Week at Home - Part 1

I spent the last week off work, kind of on holiday but doing some remote work as well in and around the other activities...

Monday was spent mainly working from home but with a nice diversion for lunch. Famous Dave's was the fantastic destination for our meal, exposing my mother to some American cooking. BBQ ribs, pork, corn, baked beans, coleslaw, corn bread and some fries made for quite enough food. Mum actually enjoyed it (I think), which is a good thing.

Tuesday brought the unexpected (but welcome) early arrival of the work crew to build our new patio under the deck. Since the deck had been build, the part of the yard we like to call "underneath the deck" was a horrible of mixture of mud, rocks and junk that we chucked there. Considering the deck is about 8 feet off the ground, there was a chance to use the space for something a little nicer, so a paver patio was decided upon. For a while, I toyed with the idea of building it myself...but decided to go with the professionals. A good thing I did too. Figuring that it took 4 guys all day to build it and we can work out exactly what would have happened to me:

Minimum time - 4 days (based on their work). Add in the fact that they actually know what they are doing and have the right tools...I guess we are now up to about 7 days. Then throw in the prospect of bad weather over that time causing delays and some more time of me spent in complete disillusionment about how much work it was and we are at about 10 days. And I would assume it would be right about then that I would give up and call someone to do it anyway...

The finished product was very nice, in fact, surpassing our expectations in every way. It was also nice to get it done before the weekend as we were planning a BBQ for the July 4 holiday. The kids love it as well and have spend a lot of time riding bikes down there.

On Wednesday, we went to the Bowcraft amusement park near our house. Basically it is like a "Newcastle Show" / "State Fair" type place for rides. Lots of small metal things that spin a lot. now I love coasters, but I HATE rides that simply spin you around. I cannot see the point and end up feeling a little worse for wear after the experience. There was one ride there that killed me - a stiupid balloon ride that I went on with Naomi. It looked quite harmless but the combination of the rotation of the arms and the spinning of the "balloon" was a killer blow. I was able to soldier on and finish out the day, which was over by about 2:00. Nan had a nice time but it was a lot of walking and standing for her and I think this was about her limit. Top ride for Naomi (and me) - the Drop Zone, where you simply get hoisted up and dropped a few times. Nothing scary but great for Naomi. Top ride for Fiona - the toy boats...about the tamest ride in the park. She is going through an age where she has lost her nerve a little I think, a few years ago she was unstoppable, I guess, now she is smart enough to know how poorly made a lot of those rides actually are!

Wednesday night was spent with Holly and Gary at a fondue restaurant. I had never done anything like that before and it was a lot of fun. Not the kind of thing that you would do every week, but certainly a nice change for a normal night out. Thanks to Nan for babysitting and giving us the night. A lot of animals were consumed - lobster; shrimp; chicken; pork and steak. All good. The highlight was the dessert, dunking the cheese cake in the melted chocolate was certainly worth the wait.