgeous pony :)

Christian listening carefully to instructions

 

 

Christian trotting over poles.  So very proud of him :)

Christian did so well and I am so proud of him and his teacher Bec is AMAZING.  After the lesson Christian had to take the tack of Tilly and put her halter and rug back on ready to turn out into the paddock.  Tilly also go a special treat from Christian.

Christian leading Tilly to her paddock

After it had all finished, the first thing Christian said is "can we please come back tomorrow Mum?"  I think he is hooked!.. I have booked him in again for Saturday morning.

Christian and sweet little Bluebell

 

Christian's friend Huey on Bluebell

 

I am now on the hunt for a horse for myself and if Christian keeps up with lesson's I have told him we will start looking for a pony for him in about 6 months time.

 

Childhood passion revisited

As a young girl I was obsessed with horses.  I started riding at the age of 4 years old and rode every weekend and school holidays for about 15 years.

Now that we have moved onto acreage, it is finally time to think about getting back into the saddle.

I would love it soooooo much if Christian shared my love and passion of horses.

Over the Easter school holidays whilst we were away at Swan Bay, I asked Christian if he would like to learn to ride and he replied with an excited yes and said that he would like to own a pony.  So I booked him into a learn to ride program, in which he would learn about caring for a horse and a lesson.

I knew I would not be able to watch him with horses and not join in, so I booked myself in to join their trail ride.

Christian learnt how to brush a horse, tack up and most importantly pick up poo

 

Christian leading out cloud

 Me and Molly

 

 

Christian riding Cloud

 

 

The trail ride was very boring for me as it was all beginners and I had to hang behind on my own to be able to trot and canter.  It was so lovely to see Christian on a horse. 

 

We were all a bit sore the next day but it was well worth it.

 



I am a bad Santa

As we have moved to 19 acres, I thought it would be nice to get Christian a trampoline for Christmas as we now have the room to have one.

The look on Christian's face was priceless when he saw it, and it was near impossible to get him off it.  Christmas night my two nieces (Tess & Hannah) came back for a sleep over and the 3 of them had lots of fun on the trampoline.  Hannah was teaching Christian how to do basic front flips landing onto his bottom.

2 days after Christmas we were heading to go to our holiday cabin in Swan Bay.  Joseph left earlier in the morning and took the dogs with him. A friend of mine (Sue) from Perth was going to pop in and check out our new house and have a coffee, so I suggested to Christian to go with his Dad, but he refused as he wanted to make the most of jumping on the trampoline.

Sue and I were sitting peacefully outside soaking up the view when I heard Christian calling for me.  I went out and he started crying, saying "Mum I think I have broken my arm".  I took him inside and put an ice pack on where he said it was sore.  I was pretty sure he had just jarred or sprained it. I gave him some painstop and after 15 minutes he finally stopped crying.  He then said I am tired and need to lie down Mum, so I carried him to the couch.  That was when I saw the huge swelling (that looked like a kneecap) popping out from under his elbow.  I started the car and off we went to the local hospital. 

He didn't want to go to the hospital and he didn't want it to be broken.  We were lucky that it was very quiet and went straight in.  Shortly after he had xrays done and while I was waiting for the doctor to come and talk to us I looked at his xrays and couldn't see a break.  The nurse shook her head at me and called me away from Christian and told me that the doctor was on the phone to a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon.  My heart dropped.  I felt like the worst Santa ever.

Christian was very upset when the doctor told him his arm was fractured and also dislocated, which meant boring summer holidays. No swimming, bike riding, football, cricket or fishing :(

The doctor told me we had to have more xrays in 6 days time and then see a specialist the following day.

Once the plaster had set, we set off on our holiday.

Christian was such a trooper, he did not complain about any pain and we had a relaxing holiday of board games and DVDs and lots of family bonding.

We headed back for xrays and then to the paediatric orthopaedics section at Sunshine Hospital. It was 39 degrees that day, so I didn't really mind sitting in the cool airconditioning of the hospital. The doctor that looked at the xrays said that they don't really see this type of injury very often and that they really needed to operate and admitted him in for surgery that evening.  He explained that there was a chance of nerve damage during the operation as they needed to put pins and screws in.  But he wanted the head of surgery to also have a look at the xrays.

I went to the hospital completely unprepared as I was not expecting them to recommend surgery.  I called Joseph and asked him to pack a bag for Christian and myself.  Whilst we were waiting for a bed we dashed off to the supermarket to pick up some toys for Christian and some magazines for me.

When we got back a bed was ready, so Christian was admitted.  I paid and had the TV connected to get me through the night.  We had been waiting for about 5 hours for the second opinion and I was starving so I went to get some food, and when I came back up to the ward the surgeon informed me that the operation was way to risky to do as his elbow joint was currently sitting millimetres away from the major nerve in his arm.  Christian was very relieved that he wasn't going to have the surgery.

He had the plaster changed again yesterday and then we go back for more xrays on January 24th, and hopefully the elbow will move back on it's own.

I am going to hand over the Santa position to Joseph this year, as I have proved to be a bad Santa.

Dave the Possum

We have been living in the country on 19 acres for about 5 weeks.  The first week I found it very hard to sleep as I tried to get used to the "night noises".  How come there are so many different noises that you hear at night?

There were lots of bumps, thuds and bangs going on.

One night I went out onto the deck and got the fright of my life as a HUGE possum stared at me.  He was so big, he looks like he is on steroids. I went straight back inside.  I knew that I needed to become friends with the possum so we could live together happily.  The possum needed a name.  DAVE.  He looks like a Dave.  By naming the possum, I seemed to be less afraid and the night noises no longer kept me awake.  Dave has a routine and normally comes out to party at around 11.00pm.

Dave wanted to let us know that he was boss, so he proudly peed on every single one of our outdoor cushions.  NOT HAPPY :(

In our previous house I grew lots of herbs, as I love to use them in my cooking.  It is going to be a while before we get a proper veggie patch going so I decided to plant some herbs into pots.  The herb I use almost every night is parsley, so I planted a big pot of parsley. 

Much to my horror the next morning, there was NO parsley in sight and a huge pile of possum poop right next to the pot.  Dave and I are definitely getting off on the wrong foot.

We have recently rebuilt the deck, which includes freshly white painted Cyprus posts.  This is what Dave did to them overnight.

Christian has misplaced his brand new iPOD and we now have a running joke that Dave the possum took it.  We then found a leak under the house in the brand new plumbing pipes, so I joke that our spanner went missing, so it must be Dave needing to have a wash.

The other day I was looking for my bathers as the weather has warmed up here and yes you guessed it - they have gone missing.  We now have a possum who is on steroids walking around in a bikini with his ipod blasting out gangham style.

Dave got relocated to the back of our property up a nice big gum tree. We were told that he will probably come back.

And yes they were right.  The other morning I awoke to find 3 huge piles of possum poop on the deck. 


We have now altered the deck so the dogs can sleep there at night time which so far has kept Dave away.  Oh and when he came back he brought the missing ipod with him - which has made Christian very happy.

I wish Dave and I could live in harmony together.....I am happy to let him have the shed to keep sleeping in during the day.

Sorry about no pictures, I am having trouble uploading them.

Our new paradise

Well it FINALLY happened......

After years and years of dreaming of living in the country and spending endless weekends of looking for acreage, we decided to put in an offer subject to the sale of our house.  And as you can see from the above photo.......Our house sold!

We had to sell a lot cheaper than what we wanted, but we now have a piece of paradise....Infact 19 acres of paradise.

The house we bought needs a lot of work, but the views definately make up for it.

I feel like a different person since moving.  Everymorning I wake to the sound of the most beautiful birds singing.  Just the other morning there were 6 kangaroos hopping past in my front yard.

Eventually I want to grow my own fruit and veg and also have chickens.  I am also desperate to get a horse.  Unfortuantely all of the just mentioned are on hold until after we have fixed up the house.

The weekend we moved in, we realised that the septic was full, so I had to call the "Turd Burglar".

Sofar we have painted the bedrooms and living area and have beautiful new carpet in the bedrooms.  We have rebuilt the deck outside which is HUGE.  And we still need to put in one bathroom, lights, aircon and re vamp the kitchen.  It will be a while until it is finished, but sofar I am LOVING country living.

PRINCE

On May 14 I was lucky enough to go and see Prince in his Welcome to Australia Tour.  Thank you very much to my ex brother in law who invited me to go along as he had a spare ticket. 

All day at work I was so excited that I was going to see PRINCE.  I saw him about 20 years ago and he was amazing, sadly I missed out on his last tour as I was heavily pregnant with Christian.  I listened to his CD's all day at work.  The doors opened at 6.30 for an 8.00pm start.  I arrived at about 4pm to ensure that I got a good car park as there was also an AFL game being played the same night at the MCG.  I sat in my car for about an hour listening to PRINCE as I waited for Peter to arrive.  I started my car a few times to heat the inside of the car as it was only 12 degrees outside and falling. When Pete arrived he  jumped into my car as we passed the time waiting for the doors to open.  Pete said to me oh my butt is nice and warm, are your seats heated?  The next thing you know the music stops.  CRAP I had given myself a flat battery.  It was about 5pm and peak hour traffic was beginning.  We waited for about 15 mins to see if the battery would recover.  I turned the key and NOTHING!  I called the RACV and they said they would be there within 20 mins (thank goodness (they can take up to 2 hours)- I couldn't miss PRINCE).  We caused peak hour chaos as my car was parked on a busy 1 lane road, so the RACV van double parked next to me blocking the one lane of traffic.  I explained what had happened, and he said I can jump start your car now, however when you come out at midnight you will need to call us again........or you can replace the battery.  I decided with winter coming it was going to be safer to replace the battery.  He then said to me that the battery van would be over an hour......I started panicking that I was going to miss Prince.  After ordering the battery van he said they will be here in 10 minutes. PHEW!!!!  We again caused peak hour chaos, but I didn't care... $173.00 later we could now head over to the concert.

There were people everywhere dressed up in Purple and looking funky.  The excitement continued to build.  We cued up to get in.  Finally they opened the doors.  Peter and I headed straight to the hot food as we were both hungry and cold.  We then went in to check out our seats and they were pretty awesome.  We were 16 rows from the front.

The concert was absolutely amazing and I am so grateful that I got to see such a talented, awesome and funky performer.

Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday we awoke to a cold and rainy day.  I had to go to the supermarket to stock up as there was not much food at the cabin.  Hovsep and Buster decided to come along for the trip.  On the way we passed the surf shop which was having 40% off everything sale so we decided to pop in and have a look.  We left with a pair of Roxy tracksuit pants for myself ( I needed something to keep me warm), Hovsep with a nice Rip Curl cardigan and Christian scored some metallic blue Globe basketball boots.  After the supermarket we went for a drive to Point Lonsdale Surf Beach.  The sound of the waves crashing on the shore was beautiful.  It is a sound I have not heard for over 10 years.... because of Christian we tend not to go to Surf beaches.  Christian wants to do little nippers next summer which is at Point Lonsdale Surf Beach, so I thought it was a good idea to go and have a look.  It was a pretty big walk up a pretty big hill to get there, but was well worth it.

From the beach we then walked up to the look out.

Hovsep and Christian (Buster) at the lookout.

Whilst we were at the lookout the clouds and sun were putting on a show.  I tried to capture it the best I could.

After the beach it was off to Queenscliff for some gellati and then back to the cabin for a game of Yahtzee and to watch the Tiger get beaten by the worst AFL team.