Finally, Dr Evil (Warringah council) has been defeated.
We now have planning approval on our application and so have the green light to start, well almost.

Just when our local council thought they had the upper hand, with their evil plans to rid the Northern Beaches of new houses.... We have our own "laser" in the form of a lawyer who says we have a rock solid case and has threatened legal action against Dr Evil and his evil henchmen the Development Application team.

One of Anita's friends Emma came over from Perth for a long weekend and some serious shopping!

Making use of our Taronga zoo passes. We have been a number of times now, but the zoo is so large that we still haven't seen every animal yet.

A nice picture of Joel at Chowder Bay

A picture of our local coastline, South Curl Curl.

Dear Santa... 1 water pistol, LARGE!

Back in the saddle with the arrival of spring.

I have joined a team of guys who are in a Sailing racing series. Our first race was last Sunday and so I need to start reading up on my sailing terms. Oh and practice drinking lots of beer.

Just a funny picture of Joel going crazy. :D

Thankfully the weather looks to be shaping up for a good summer. We met some friends at Little Manly and the kids even had an ice cream from the Ice Cream boat.

Balgowlah North Primary School held a performance 'Once upon a dance'. There were two performances held at the local theatre and for those parent who missed it, it was performed again at the school.
Mollie's class performed 'Hansel and Gretel', which was great.
She was a little star after performing only days after being in hospital.
Unfortunately, the performance at the theatre restricted taking photos, so these are from the performance at her school.

I think Carol Beer has been replaced at the council offices.
The planning application is not going well. For some reason they are looking for any possible reason to reject the application, instead of helping us to resolve issues.
It's going to be an interesting few weeks ahead, with a lot at stake.
Fingers crossed.

Progress on the house has been very slow - and I now think Carol Beer (Little Britain) is now working for Warringah Council.
The plans have been with the council for five months now and they are being very pedantic.
We are hoping to get the approval before October..... hoping.

2008 City 2 Surf. The city to Bondi beach.
12kms and 70,000 people. I was trying to complete the course in a time under 60 minutes, but by the time I'd parked, 30,000 people were in front of me at the start line. I spent the first 3 kms trying to run around people. I finally completed the course in 1:09.32 and in 15348 place.
Next year....

Yeah! Spring is here!
It's not been a wet winter, but very cold - especially in our rental !
So we are all pleased to see the weather improving.

So after seeing all of those animals, everyone wanted to sit down, relax and have a quiet half an hour - or maybe not... Everyone was so excited seeing all of the animals and then being recharged on party food it was like trying to herd cats on Red Bull! :)

Mollie and her cake.

Then it was 'Crash' the Bandicoot.

They got to see a Sydney local, the Sydney Funnel Web spider, which thankfully stayed in the box, as it's the deadliest spider. The boys liked it, the girls were not so sure.

Mollie then got to help out and became lunch (a rabbit herself) for a Diamond Back snake.

The animals started with the not-so native rabbit.

Mollie's 8th birthday party.
Mollie had her party at Taronga zoo. Mollie and her friends got to have their own zoo keeper for the afternoon, showing them the animals up close and then a party in the zoo.

Joel has been learning to blow out his candles and he passed with full colours, with not too much spit on the icing :)

The best part of the party was they all had lunch on an old bus.

Joel's 5th birthday.

For Joel's birthday party we went to a soft play center.

Lack of camera, too much work... excuses excuses.
Now that the weather is improving, we are venturing out again and so I'll try to update the blog again.

The Queen's birthday. God bless her, because it means we get a public holiday! Happy birthday Ma'am.
So we decided to go and see the dinosaurs at the museum.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I still haven't worked out which camera I want to buy and now that we have been given notice on our rental, we are having to spend our free time searching for a new place to live - which is proving harder than we hoped for.

It is with deep regret that we had to recently return to the UK as John passed away.
We will all miss him dearly.

The second wedding anniversary gift was tickets to watch a boy dance around in tights. (A father's nightmare...)
Although, I do concede that it was excellent and the dancers were very impressive.
It still wanted me to go out and buy Joel a Rugby League top...

Our wedding anniversary.
In true married couple tradition, we decided to buy our own gifts and the choices are fairly obvious!
First, rock concert tickets at Acer Arena to see the Foo Fighters.
The concert was excellent and we had good seats.

At the weekend we went to stay with friends who had rented a house in Boomerang Beach. It was a fantastic house with panoramic views of the ocean, through huge glass doors. The same doors that the burglars came through the night we arrived and took my phone, camera our friends week old laptop and ipod...

It's been a while I know, but work has been a little crazy.


Anyway, the Australian government have deemed that we are 'suitable' to stay indefinitely and have granted us permanent residency.