The Bell Family

Well… it’s all happening here!

In the last fortnight:
* all the bricks have been removed from the back wall so that the new frame could be joined up to the existing part of the house;
* the roof trusses have been erected;
* the new colourbond roof and guttering has gone on;
* the water has been put through to the new bathroom and garden tap;
* more support beams have been added for the floor; and
* the frame has been finished off with extra timber ready to receive the gyprock walls.

…side view

…rear view

…courtyard view

The builders will soon be ‘breaking in’ to the back section of the house, so we have moved the girls out of their ‘old rooms’ and they are sharing the loungeroom (yes, even our barnyard sized loungeroom is looking rather crammed, packed full with toys, furniture, boxes and of course two little girls)!!! We convinced Laura that it would be fun to stay in a ‘cubby room’ whilst Ray was finishing off her ‘new room’, so we set out to make a little hidey hole for her and her bed, constructed from boxes and all the odd bits of furniture. She thinks it’s pretty cool, so hopefully the novelty of it all will keep her occupied until her new room is ready. She’s been keeping her little sister in order too… Katelyn was having a little whinge when we put them both to bed one night, to which Laura responded “Katelyn, just be quiet, it’s time to sleep!” When we need to escape the chaos, we resort to either Susie or Mum and Dad’s houses (thanks guys, you’re the best)! I think we will be spending even more time there in the next few weeks as the noise and dust levels increase!

In the next few weeks, we hope to see the bricks go up, the external doors and windows go in, the electrical wiring go in and the internal gyprock walls go on. It’s great to see the jigsaw puzzle coming together and it’s starting to look really good!

Anyway, all the best and thanks for visiting our blog!

Cheers,
Chrissy, Jason, Laura and Katelyn

Since our last update, the builder has added the upstairs floor and erected the second story frame. The weather’s been quite wet here, so that’s caused a few delays but it looks as though things are now back on track!

Here are the latest piccies…

…going up, up, up!

…site supervisor Katelyn checks out the plans (or was that the junk mail)!

… enjoying the sunshine (dare I say it’s a rarity lately)!

All the action hasn’t been worrying Katelyn much and even Laura’s been really good. She’s been asking lots of questions about what the builders are doing and when woken from her midday nap the other day by them drilling away on the other side of her wall, she stumbled out to tell me “Mummy, ‘Ray the Builder’s’ making a big noise and it’s hurting my ears. I think it must be afternoon tea time now!” Needless to say, she didn’t get much sleep that day… other things were on her mind!

It’s getting really exciting now that we can actually see each of the rooms marked out. There are lots more fiddly things to do though before the roof trusses can be erected, but hopefully that will happen next week. We’ll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Jason and Chrissy

As they say, a picture says a thousand words!!!

Things are certainly taking shape now the slab is down and the frame is going up! It’s really starting to look like something now!

We’ll keep you posted on the progress…
Jason and Chrissy

It’s been three weeks since the first earth was turned on the extension. In this time, the plumbing’s been realigned, 80 cubic metres of soil removed, footings dug and laid and retaining walls erected. Things are running a little behind schedule on account of a week of rain, but other than that, it’s starting to take shape.

Here are the latest piccies.

In the next fortnight, we should see the slab and frame in place. It’s really good to watch the jigsaw puzzle being put together and we have a newfound admiration for builders, their organisational skills and their problem solving abilities! There are so many moving pieces in a job like this!

Cheers,
Jason, Chrissy and the Girls

Proof that I was actually in the U.S. Check out the following website http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/events/, see the Scientific Development Poster Session picture.

Crazy hey, and this is the proper Apple Website advertising it’s worldwide developers conference

Cool hey.

Until next time,
Take it easy,
Jason.

Hello Everyone!

Life’s been pretty busy in the Bell Family lately… two little girls have that effect I guess!!! Laura is now 2 ½ years and Katelyn is 3 months old.

Laura’s been dubbed ‘Miss Have-a-Chat’ and nothing could be truer… she provides a running commentary of the day’s activities from getting dressed to making dinner and when there’s nothing much to talk about, she belts out a couple of tunes!!! She’s really adorable but there is never a quiet moment when she’s around! She speaks quite fluently now and some of her favourite sayings are ‘what you doing mummy’, ‘mmm, that’s yummy,’ ‘I don’t like it’ and ‘Mummy, come play with me, we’re having a tea party’!!! Laura loves to sing and dance and really enjoys being outside with nature, looking for spiders and their webs, as well as butterflies and birds. Her favourite places to visit are Nanna’s, Ma and Pa’s, the zoo, the boats on the river and the farm animals.

Laura is so proud and protective of Katelyn and can often be found smothering her in hugs and kisses!!! Katelyn is a gorgeous little baby – she’s very placid and once she catches Mummy and Daddy’s eyes, she’ll trade grins with us for ages. She’s really found her little voice now and is having a great time ‘cooing’ and ‘ahhing’.

We had a little holiday a couple of weeks back and both the girls were fabulous. They travelled well and behaved exceptionally… the fresh air and outdoors was good for us all. Here are some piccies…

We’ve also had a busy time with lots of visitors. Our good friend Ann came to visit from Sydney (thanks Annie, great to see you!) and also Davina came home in time for Easter and a big birthday bash!!! We all had a fabulous time and the girls were thoroughly spoilt with all the extra attention!

Until next we ‘blog’, best wishes and take care,

Jason, Christine, Laura and Katelyn

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! Hope you’ve had a safe and happy festive season.

We’ve had a busy couple of months so really enjoyed a nice quiet break at home! Did a few jobs around the house and yard and caught up with lots of socialising which was nice.

Laura enjoyed helping with all the Christmas cheer – putting the Christmas tree up, looking at the Christmas lights and of course, getting presents from Santa! She was thoroughly spoilt! Here’s a few piccies…

…family piccie
… present time!
We decided to have a quiet New Year’s at home this year – watched the early fireworks on TV together as a family (Laura loves the pretty colours and the music) and then headed to bed.

… Happy N.Y!
The last few weeks we’ve been playing the waiting game – we’re all very excited and we can’t wait to meet our new little baby… expected any day now!

Anyway, signing out until we have some more news to share…

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

It’s been a busy time in the Bell household… lots of work, lots of functions to attend and lots of work around the house to keep us all busy!

We’ve had our good friend Ann visit from Sydney. It was lovely to catch up with her and a good excuse to go out to dinner and take lots of drives! Laura loved the added attention and all the reading! She also loved our trip to the beach.

…at the beach
Laura has become quite the little helper lately and has switched from exclaiming ‘Mummy cleanup’ at the first sight of a mess to ‘time to cleanup, Laura do it” at which she runs to the cupboard to grab either the paper towel or the dustpan and brush! She even gets in and helps with the vacuuming now! Come dinner time, she sets the table with the cutlery, cups, cold water and salt and pepper and then asks for more jobs (her favourite is watering the plants in the courtyard)!

She’s getting excited about the arrival of her new little brother or sister (due in mid January) and often talks to the tummy… ‘baby growing, baby moving’ and asks when she can play with Baby. I don’t think she realises what will hit her just yet!

Laura’s still having a cup of milk at bedtime which we put in the microwave for 30 seconds to take the chill off it… she still says ‘time for milk, put milk in the milk-wave’ and counts down the last 10 seconds!!!

Laura had pink day at daycare to support breast cancer awareness and got all dressup up as part of the action… she thought it was a wonderful opportunity to wear her ‘butt-by wings’ and bangles!

… dress-ups
Apart from that, we’ve been spending lots of time with friends and family. Here’s a piccie of Laura feeding her little friend ‘Tyger’ the dog.

… feeding Tyger

Until we write again, best wishes and take care,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a while since we last ‘blogged’, so there’s lots to talk about!

Father’s Day this year was wonderful… In the morning, we all had a sleep in and then spent some quality time with family. Laura enjoyed handing out the presents (and helping to unwrap them of course). We then had a nice lunch and a nap. In the afternoon we went for a drive to the beach. Jason and Laura enjoyed collecting shells, building (and demolishing) sand castles and also getting wet in the waves. We then had some dinner and icecream and returned home.

Here’s a few piccies of our day.

Cheers,

Jason, Chrissy and Laura

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

Well, we have just got back from a lovely holiday in Sydney. I must admit that I enjoyed my time there a lot more than I had expected! There were so many things to do and so many sights to see.

The reason for travelling down to Sydney was to attend the Wedding of some friends, Justin and Sarah. But with the Grandparents looking after Laura, we thought we would make the most out of the trip and spend some quality time together. The flight down to Sydney was uneventful and included a quick change over flight in Brisbane. We arrived at Sydney late Thursday morning, located our bags and grabbed a shuttle bus to our Motel. We couldn’t check in until 2pm, so we left our bags there and headed towards Darling Harbour. It was raining so we decided to see some of the indoor sights!

First stop was the Aquarium… and I must say it was awesome! If you enjoy looking at platypuses, turtles, all types of fresh and salt water fish, seals, sea horses, sting rays and, of course, sharks, then it is definitely the place to be!

Next, we visited the Maritime Museum, which had various historical displays including artefacts from early Australian exploration and the old whaling days. It also had a fair few Navy relics and some old pieces from historical boats and war ships.

After a couple of hours walking, our feet were really feeling it, so we decided to head back to our Motel to check in and take it easy for a while. After a bit of a rest, we headed into The Rocks to catch up with the Bride and Groom and a few friends for dinner. We went to a nice Italian place where we shared a pizza. It was nice to catch up with some of Chrissy’s old school friends and after dinner we went to a pub for a few drinks and generally had a good time.

By Friday morning, it was time for more sight seeing, so after a great breakfast we headed towards some of the major shopping areas. We walked through the Queen Victoria Building which contains shops well out of reach of our price range, but it was interesting to look at! We also looked at Centrepoint Tower shopping centre, but decided to pass on the $200+ ‘tower walk’! After that, the weather started to fine up so we headed towards Circular Quay. We visited the Sydney Opera House and the Botanical Gardens and could see the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park. As the sun started to set, we headed back to the Motel to prepare for another night out on the town.

We decided to try the “Star City” Casino and had a great time. Best of all, we had some luck on both Blackjack and Roulette, which payed for dinner and a few drinks! We visited one of the restaurants and a few of the bars, as well as the night club where we went for a dance, getting back at around 3am in the morning!

After a bit of a sleep in (naturally) on Saturday morning, we had some breakfast and then headed to Paddy’s markets. We couldn’t help ourselves, so we bought Laura a few t-shirts including an ‘Aussie’ shirt, which looks like an Australian cricket shirt (poor girl)! If you like looking at knick-nacks, cheap clothes and various electric gadgets then this was a great place to visit. As you can imagine, this consumed a number of hours!

We then headed back to our Motel, which wasn’t that far away, where we grabbed a bite to eat and got ready for the Wedding. The ceremony was held at The Garrison Church which was built around the early 1800’s. After some photo’s, we then headed to the “Lord Nelson” pub for a few drinks and Chrissy got to catch up with all her old school friends which was great. The cricket was on the TV at the pub, however the funny thing was that no-one seemed interested in watching it, until I realised that the game was between Queensland and Tasmania and I was in New South Wales

After a couple of hours had passed we then headed to the reception which was held at the Waters Edge. Talk about location…. This place had an awesome view of the harbour, Luna Park, Harbour Bridge and the city. It was an awesome sight to simply see, let alone have dinner and attend a reception at a place like this, so we lapped up every minute! The only downer was that it was $8 for a bourbon and coke, but other than that, the meals were awesome and some of the best we’ve ever had! Even though there was around 170 guests at the Wedding, it was still really intimate and lots of fun, so we really enjoyed ourselves.

Sunday and it was my Birthday. After a bit of a sleep in (again, got to get our money’s worth), we headed down to Circular Quay again and jumped on the Manly Ferry. The ferry was pretty cool and arrived at Manly Beach around lunch time. We went for a walk and grabbed some fish and chips. We then went for a walk along the beach front, around to Shelly Beach. Talk about busy, there were people everywhere! Though the weather was perfect for the beach and I didn’t mind seeing lots of girls wearing bikini’s either

After the walk, it was time for us to head back to the mainland and then to our Motel. Again after a bit of a rest, we headed out to a very nice restaurant called “I’m Angus” where I had one of the best steaks I have ever had. The meal, though expensive, was awesome… We then went for a great walk and then headed to the Casino again where we were lucky enough to win some more money, which capped off my Birthday quite well!

On Monday, we headed to the Powerhouse Museum. There was everything from science and technology to space, to sustainable communities and computers! I must admit I enjoyed it a lot more than the Maritime Museum, but, if anything, there was almost too much to look at and it was quite easy to get lost, but definitely worth the trip.

We had some lunch and then checked out of the Motel and headed to the airport, which was where the real fun began. To cut a long story short, our flight from Sydney left around 5pm and it was one of the roughest flights I have ever been on and we landed in Brisbane around 20-30 minutes late. But that was nothing, we then sat at Brisbane airport for another 5 hours as our connecting flight had been delayed because of bad weather and storms… we were due back in Rocky at 8pm, however we didn’t arrive until 2am!!!
Oh well, we had a fantastic time anyway and we’re looking forward to another trip sometime soon which will take us into the Suburbs to catch up with friends and family!!!

Cheers,
Jason and Chrissy

I just thought I would post a picture of my workplace, as many people don’t believe that someone can use as many computers as I have.

For those of you who are a little technological, I have a few Linux boxes (RedHat Fedora Core 3), an Imac and of course a Windows XP machine.

As you can see they keep me busy.

Cheers,
Jason.

To the Bell Family, October is a big thing… no I better rephrase that, it’s ‘huge’!!! In fact, most Bell Family birthdays appear in October, so traditionally, you don’t even start thinking about Christmas until October has passed!

Here’s a piccie of the entire Bell Family, taken on Jason’s birthday (lucky Laura came early, or we may have added another Bell to the October birthday list)!

Anyway, cheers to all and thanks for keeping an eye on our web site!

G’day Everyone

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for visiting our website.

Please feel free to leave your own comments on any of the entries on the website. This can be easily done by clicking on the “comments” link at the bottom of each of the entry.

Both Chrissy and I would love to hear from you all and to hear what you think of Laura or anything else!!!!

Please keep visiting this website as we hope to keep regularly updating this site to keep you all informed.

Until then, I will catch you all later,
Jason.

Jason and Chrissy,

This is a little ‘baby born’ gift for you both. All of us in the honours room have been telling Jason for a while that he needs to setup a blog where he can write about all the renovations you are both doing and post all the photos he emails us all every few weeks.

Now that bub is almost here, we thought it would be the ideal ‘bub being born’ gift so that you can both blog about whats been going on with bub and the renos and everything else. You can even post pictures for all us loyal readers to look at.

Jason can no longer say he is too busy to set one up, cause its all done for him. Never again do you have to worry about emailing pictures out to everyone, just post them on the blog and give everyone the URL – easy

So yeah, We all hope you enjoy it and use it a lot. We all want to know whats going on and see cool pictures of bub and the renos and whatever else you feel like putting on there.

Everyone else has written their own message below, if we can work this then anyone can.

Ill stop babling now, have a play, hope you like it, and i hope you get a lot of use out of it.

cheers,
Brett

Remember cleaning is easy. Pegs, a clothesline, and use the garden hose. You can do the nappies that was too.

All the best to the pair… um… three (or more) of you and try to get some sleep.

Kurt.

We want to see hourly, daily and monthly updates complete with baby photos and funny stories Jason

And your home handyman work too!!!

All the best,

Thomas

Perhaps the best way to introduce this weblog is with another log:

[16:46] *** Aceman has left the conversation.
[16:46] Nikku: bot poll create Most entertaining Honours Room (or Honourary Honours Room) occupant :p
[16:46] Bot:
[16:46] Bot: New poll created by Nikku: Most entertaining Honours Room (or Honourary Honours Room) occupant :p
[16:47] The Brettasaurus: bot poll vote jason
[16:47] Bot: Vote accepted!
[16:47] The Brettasaurus:
[16:47] Bot:
[16:47] Nikku: bot poll vote Jason
[16:47] Bot: Vote accepted!
[16:48] Lab Monkey: bot poll vote Jason
[16:48] Bot: Vote accepted!
[16:48] melanie: bot poll vote jason
[16:48] Bot: Vote accepted!
[16:48] The Brettasaurus: Wonder how fast / often we get a “Hey does anyone want to see these new baby photos!!!???!1111″
[16:48] The Brettasaurus: messgae
[16:48] Roland: bot poll vote jason and renovation
[16:48] Bot: Vote accepted!
[16:48] melanie: jason needs a blog.
[16:48] Nikku: We really need Jason to get a blog
[16:48] The Brettasaurus: jason needs a blog
[16:48] The Brettasaurus: lets get him a blog as a baby born present (Y)
[16:48] Bot: Perhaps, The Brettasaurus.
[16:49] Nikku: (Y)
[16:49] The Brettasaurus: him and chrissy a family blog (Y)
[16:49] The Brettasaurus: i can host it…
[16:49] Nikku: Buy him a domain name for a year or something
[16:49] Nikku: domain + blog hosting
[16:49] The Brettasaurus: hrmmm good idea!

And so it began. We hope you – Jason, Chrissy, and Bub – enjoy!
-Nick.

PS. Jason won the above poll in a landslide victory of 5.125 votes out of 8! (Tanya voted for everyone )

wednesday, 15 september, 2004 15:15 MAT

ooh, ooh! a blog for jason, chrissie, and bub.
post photos here instead of emailing them to us! *cuz we know you’ll have lots*
blog how you are feeling. *how tired you are*
blog bub’s recent achievements. *hitting sixes at age 3 months*
blog frustrations. *bub peed on me whilst nappies were being changed three times in a row! dirtied three perfectly clean shirts. DO BABIES HAVE THAT MUCH PEE?!?!?*

but most of all, blog cuz it’s fun.
good or bad, every memory will become dear to you, and there will be lots!
you’ll be super glad that you did. *bub might not, but that’s part of the fun.*

,` ) best wishes from melanie