Project Life: Week 31

Hi again… I’ve got Week 31 which was July 27th – August 2nd.  Mike’s been pretty busy with another D.I.Y. project.  This time he’s creating an art studio for me.  It’s consuming quite a bit of time after work and on the weekends but he’s making pretty quick progress.

Here’s an overview of the week:

The Council have been working in the park behind our house cutting down all the eucalyptus trees because they’re causing all sorts of problems… blocking out sunlight and interfering with TV reception and power lines.  While it’s been quite interesting to watch it hasn’t been much fun to listen to because each time another tree falls Toby starts barking again!

We’ve had the fire going 24/7 for the past few weeks so when we woke up to embers in the fire the other day Mike decided that it was time to clear out the fire box a bit.  It certainly helped the fire to run more efficiently.

Here’s a close up of the start of the week:

I got a lovely surprise this week in the mail.  Esther sent me an ice cream cookbook which is going to be very useful… especially once summer arrives!

Mike had a day off this week due to bad weather so he spent the day working in the garage.  He’d already had a big clean out and the next job was putting up a wall right down the middle of the garage to separate it into two halves.  He did a great job and recycled as much as he could.  By the end of the day he even had the workbench and shelving moved over to ‘his’ side of the garage.

We did stop for some lunch at some point and I had a Jester’s pie which was really delicious!

The rest of the week went by in a bit of a blur although we did have Tracey and Danny around for a pizza dinner one night which was a great way to end the day!

On Saturday Mum invited us over to Tauranga to see the brand new Hairy Maclary sculptures down at the waterfront but Mike was itching to get back into the garage project so I went over on my own and left the boys at home.

The sculptures were absolutely awesome!  We met up with my sister Katey and her family down at the waterfront and they even brought their dog, Murphy.  I did consider bringing Toby but to be honest he tends to get a bit overwhelmed when there’s too many dogs and people around him so he was better off staying at home with Dad. 

It was a pretty nice day in Tauranga and there were loads of people out looking at the sculptures and just enjoying the park.  Here’s an insert I made for my album:

The girls loved climbing over all the sculptures and Jessie was really taken by the stilt walkers!  They even had a doggie ‘selfie’ stand and Murphy had his photo taken.  While we were down at the park someone handed me a voucher for lunch at ‘American Rye’ and it included FREE meals for all the kids to celebrate Hairy Maclary Day!  Since we had four kids with us we decided that it was an awesome idea.  In fact it really was awesome and we all decided that we’d go back again… GREAT food and GREAT service! Here’s the back of my insert which totally focuses on lunch… and some camera fun!

While all this was going on in Tauranga, Mike was very busy back in Rotorua working away on his project.  I was telling Mum all about it as we were driving back to her place and I suddenly noticed a cabinet outside a store that was exactly the look I was thinking about so I stopped and took a photo… turns out Mike thinks it’s pretty cool as well so I might be giving my desk a bit of a makeover!

Here’s a close up of the rest of the week:

By the time I got home on Saturday night Mike had a total wall up dividing the garage and he even had the ceiling started.  I was really wondering HOW he’d gotten the Gib up on the ceiling so on Sunday he showed me… there’s nothing like a bit of kiwi ingenuity!

Mike is really loving putting his D.I.Y. skills to good use and he’s certainly not work shy that’s for sure.  He’s put in a new power socket unit with four outlets so I’ll be able to have my heat gun, glue gun, computer and silhouette cameo all going at the same time!  He’s also put in EIGHT lights which will give me excellent lighting for creating!  I’m getting quite excited about my new crafting space.

We do take out time to just relax together as well and one of our current favourite shows is ‘Banished’.  It’s set in Australia in 1788 and it’s got a great story line.  Mike’s favourite argument is ‘why don’t they hunt for food instead of relying on their rotten rice?’… I guess we’ll just have to keep watching and see what happens next.

So that was our week 31.  I hope you’re all staying safe and warm xx