Better get this in before the month end and then at least I can feel like I did it in my two month time frame. It's been a good two months. The weather over the summer has been wonderful, long hot days, plenty of opportunity to ride. Everyone was moaning about it being a drought but I really didn't care I was loving every second of it. In fact I thought it was just like an ordinary summer that I would expect to have, everyone said I was wrong, it was hotter and longer, yeah right, stop ya moaning and enjoy. I always think a hot summer is about swimming but I rarely if ever actually swim, used to be really in to it when I was young but seem to have fallen right out of the habit now. My mum used to like to swim and I also had a cousin in her 90's who used to swim every day in the sea down by Christchurch. Maybe I can't get into it because it's exercise, I have an inbuilt exercise rejection system.
We have used the sunny days to do a few things around the house. The garden was a great success and still continues to grow great food except that the white butterflies have it on their flight path now and we are losing the battle to keep them off the greens. We companion planted marigolds but they don't seem to be effective against much. I busted down the back fence, it stands between our patio/barbeque area and the grass and bush, it was getting rotten and made the back yard seem smaller putting a barrier up to the lovely bush we have out the back so it's gone. It was fun whacking it down with the hammer. The uprights are still there bolted to the ground, they have to be sawed off. The Wet and Forget proved to be completely useless and moss is starting to take over the cobbles yet again. We will be back to the tried and true and slightly less expensive to get rid of it this year. We bought a shade sale for the internal deck and were very thankful for it on the hottest days, it stretches from the lounge ranchslider about half way down the deck. Kent still wants to put a retractable see through roof up there but no go as yet. We restained the deck and walls, and repainted the big picnic table.
Corrin and Adam's wedding in March was just great. We flew over and back with Laetitia and Mike and baby Spencer and we all stayed together in a motel just down the road from the wedding venue. The weather was perfect as was the day and Corrin was very happy.
Our Indian family flatmates moved back to Auckland and a new flatmate, Sam from Korea, has moved in. Prashant got a job here in Rotorua and starts next Monday, we (he especially) are all stoked about it and we are taking him out to dinner on Friday night.
Kent's three brothers came to stay for the weekend, it's been 30 or so years since they were all together last, here in Rotorua. It was a fun weekend, lots of pics taken, lots of laughs. It was great seeing them all together, life has taken them all down different roads but they are all happy.
Kent has just completed replacing a window with a bifold door from the kitchen out onto the deck. It was a big job and as these jobs go they never end up as straight forward as you hope they will be. But it's all but finished now and looks great and will be wonderful next summer. We probably would have done it later in the year except for the fact that we had and ooops in the kitchen. We have a new fridge you see and it dispenses water and ice so needs to be plumbed into the water line. Kent said he didn't want to do it as our system is mains pressure and he didn't want to get it wrong, fair enough. So we got in the plumber. All seemed good until Kent came home late one night when the house and all inside was quiet and he could hear water dripping, oh oh. The newly installed tap for the fridge was at fault it turned out. Water was firing at full strength under the lino straight into the floor boards and had been doing so for about a month before discovered. The plumber came and accepted responsibility for it and his and our insurance companies kicked in. The lino came up and the cupboards came out and a 2mtr x 1 mtr piece of floor in the kitchen has been replaced and .5 mtr x 2 mtr piece in the family room behind also (we discovered there is polished cork tiles under the carpet in there). So we decided that since all this work has to be done we might as well put in the door before getting the new lino laid. All the stuff from the kitchen is in the family room, what a mess in there! We will get the lino laid asap now that the door is done yahhooo, it will be great to be back to abnormal. We have more plans for the kitchen but not as yet. It really p****d me off having to replace the lino as we both really like what is on the floor and of course it matches what is in the other wet areas in the house (anal I know but true). The offerings these days are so bland and unimaginative.. we have ended up choosing one we dislike the least.
Katherine turned 1 year old on the 22nd April! 1 YEAR OLD!!! Already! Wow! She is so cool, very clever (unbiased opinion :) and cute. I love watching them both grow up and really feel it being so far away, even tho it's not SO far, but it's far enough I tell you.
We haven't had any couchsurfers for a while now. I found I was starting to get a bit brassed off with them sometimes especially when they seemed to expect us to feed them as well as house them. Annoyed is not the way to enjoy life so we turned off our profile in the interim and will see what the future brings. At the moment it has brought us family visitors which has been great.
And we have a new mower!
