More of the remodel.

My great attempt at tiling. Once you get into the groove it's quite easy. You can see my underpants quite nicely but what you can't see is the sweat dripping from my face and nose...it was slightly hot that day.

Vick..what a trooper. 81/2 months pregnant but managed top help out right up until the day of delivery. She was amazing!

Whats a house project without Bob, a face mask and a saw. As always the Boo-bi was legendary with his cutting precision.

Dave and his "D-WALT" made easy work of drilling down the ....base board wood under lay stuff...you know the stuff that goes under the tile!

Note the fan....drying out the famous flood from 2 days previous.

The remodel.

Behold the mayhem!... we started in the kitchen.you can't see it in the pictures but it was pretty filthy and dated.it really needed priming and painting and we ripped up the chess floorboard too. The wood floors in the dining room came up as well and we ended up tiling throughout.Alot of work!

We also sanded and primed all the existing cupboards and painted them and replaced all the door knobs and hinges.

Then with a little help from Ryan we tiled the countertops and put trip around them. I've never tiled before but after a while it was quite easy.

We also painted the walls and got rid of the red paint...looked like a slaughterhouse.

We bought new kitchen appliances and everyone knows about my experience with the plumbing of the dishwasher. Yes the whole place was covered in an inch of water....nightmare. Oh well.

You can see the kitchen taking shape in these pictures. The tile on the countertops pretty much transformes the whole thing and at this point we couldn't wait to get the whole thing finished. But as you can see it all turned out well in the end. Thanks to our friends and family who all helped us so much. We never would have got it all done.

Thanks to Boo-bi and Dave for the crash course in tiling in 90 degrees weather and for bringing the tools to do it..coz lets face it..I'm not exactly a collector of such items...but I'm working on it.

Thanks to the family for moving us in, painting,organizing the garage(Janeen) putting up lights in the garage (Bob) and just for everyines willingness to help us get settled in time fo Luciana to arrive. We realise that this blog update is overdue but here it is anyway...thanks everyone!

All smiles!

Lucy at 1o weeks...and loving life already. She's such a happy little thing..unless she's hungry!!

We just can't believe how good our little Luciana is. She loves going to bed!.....we can't figure it out and we're pretty sure it won't continue. But as for now she is sleeping 9 hrs a night and waking up with a big grin on her face. She loves to hang out with Mum all day, watching Law and Order and doing laundry....and sleeping of course. And when Dad comes home..smelling like "kitchen" she gives a big grin and usually gurgles something.

More pictures to follow

Lucy baby!

More snapshots of me in various poses. I love hanging out with my Mum and eating constantly...did I mention that I am already a clothes horse?

Luciana photo shoot!

Lucy is here!!

Finally she arrives!...after 18 hrs of hard and at times painful labor and a long night Our little Luciana arrived at 6am on September 8th weighing in at 8lb 9oz and 21 1/2 inches long. She is beautiful. Her hobbies are eating, sleeping, sucking her tongue, looking around the room and peeing alot.

Vick is doing great. A little sore and bruised but overjoyed and completely obsessed with baby.

We are so happy and realise that life is alot different now. We are up for it though and cant wait for everyone to meet her. we are so excited that she has the unique gift of having loving family in 2 countries and that she'll get to experience another culture and get to learn how to speak and spell properly....ha ha!

Enjoy the pictures everyone!!

'Bout Time!!!

Hi everyone!

Well Lou and I are still saving hard and are looking to leave the 1st November. Plan is to go to HAwaii, Fiji, NZ, Oz and Thailand. we've pretty much got peopletp stay with everywhere we go so that should keep costs down... good jb too 'cos we counted up how much spending money we are gonna have after our tickets and insurances and.... well..... gonna be a budget learning experience!
Still living with the two girls in the flat and basically living in a room! It's like living in a charity shop with all our vintage clothes and various retro obje' d'art. I must admit though, I've learnt to control certain bodily muscles and valves and have shown tremendous courage in maintaining a calm exterior whilst my belly has gathered wind quicker than a tethered wind balloon prior to launch!
So all in all life is good and at last moving in a positive direction and a newer happier chapter. We love you all and are tryig to figure out the best way to try and see you all before we go. We hope you are all well and happy xxx Stu & Lou xxx

Drowning!

Congrats Clare....assuming congrats are in order....you sound happy about it anyway. I have Man friends lining up actually.

Well last night I tried to disconnect an old dishwasher and managed to flood our kitchen and dining room..nightmare!
I practically jet washed the kitchen walls and ceiling and freshly painted cabinets. A total disaster.
We cleaned it up and I washed out my paint brushes and rollers in the sink for about 20 minutes then realised all the water was draining directly onto the kitchen floor...about 1/2 inch of water . Double flooding in 1 night.
Vick, bless her was very supportive and didn't flip out. and I managed not to swear!

Anway, we went to the doctor and our new official date is September 12th. Everything looks good and we can't wait..especially Vick. She is just beginning to get fed up with being pregnant.

Back on the Market!

Hello All!

Just to let you know I am single again and have been for the past week. Feel free to sell me to your friends!

I am very happy and I am certain I have made the right choice!

Love you all! Me xxx

(the picture was taken on Saturday at West Wittering beach)

3 weeks to go!

We are 3 weeks or so away from Babys arrival. We are frantically tryuing to get the house finished before it all happens. We have moved and painted all the inside and we are currently trying to get the kitchen remodelled as quick as we can. We're going to tile the counter tops and kitchen flloor and then I'm going to try my hand at plumbing in a new dishwasher!..we'll see how that goes. So life is busy as usual with plenty to do....oh yes I even pressure washed the house and will be painting it next week. We love our new place and the town we live in. We feel settled and are ready enough for little Lucy to arrive.

Thanks for everyones blogs. I've actually lost my camera for now so I havn'[t got pictures. I will find it and get pictures posted.

Brain Ache

What a great idea to keep in touch and share stuff! My entry here is long overdue,but it starts now.Life for me has been a bit rough recently,i quit my useless job coz i couldn't handle it,and went to see my doctor who did a few tests and told me i have anxiety and depression,apparently there's a chemical juice of some sort that's meant to help me plan,organise,and feel naturally high,but i burn it off before my day even starts,so i'm on tablets,and incapacity benefit!! I am applying for jobs though, but no luck as yet,doesn't help when i get rejected by Mcdonalds, I must not have enough spots or something.
Sarah and I are doing well,we've started playing tennis of an evening,just gets us exercising and doing something fun,and Sarah plays golf alot too,which she loves.
Me and my mate "Fish" started a covers band,but the bass player dropped out as it wasn't his thing,so i'm not doing anything music wise at the mo,so i thought i'd put this picture up,taken during a gig a few years ago,i don't know what my face is doing but i was busy at the time! Love you all
Stevie xxxx

William's Chateau!

After a few months of dealing with the council and stalking the housing office I have managed to wangle Grandad a little bungalow in Lower Halstow. It means no more driving to London for Mum, a better quality of Grandads life as he will get to see more people and have neighbours of the same age (I met his next door neighbour Margaret - she's lovely!). Its a much safer place for Grandad to be and I know he will be happy. Mum and Dad have been really busy organising the move and arranging moving vans and all the gumph that comes with moving and have been total hero's! It just could not have happened without them.

Bungalow Bill's official move is on the 25th of July and even he is really excited! Steve and I went over to help pack all his ornaments and golf trophies etc and he was getting so excited about it all, its great to see him looking so happy about something!

Well, here are a few pictures of his new pad, its just perfect for him. He has ordered new carpet (biege with flecks of colour I have been informed!) and is buying a red velour couch...hmmmm!!!

I'll keep you posted and send you new pics once he's settled!

Passed!

Phew! I am not sure who does and doesn't know but I managed to pass my exams with a first which is really good apprently! I am well please and suprised that I am capable of doing fairly depthy chemical equations even though I failed my maths GCSE twice!

One year down and five to go! GULP!

IT'S ALL OURS!

Today we finally signed papers and bought our new house. As you can see its a box. $309,000 doesn't get you much in this particular part of the region but at least its close to work and has everything we need. It does need some work as you can see. I guess we have a busy couple of months ahead of us. We'll be painting both inside and outside first of all then a slight remodel of the kitchen and then we'll focus on the garden..front and back.

Note Vicks new car already in the driveway.

We're really excited about the house and especially the area it's in. Can't wait for you all to come out and visit when you can.

7 months and looking gorgeous!

Here's Vick yesterday with our neice Emily.

As you can see she's looking great. 2 months to go!

NEW HOUSE!!

Finally!!! We close on the new house on Monday. We are very excited. We are moving to a 3 bedroom baungalow in Duvall. We will be house poor!!...but thats o.k....we can be poor for a while.
I will post pictures as soon as I take some. We will be doing lots and lots of painting and tiling and work in the garden.
So much change going on in our lives right now. It's crazy but we don't feel stressed out....trying to just go with the flow.

Pictures to follow!

Emily's concert

Emily was invoved in her school concert last thursday. It was titled Troy story and was the story of the Greeks and the Trojans. Emily was a greek dancer and was very excited. Due to daft rules we were not allowed to film it or take photos but afterwards we snapped a couple of pic of Emily in her costume.

It's a girl!....for sure.

Here she is.

We went and had a 3D ultra sound today and we were amazed when we saw these pictures. She's baking just nicely as you can see at 7 months. She looks perfect and content.

We're even more excited now!

We're getting close to closing the deal on our new home. We should be moving in around mid July if all goes well. They're putting a new roof on and before we move in we'll probably repaint the outside and inside and change out some of the flooring.
We're really excited to have our own house again..just in time for the baby!

so much news!

I've been dying to get pictures of Vicks tummy out to everyone. As you can see she's grown alot but seems to be loving it.

Hope you like the new glasses!

Today it's 90 degrees and she's suffering slightly.

We have an ultra sound on Monday again so we'll know for sure what it is.