Another Proud Day

This time it is the boys who had a day to be proud of.
Today they both competed in the Weetbix Try-athlon (TRY being the main part of this event)
It is not a competition, you are not racing against people or a clock, you are there to give it a go and have as much fun as possible.
It consists of a 50 or 100m swim, depending on your age.
A 1.5km bike ride and a 1.5km run/walk

This year was Alex's first ever time. For the last 2 years he has stood by and watched his big brother do the event, because he was not old enough to enter! But not this year, this year he was there, he was ready and he was primed ready to race.

My little Try-man

Waiting for the quick 50m swim

Swim over now on to transition and start that bike ride (you can just make him out in the middle of the picture!)

Dry shirt and then we will be off

pedal, pedal, almost there

Bike complete now onto the run

The finish line is in sight

Cold drink just what I need after that event



Well done: One very happy Try-man

 This year was Ben's 3rd try-athlon, he just loves doing it.
Unfortunately due to it being Alex's first event, then I got to watch all of Alex's parts but Ben's swim started whilst Alex was coming home from the bike ride and switching to the run. This will be a continuing problem from now on with them both competing, but we will deal with it each year and just alternate between who watches which child.
Alex and I were however at the finish line as Ben came home, so I did get some pictures of him.

My big Try-man

Finish line is in sight

Well done, #3 completed, roll on next year.

Well done both of you, very proud of my try-men for giving it a go. Especially as running is not Ben's strong point. Let's do it all again next year.

Proud Moment

Yesterday was a very proud day in our family.
I had my capping ceremony to receive my Bachelors Degree in Nursing.

It was an amazingly long day but such a lot of fun.

Invaded

Last year we purchased 2 swan plants, 1 each for the boys. Thought it might be fun to hatch a few monarch butterflies in the garden.

Unfortunately it looked like a bug had got at the plants and they didn't seem to developed into much at all. However we left them where they were and ignored them for a while.
Well both plants grew and grew and still no monarchs came anywhere near our garden.
Then this summer, whilst the swan plants are now both over 1.5m high (!) we suddenly have butterflies for Africa!

A few have successfully laid eggs and we have had a few caterpillars, unfortunately the wasps have been out in force and not many have survived to growing to full stage to be able to turn into butterflies.
Several however have for some reason took to hanging off the garage wall rather than the plant itself, so we have had full view of the chrysalis doing its thing.

2 of the butterflies appeared on the same day. 1 minute they were in chrysalis and the next we looked...all of 10 mins later, the butterfly had appeared and the chrysalis was empty.

The boys have enjoyed having something happening in the garden and we have had lots of monarchs fluttering around all summer.

However with the summer weather comes other bugs and sadly we have managed, without trying I may add, to grow a nice amount of pantry moth in funnily enough of all places ..... the pantry!! Yes we have weevils in all the rice, oats, seeds etc
I can tell you, not what I wanted to do on a weekend...empty the whole pantry, throw away all dried food that is riddled with bugs web etc and start again with dried food in the pantry.
Last night we had chicken curry for dinner, I didn't realise at the time that they had successfully invaded the rice bucket as well and when it was finally cooked I found 2 dead maggots in amongst the cooked rice. Let's just say I had chicken curry without rice last night as for some strange reason I had gone off rice last night!!

A Good Laugh

Every now and then you read something on the internet and it makes you laugh out loud.
Sometimes it is so good you laugh so much you have tears running down your face.

This particular piece did just that for me, enjoy.......

These are complaints a travel agent received from some of their clients.....:


1. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

2. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."

3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels."

5. "The beach was too sandy."

6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white."

7. "Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."

8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."

9. "There was no egg-slicer in the apartment."

10. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

11. "The roads were uneven.."

12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home."

13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."

14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers -- will we be OK staying there?"

15. "There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners now live abroad."

16. "We had to queue outside with no air-conditioning."

17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. No-one said they could bite."

19. "My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

Have a great week :)

Desktop Layouts

I am still pretty new when it comes to scrap booking.
I have stored up quite a collection of papers and embellishments from the internet.
Did you know there are some amazing places to get free items for your library?

The place I obtained my layout for this blog also has some desktop pictures for you to download and use to make the computer look pretty. In December and January I downloaded and used the ones they had. They were cute but they had the date on them, well the calendar dates anyway.
Whilst checking out the February layout I suddenly realised that there was no reason why I couldn't make my own, I mean I do have a scrap book programme on the computer!

So that is what I did, I sat and designed my own desktop layout.

This one was my first layout and whilst I love the delicate detail of the lace and flowers, the spotty paper was not the best to use with desktop icons. Difficult to view them with all the spots!

This one I went for a more solid colour paper so the icons would show better, mainly because my husband complains if he can't see the icons too well, but I must admit a really light colour on the background does make for a difficult screen to view, however this grey works really well.

Now I will get creative and come up with something for March.