Surprise

I love surprises, especially when they are for me, but occassionally I love surprises when they are for other people.
Yesterday I was the person who got surprised but at the same time it involved heaps of other people so was an all round great surprise.

I got a call from the boy's Principal yesterday telling me in no uncertain words that "I was awesome" (I always like phone calls like that, don't you?)
Anyway, turns out that I had forgotten I had entered a competition on behalf of the school and low and behold, WE WON.

Yep that is right, they had a competition on the radio for 4 weeks and each week they chose a school to receive a $3000 gift card for Paper Plus to spend towards books and stationary, as required by the school. Also a $1000 grant towards advertising our next fundraising event in the community.

All I had had to do was fill in my name and address, the school's name and contact for the Principal and say in I think (I can't quite remember) under 35 words why our school deserved this prize. I think I mentioned something about Education being important, the kids doing their best always (our school motto) and maybe something that was a play on words for the Paper Plus latest advertising etc
Obviously what ever I wrote went down well, cause we now have a whole heap of shopping to do for the school.

The Principal was beside himself with joy when he called me, saying thank you so many times, and telling me how astounding the boys were when they got called up on stage at assembly by the Radio Station people and interviewed etc.
The actually slot on the radio, I sadly didn't get to hear, as it was on during 1-2pm and I was working, although the local station will be playing it again at 6.40am on Monday, so we will all be awake and up listening for sure.

So a huge thank you to Classic Hits and Paper Plus for making this such a rewarding competition to enter. I never thought for a million years that we would win one of the prizes, but my boys education is very important, and any oppotunity to help them, then I am there, supporting them all the way.

Sunflower Competition Final

Back in October we planted sunflower seeds and had an inter family competition to see who's grew the tallest and biggest flower.
When we returned from our holiday away over Christmas we were greeted with lovely big flowers and tall plants.

We duely marked on the sheet who had the tallest, who had the biggest flower etc.
At the time I had the tallest flower and Alex had the largest flower head.

Sadly we gained a small sprinkling large amount of rain one weekend and we lost all the sunflowers!

So we didn't have to decide when to end the competition as mother nature kindly did it for us!
The results of the competition are as follows:

1. I won the tallest flower at 161cm
2. Alex won the largest flower head at 21cm
3. And we changed this part from shortest flower to smallest flower head, just the seed area. Ben won this with about 8cm.

This all equates to the following:

1. I get to choose between playing mini golf or 10 pin bowling
2. Alex gets to choose where we go to have dinner one evening
3. Ben gets a choclate bar

Everyone had lots of fun, especially as for a long time Steve's plants were doing the best and were always the tallest. In fact at one stage we thought maybe he was creeping out in the middle of the night and feeding his plants because they were doing that well compared to everyone elses.
But hey, just goes to show, you have to have patience and you never know, you might just come up from behind and win the whole thing.

Rain and more Rain

We have been having the most glorious summer so far, but sadly, we have also been in desperate need of some rain.
We gained some last week, it was nice, although it didn't cool things down much.
However, this last day or 2 we have gained more.

Now however nice it is to receive it for the garden etc it has also been a pain to us.
It has caused damage, which I will post about later when I have uploaded pictures.
But it has also allowed me to achieve one of my challenges, #83 actually. To go outside in the rain and get really wet.

Well I didn't just go outside in the rain and stand around and get really wet, oh no too easy, I had actually just started cutting the hedge along the drive way when it decided to rain, so seeing as I was halfway through, then I decided to continue. So I got rather wet doing the gardening and acieving a challenge along the way.

Steve was busy pulling up sunflowers, which have been another pain to us with the rain, unfortunately they didn't like a lot of rain all in one go and sadly all fell over. Again another post on its way about the competition we ran, as with no sunflowers standing, then the competition is now over. I will tell all soon and let you know how we all faired in the competition.

But with the rain comes a day inside and nothing beats a day inside than racing to the DVD store and hiring several movies to snuggle on the couch and watch. And seeing how the temperature has dropped as well, snuggling on the couch under a fluffy blanket is awesome at present.

Sunflower Competition Update

Back in October, we started our family Sunflower competition.
In November they had started to grow quite significantly and we had already awarded the first prize "person to have the first shot appear", lucky for me it was one of mine that appeared first, yea!

So having come home from our little holiday away, this is what we found waiting for us....

The flowers have gone mental, they are over 1 1/2 metres tall and even though they seem to have small flower heads, some of them are at least 21cm wide.

Currently I am winning with the tallest flower at 161cm
And Alex is winning with the largest flower head at 21cm
Alex is also winning the shortest flower prize as well.

We are not sure when to end the competition, so are recording heights and size regularly until such time as we deem the competition over. Then we will look back at the recorded measurements and decide who indeed had the tallest flower and who had the largest flower head.

The prize for the "tallest flower" is either Ten Pin Bowling or Mini Golf, now which one am I the best at.....?

Sunflowers

As you may have remembered from here, we are having a sunflower growing competition in our family.

Man are they growing!!

Here is a picture of how they are looking at present.....

man are they getting tall?

I am sure they keep growing just in the time we are away during the day for work and school cause they always seem taller when we get home.

Steve and Ben seem to be steaming away with the tallest at present

sure Steve's are getting taller because of the down pipe?

Ben's on the R of pole, mine on L, pretty close in size

Alex is a little miffed that his are not racing behind, but I keep assuring him that that means his are saving their energy for making the biggest flower head and that that prize is the best one to win at the end of the day (get to choose where to have dinner)

Sunflower Competition

We have had the sunflower seeds planted for about 3 weeks now and we have had some results already.


Green shoots at the back are my seeds through, lots of them!

My seeds won the first step of the competition, which was to have the first shoot through, although Steve says that mine came through first because I didn't plant them very deep!
He thinks his will be the tallest because he says he planted them deeper and so they will be stronger?
We will see.

Competition

When Steve and I got married 2 years ago, we gave people a packet of sunflower seeds as a wedding favour.

They went down really well, especially as it was the right time of year to plant them as well. We gained several pictures over the following months from people who had attended the wedding and then actually planted the seeds. Several family members had sunflower growing competitions to see who could grow the tallest!

We, would you believe, never actually got round to planting any of the seeds, although we had several packets left over.

So this year we decided to have a little family competition. We are using seeds that we had left over (yes I know they are 2 yrs old but they have remained sealed and at a good temperature, so we will see!) and we have brought 1 packet just in case nothing happens.

We have laid out some rules for our little competition:

1. Everyone will do the same thing, so we all planted together in the same way
2. There will be a small prize (mini chocolate bar) for the person who has the 1st shoot through in the next few weeks
3. We will measure the growing plants every 2 weeks
4. The winner of the tallest sunflower will get to choose whether we play Mini Golf or go Bowling
5. The winner of the largest sunflower head will get to choose where we go for lunch
6. The person with the shortest sunflower will win a chocolate bar

Everyone is in agreeance and the seeds have been planted.

1st we all helped prepare the soil

Well almost everyone was helpful!

Then we each chose which section of the flower bed we wanted.
We then each took it in turn to plant our seeds. Because the sunflowers are going to grow tall, we have also planted so summer colour in the front part of the bed to make it all look pretty.

So our competition has begun, just wish the uploading and adding pictures to this post had been as easy!!

Win

This morning I won a book on the radio.

I won the new book out on Michael Jackson - Life of a Legend.

They were talking about IAE (Internet Alta Ego's)

In simple terms, what does it say if you put your name in Google.

If your name was 'Jessica Martin' and you put that in Google, would it tell you anything about you or about someone else named the same. And what exciting thing does it say?

Well I happen to know that if you put my husbands name in he apparently went over Niagra Falls in a barrel!

So I called and told them this. They Googled him and thought it was a hoot. After several other people calling in with names and stories they choose my husbands IAE as the best and so I won the book, or he won it or maybe we both won it!? Anyway, not exactly a book we really need or want. So not actually sure what we are going to do with a book about Michael Jackson?

Competition

Steve's office area has started having cooking competitions.
It started with a cake making competition a couple of months ago. This took them a fair few weeks to accomplish.
Steve had to bake a cake one week, at the same time as several other people. Who ever won that week went onto the next round.
Guess what, Steve won his round! Way to go with my Lemon Coconut Cake.

I can't actually remember what he baked for the next round, it was a close call but sadly he didn't make it through.

A couple of weeks ago he informed me that the next competition was all about 'Soups'
So he has been wondering what he could do.
Now bear in mind that he isn't too interested in winning this round at all. Not too fussed on soups, so all he wipped up was the recipe for 'Mild Curried Kumara Soup' oh with a twist, because Steve can not do anything when cooking without a little twist added!
Although when you ask him what he put in it and can he tell you so you can recreate it....the answer is always NO, because sometimes he is not actually sure what it was that he put there!

So today, he took in his soup. Hoping that it was suitable enough for the competition but compared to others, hopefully not good enough to go forward.
Well blow me down, he is cirrently leading for this week.
Due to the nature of it being soups, they are doing 2 soups per day, rather than trying 3-4 soups in one day. So a scoring system has been created. He has to wait until the soups for Thursday have been scored, but currently he is leading this week!

I laughed when I called him to find out how his soup went! Because now, if he wins the week, he only has to come up with another soup to make in a few weeks time!

Anyone got an good soup recipes out there for him to use????

Bathroom Competition

We didn't win...but I had a lovely breakfast at the restaurant the radio station invited us all to.

We had to be there at 7am and as you arrived they asked you to turn off your phones.

We then procedded to sit there and have a lovely cooked breakfast with all the drinks you wanted for the next hour and a half whilst they kept making up half cocked excuses as to why Bunty, radio dj was not there yet.

Finally at about 8.15am, just as people where beginning to get fidgety, he arrived.

Talked to us all there, ask how breakfast was etc and then asked us all to come outside.

As we poured out on to the pavement, so a truck arrived in front of us.

They lifted the side up to reveal an old bathroom in pieces on the back of the truck, well it was old, until one of the ladies gasped and screamed because she realised that in fact it was her bathroom that was in pieces on the truck!

Turns out, her husband knew about this, because he was the one who let them in at 7.05am this morning so they could rip out the bathroom and bring it to her at the restaurant. Turns out the visit we had earlier in the month was to see who was the person with the most desperate bathroom in need of a make over. We couldn't have our phones on in case a neighbour tried to call to find out what was going on etc and the restaurant couldn't have the radio on because the whole time, everyone else listening, knew that someone in Hamilton was having their bathroom ripped out!

Looking at the state of the stuff on the back of the truck, she needed it.

Yes our bathroom is a mess, but it is actually still very liveable, well ok, we can't get hot water in the basin, and the bath takes 30 minutes to fill, I can't stand the black tiles round the basin or the black wallpaper, but it is still clean looking.

Her shower base was a mess, the cupboard doors were peeling and missing handles, she definitely needed it.

So I had a fun morning at someone elses expense at a nice restaurant, what better way to start the weekend, oh apart from the fact I then had to come on up to work afterwards!

Bathroom

The bathroom is one of the rooms in the hosue that I would love to see sorted next, ok, not that many of the rooms have been sorted yet, but that is the one I would like to do next. Mainly because it is like the kitchen in that it is a big job, but also because it is a busy room and used all the time.

The layout of the bathroom is more or less fine, just can't stand the black vinel wallpaper, black tiles round the vanity and pink & peach bathroom furniture!

A few months ago we heard about a competition to win a new bathroom at one of the local bathroom shops, so I went along to check it out. Turns out that all you had to do was enter your name on a piece of paper and be prepared for someone from the shop to come view your bathroom.

So what did I have to lose from entering, so I did.

At the beginning of November someone from the shop called to say we had been drawn as one of the top 20 finalists. Could they please organise a date and time for someone to visit and have a look. Get a feel for what we wanted to do etc etc. The finalist would be drawn at the end of the month.

Now the shop is not your basic bathroom design place, the stuff is well out of our normal price range and not exactly the style I would have choosen, Contemporary European Design, but then if we win, I am sure I will find something that we will approve of.

The man came and measured the bathroom, asked me a few questions. Asked if I would be interested in a quote from the building people even if we didn't win, which of course I said yes to. You see when they say you win a new bathroom, they mean a new bathroom, not just the units to go in it, but the building work, plumbing and painting, in fact your bathroom would be totally made over.

So last week I got a call from the radio station covering the competition to tell me that there is a breakfast this coming Friday ay 7am, and could I please come along to it because this is where the winner will be annouced.

So on friday at 7, I will be all dressed ready for work, because I will have to skip off to work after breakfast, and I will sit and patiently wait to see if we win a new bathroom.

Would be so cool to win, one less thing to pay for.

Will keep you posted....