The windows have gone in, so the shape of the house is starting to appear.

A sign of the times... Living in a global market.

Who would have thought that Somalian pirates could jeopardise a house build the other side of the world!

In a bid to save some coin, we are buying the bathrooms and kitchen appliances over the internet in the UK and shipping them.
The bathroom pieces are already on their way and will pass through the Gulf of Adan in the next week - fingers crossed our toilets will receive a US Naval escort :/

I am tracking the container ship via satellite and get a little nervous when it stops mid ocean...

Excluding finances, the build is going really well. We are actually two weeks ahead of schedule.
The builders are good fun and really know their stuff, which is actually making it a pleasure albeit lots of work.

Joel has started to play 'soccer' for the Seaforth Zebras.
The offside rules still needs some work as it's more like bees around a honey pot :)

And in their first game they beat the Manly Vale Sharks 11-1, with the 1 being one of our team getting mixed up as to which end to score in!! LOL

So I'm running a little experiment, adding ads to our blog (apologies in advance!). We get a number of people viewing our site from all around the world and so I'm going to see if I can fund the build of our house... ok, maybe fund the purchase of the numbers on the front of the house, so click away and let's see if you can help us.

Coldplay, Sydney.

So we went to see Coldplay's Viva la viva tour. Didn't have the best seats, but still a good concert.
Half way through the performance the band ran to the other end of the stadium and performed an acqustic set just below us, which was good even though we were looking at the back of their heads...

We have bricks!

Finally, the project has moved from pouring money into the ground to actually starting to see something that will resemble our home. Even my Ducati wall is up.

Work continues.

The project is ticking along, actually ahead of schedule - tempting fate I know!
Stress levels are still fairly high, but we are in a controlled panic, which is acceptable.
Concrete floors should be finished later this week.

I've just signed off the purchase of my new Ducati 1098! YAH!




The only problem is that in reality it's not a Ducati I have actually purchased, but a garden retaining wall which costs the same as a Ducati 1098! For a garden wall!!! I could cry...

The start of my Ducati:

Not a huge amount of progress again this week. We have had a lot of rain during the week and the excavation guys don't like to get their diggers dirty.

Not sure what happened to the summer, it has done nothing but rain for the past five days and progress has been slow. It's been a bad week, with some unexpected and rather large bills being found, which always happens - we just hope there aren't too many more...

Progress on the house has been good, although it's been a bit warm for the guys on site.

No really, pinch me...

It has been 18 months since our offer was accepted on the block of land and finally after we successfully defeated Dr Evil (Warringah Council - see early postings) we are ....
FINALLY STARTING TO BUILD OUR HOUSE!!!!! YAH!

First step was to start clearing the land.

Unfortunately our carbon footprint has gone through the roof, with the removal off all trees on the site. Unfortunately, we couldn't keep any of them. But Mollie has been given the task of choosing and growing the replacements.

Pinch me, is it really happening?

Joel's first day at school. It all went smoothly, with no tears.
The hardest part was to stop Mum doing kart wheels through the playground!

During the summer holidays Anita, Mollie and Joel got fly back to Perth and visit friends.

Being English I still struggle with New Years Day on the beach... Happy New Year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We all hope you have a healthy and happy year. I plan to. :)

Any opportunity to hit the water.

Likewise anyone with a boat set anchor in the harbour to get a good view of the fireworks.

New Years Eve.
Mollie wanted to test out her new Heelys and so we went to Taronga zoo for the day.

Christmas lunch at Maria and Andy's in Seaforth. The weather was great and so it was lunch outside and the afternoon in the pool.