5th Feb 2009

This week has been so hot and uncomfortable with 40+ degree weather and again it will be 43 tommorrow. Kids have been to school and karate but other sports were cancelled due to the weather thankfully. James shocked us this week with going for his blue tips at karate, we had no idea he was going to try otherwise we would have talked him out of it. He was so cute up there, messed the whole thing up but I was so proud of him trying.
We worked out what is wrong with the pool filter thankfully and now we are waiting to get hold of new cartridges, just the shops are all sold out. But we managed a couple of fantastic afternoon, evening swims.
Elaine popped in on Monday for a cuppa which was great, really made me feel special to be thought of.
With the help of computer friends we managed to write a letter to Tiger airways giving them 14 days to sort out Sarahs tickets before we take it further. Had a phone call from one of the workers in Singapore, that confirmed to me that they are a really dodgy company and I am not really wanting my loved ones to step foot on their planes. But I am not being negative, I will wait and see what happens.
Nathan Strempel phoned about Sarah making a video about school bullying, he would use the video in his class lectures. Sarah is less than impressed with people seeing it but has agreed to that so we will see what becomes of that.

February 1st 2009

After having Laura and Graham up last night for a swim, we stayed up to tidy up, once the kids were fast asleep Tony and I went for a nice quiet swim with no one, no kids, no dogs......Oh my god this was the life!

This morning we got ready early and went to Mawson Lakes, I have never been there and the brochure I have made it look great. I am so ashamed I bragged to my friends I was going there, it was such a ......nothing. We took the kids to the cove, which is just a bit of the lake, nothing special.....the water feature, there was a statue thing but it wasnt a water feature as such....Mobara playground was 3 things that didn't amuse the kids for more than 5 minutes. If anything we had a nice long walk and a long chat with an elderly man that thought we needed to know everything about remote control sailing boats. I appreciated that he likes it and let the kids have a photo with his boat.....but really, I am over it.....

Mobara Park in Mawson Lakes, the best bit of the day out.

For tea we had Laura, Graham and the boys, aswell as Kym and her girls here for a quick throw together BBQ and a swim. Tony did his usual and stressed big time about the house, the garden and everything he could, thanks to this he dropped half the meat, if not more after he had cooked it, so the dogs got that. I think there was still plenty for everyone, he doesn't. For the swim we had to contend with ants and european wasps thanks to the meat he gave the dogs....this was turning into a stuffed up bbq. But everyone had fun, kids and men had ages in the pool, us women watched for a while then relaxed in the airconditioned room playing with Mitchell and talking.
I think it went ok and find it quite funny really now. Maybe next time I will help Tony and stop the stuff ups.

Amy, Luke, Mia, Akasha, James, Sarah and Harrison.

30th January 2009.

Well we have one day left of January, so I sat down and looked at the blog and I am absolutelly amazed at how much we have got tdone this month, I am so glad I started the blog or I would be sitting here thinking we have wasted a month doing nothing but always being busy.
This past week with the kids at school has been quiet to say the least but it has been too hot to enjoy as we are in the middle of a heatwave, 45 degrees here for the last 2 days. Tony has managed to fix the pool to the best he can at the moment but we really need to save up for a new pump and filter to be able to use it properly. Still we all enjoyed a late night dip last night, not sure what the neighbours would have thought though.
All sports were cancelled this week due to the heat so we have had more us time to sit back and relax, I have actually found the time to sit and watch some tv and even a movie. Girls fundraising for netball is over today, they were selling Krispy Kremes, I am so glad it is over, I forgot how much I hate fundraising things, asking people for money they just do not have.

Tiger Airlines screwed us.

Sarahs flight to see Ron took a big change today, we sort of knew something was happening but today it all came to us and we know now. After booking Sarahs flights on the 22nd, I realised I had the wrong date to come home, no problems obviouslly I had stuffed up, so instead of stressing, I put money in the credit card and logged online to change the date to the 16th. Done that got to the checkout to find the date was the 15th again and I owed more money, not sure how that worked I refused to pay and tried to phone them.
Everytime I rang I got an answering service and it hung up on me, so I wrote a letter and we faxed that off. It took the post office about 20 attempts to fax but eventually one went through.
Yesterday a guy from Tiger in Singapore rang us, he had received the fax and could fix the problem, just pay by credit card now. Thinking this was sus I was not going to give credit card details to someone phoning me asking for them, I might be stupid but not that stupid.
I told him I needed to put money in as it is a debit card so I will phone him on the singapore number tommorrow or can I do it online, he went to look online and came back to me saying online wasnt working, it would only give me the 15th.....a problem with their website.......
OK so obviouslly the original date was not my mistake its a website error, so I took this morning to phone Auntie Carol for advice, then phone singapore and waited for half an hour for no response, no answer.
I phoned consumer affairs who said I was vertually pushing shit uphill, tiger rip off 80% of their customers and due to the fine print get away with it. I said I was still wanting to try the complaint process, I have 7 months to get these bastards, I feel like they have stolen my daughters money and her dreams.
I also contacted 5aa talkback, he was useless, told me to phone consumer affairs as its not right then he hung up on me.....yeah thanks!
So I spend most of today with a puffy face, loads of tears and really shitty. I will not stop on this matter, but it broke my heart to cancel the accomodation at Ron's, and to tell Sarah. I told Sarah to write her thoughts down so when she does go over to WA she can see what she went through to get there......wrong thing to do. I read it and it all blames me, me for booking wrong, me for not paying again and saying we will go through another company.......
What a fucked up day, days like this I hate living week to week, if I had saving then she wouldnt be in this situation, she wouldnt think I have ruined her dreams.........
OK saving start now I have 6 months to get her that flight on a nice carrier, priced the tickets and have alot to aim for, she will go just wont have the 6 months of looking forward to it.
Please if you are reading this never ever fly Tiger, let everyone know.

27th January 2009. (back to school)

I believe this is where my blog will start getting done weekly due to severe lack of time for me and my things. Kids went back to school and I promised myself I would not stress over everything that happens, I will find other ways around things that come up. Good timing as Tony tried to get the codes we needed for the kids to do the Premiers Be Active challenge as I want to do it in term 1 while the kids have all their sports, school was so not helpful, didn't really want a bar of it. This is proberly why only 6 kids got it last year at the school. Anyway back home an a quick email to the organisers and the kids are doing it, without the school's help, which should really upset the school if the kids win the school the money that goes with it, as we decided to donate it to a small country school that needs help and is willing to help it's students.

Holly missed the kids and I was sick of being asked to have a picnic with her. Tony tried to bake cookies with her, but that didn't work. We tried movies and hide and seek......when the kids got home I thought it would be ok but that just gave her reason to shout at them. There is no winning with that girl, I was never that bad, not even through puberty.

We are in a heat wave at the moment and regrettably our pool is green, we need to go and buy a pump, so off to the shops tommorrow and fingers crossed they are not that expensive and its a quick job to clean, I miss not swimming with the kids.

25th and 26th January 2009 Australia Day.

Happy Australia Day Everyone!

An early start for the holidays, we made it to Fremont park for the 8am breakfast. We were suprised at how many others were there at this time and joined the queue of about 200 people for the BBQ.

James was excited when he was recognised by one of the volunteers, a little athletics Nanna, also the kids were stopped by numerous friends from god knows where. I have realised we have popular kids.

We sat on the dry ground which was hard to find a spot amongst the bull ants to eat our bacon and egg sandwhich, which really made us feel Aussie.

After breakfast we walked around to look at some of the old cars, queued up again for the balloon man, face painter and the drink stand. We decided that we would not go to the next spot today as we are just sick of so many people, it would be more comfortable at home.

Up to mums for a quick drink then back home.

Just a few of the wonderful volunteer's.

James as a skeleton.

My little Aussie beauties!

At night I sat and looked at my diary and calander again, trying to work out why we never have any time to do the things we want. Sitting there I worked out the days the kids were supposed to be at Santos for Little Athletics, those days we hate, so I scheduled in fun things instead. We booked holiday's, downloaded some maps, all those fun things.

We also looked at the face painting course in more detail, and booked Tony into it, that way he gets his kit and knows what he is doing, I will no doubt pick it all up quick again just with some practice. We put him in balloon animals aswell, all for March. So life is looking rosy, busy but rosy.

25th January.

Was just a quiet day at home, tidying etc. We finally finished the big house clean by doing the Dining room.

23rd and 24th January 2009. (St Kilda)

24th January 2009.

A quiet day bathing the kids, hair, nails, ears....all getting ready for school stuff. Also I sat with my diary for a while and tried to work out our first school term, I hate never having time to scratch myself and I want to work out how I can change it. So my diary and I got to know each other very well today.

Holly hates me after combing her hair lots so she has asked to sleep at her Nanny's, yeah a quiet night! Sarah also thought of a sleep over and phoned my mum, I have now lost all the girl's and am very thankful. Tony and I took the boys down St kilda to go fishing for a while. It was very interesting to say the least.

A landmark that reminds me of St Kilda.

While Tony set up, I took the boys to the playground, first off was the boat, I hate the boat at the best of times but later in the day is worse as we found out. We discovered two grown men in a somewhat difficult situation which left me to explain stuff to the boys...hmmmm I suppose I will laugh later. This made the playground a very quick stop as I just didnt want to be there to see more.

Back to Tony and he had caught us the smallest thing he calls a fish....Then matched it with it's twin. So we moved on to the other side of the shops and caught nothing there. Loads of mozzie bites though and we had a good old laugh.

How does he expect to feed a family of 7 with this?
The scarey thing was Luke measured to see if it would feed us!

A man and his teenage son pulled in their boat and the man was stepping onto the jetty thing.....splash!!! Gees it was funny, he was so funny with it and his son didnt help by quickly grabbing his phone to phone mum and tell her.

23rd January.

A nothing day really, relaxing at home, playing wii and just chilling for a while.

Girls played netball later in the day and won yet again. I think the heat has got to Sarah, even down to her asking to come off the court for a while, I was not too hapy when her coach said no, but Sarah didn't let me speak to her about it.