The Bell Family

As you have probably read from previous blog entries, we’ve been doing some substantial renovations to the backyard. So I thought I would give you guys an update.

As you know, we have put up a garden shed and also laid some concrete edging for the gardens.

Over the Xmas holidays, we managed to dig out all of the weeds and rubbish from the yard (with many thanks to Dan, Mum, Dave and Kerrie for their help). We then filled the garden beds with 3 big truck loads of garden mix soil.

We then went to the Sunday Markets and also a few nurseries and ended up buying 23 palms to plant into the gardens. These included:

• 4 triangle palms
• 4 alexanders palms
• 7 foxtail palms
• 2 bottle palms
• 6 golden cane palms

As you can see from the picture, there was a few of them to plant. We now have them all planted into the garden and as you can see from the picture below, it doesn’t look that bad.

All we need to do now is to place some sugarcane mulch on top and plant a few crotons and golden-sheena’s and the garden will be finished.

We’ll post another blog entry when it is all finished to show you what it looks like. As you can probably tell, I will be glad to head back to work so I can take it easy!!?!

Take it easy,
Jason.

Hi Everyone!

Time for a quick update on the Bell Family antics over the last couple of weeks. We’ve had a lovely holiday season, spending lots of time together just relaxing and having fun.

Christmas was fantastic. On Christmas morning, Laura couldn’t wait to get outside and onto her new swing set (which Santa and Santa’s helper worked on assembling late Christmas Eve and into the wee hours of the morning)! Laura’s a bit of a thrill seeker and isn’t shy about nodding her head rigorously and squealing ‘more’ as she holds on for dear life and we push her higher and higher!

She loves the swings so much, that when she wants to have a go, she runs around the house collecting everyone’s hat for them, then runs to the back door to get your attention yelling ‘wing, wing’! Once the ‘present opening’ ritual was over, it was time to head out for Christmas lunch at Nanna’s. It was just a quiet family day, but Laura was full of energy and abuzz with excitement (I think it was a combination of all the attention, new toys, pretty paper to rip and of course, great food to eat)!!! All in all, it was a lovely day and we were all thoroughly spoilt.

Once we recovered from Christmas, it was time to catch up with a few jobs around the house. We’ve done a heap of gardening and have finally moved all the soil into the backyard and planted out our new palm tree garden. We’ve organised our new shed and moved all the tools and we’ve also cleaned out the garage (which was quite an effort – I can’t believe how much junk you can collect in such a short amount of time)! We’ve also redone the back ramp and done some general work around the house.

For New Year’s Eve, we enjoyed a great party at a friends house. All of the kids kicked on until about 9pm, then finally crashed out, which allowed us all to let our hair down! We can’t believe it’s now 2006 – where do the years go???

After New Year’s, we headed down to the beach for a few days to relax. We did lots of swimming, played golf, slept a lot and of course enjoyed lots of yummy food. Laura’s at a great age now, she can walk around, paddle a little (however her favourite was the water slide), and eat pretty much whatever we’re having. She’s added a few new words to her vocab (we’ve counted about 50 in total now, including giving a few three syllable words a go) and pretty much knows all the basic parts of her body now (head, nose, eyes, ears, mouth, shoulders, hands, tummy, knees, toes).

Anyway, it’s back to work for us soon and we’ve still got so much we want to do, so we better leave it there for now! Have a good one and we’ll write again soon!

Cheers,
Jason, Chrissy and Laura