Nicholas and Cricket

Poor Nicholas has had a run of bad luck with cricket this season. It has either been raining and called off or, as it is now, he has hurt himself and cannot play. Last Saturday week he did get to play a game though, and so finally got to wear all his gear that he got for his birthday. Even that game ended on a bit of a sour note though, just as it was his turn to bat, his team got run out and so he never made it to the pitch. Gary did get some great pics of him though, all done up and practising with his coach.

Nicholas is bowling...

Great swing :)

Such a busy life I lead...

Well, it has been positively ages since my last post, I have been so busy, but no idea what doing LOL

Do you like the new look? Although I design my own digital scrap booking kits, I had to purchase someone else's work to make the changes to this Blog. I love this Kit, it comes with heaps of backgrounds, three different headers and lots of other bits and pieces. It also comes with full illustrated instructions for making the changes to the code and then uploading to Blogger. I still have a few things to sort out, 'cos I lost my favorite Blogs, among other things, but I'm sure I'll get it figured out sooner or later.. no biggie :) This, and another Blog Building kit, is available at Scrap Professor and is created by Tallula Moon Designs. What a clever clogs she is :)

I have a few photos to share with you since my last post. Nicholas has been in the wars... poor thing got smashed by a fast bowler at cricket practice and ended up with a really bruised shoulder and also a bruise from the rebound, on his chin. Then last week, he fell over in the school yard playing handball, and has a suspected fractured wrist. So now he is in a splint and wearing a sling for two weeks til they check him out again at the hospital, then the cast will either be off or on again for another month. Of course he is more annoyed because it is his left wrist and doesn't prevent him from writing :) However, I have noticed that it doesn't prevent him from playing on the computer, but does from putting away the dishes... LOL

and here he is pretending to be in agony LOL

We have had some amazing downpours since moving to NSW. They always seem to happen on the weekend which prevents Nicholas from playing cricket. Last weekend, we got another rainstorm, so I got out and took a few photos. I am not as good as Gary is at catching the closeups but I did get some nice shots :)

It was lovely, you could hardly see two feet in front of you, but it was so nice to see the ground just drinking it up! After living with the drought in South Australia, it is wonderful to be experiencing all this rain!

News on my health

For those of you that have been following my health issues, I went back to the Drs yesterday. I saw my GP in the morning and found out that the blood tests I had done were all fine (the CT scan I had showed a possible issue with my pituitary gland) but he thought maybe the specialist might want an MRI done as well (didn't need one of these). Then off to Orange to see the ENT Specialist. The CT scan that I had done showed a soft tissue growth in the airspace within my inner ear, however the specialist did not feel that this was causing my dizziness at all. He felt that this was probably the result of childhood infections, I had a lot of ear infections as a kid, and nothing to worry about. Apparently the problem was caused by the move to New South Wales ( I knew this place wasn't good for my health LOL ). I had upset all these crystals in my inner ear and they were floating around all over the place instead of sitting nicely in the bottom of the canal as they were supposed to . He gave it a lovely name, which I promptly forgot, and then made me lie down on my back on a couch with my head tipping over the end of the bed, looking at the floor. This had the immediate effect of making the room spin. I had to stay there til it stopped spinning and then look over the other shoulder and do the same again. As I had just eaten Hungry Jacks for lunch, you can imagine how difficult it was becoming to retain this food LOL

Then I had to sit up and recover... and then he did it again!! only this time, I wasn't as dizzy and no where near as long. The whole point of the exercise was to resettle the crystals and put them back where they belong. I now have to spend the next three days not looking up or down, not moving my head suddenly, not bending down, and sleeping sitting upright as possible. Very difficult! If that wasn't enough though, I came out to the counter and was handed a bill for $140.00, which I was so NOT expecting! I must have looked shocked 'cos the lovely receptionist asked me if I would like to take an account and pay it later, which I agreed with as I didn't have that sort of money anyway :) The whole experience was horrible, the Dr was gorgeous, and so were his staff, but the test left me feeling so sick I couldn't walk around anymore and had to stay in the car whilst Gary did the grocery shopping. Fortunately he was there as I couldn't have driven the car either.

On the bright side, Nicholas finally got to use his cricket gear at practice, although it was really wet and muddy and it did rain whilst they were playing, he still got his bat, ball and gloves muddy, so he was one happy boy!

And... look what I found when I was making tea the other night... I have never seen one of these before, so we had to get a picture!

more photos

The other day we went outside and found these gorgeous cockatoos sitting in one of our trees. Gary managed to get a really close up pic before they flew away.

They are gorgeous birds but very destructive. Over a very short period of time, they can strip a tree bare of new growth and eventually kill it!

It was Nicholas's 13th Birthday on the 7th and he was very excited as his big sister and her husband were coming over from Sydney for the weekend. We waited up for them on friday night so that he could get his present as we had bought him one from all four of us. They eventually arrived at 10:30pm, way past my bedtime ( LOL ) and we sat Nicholas down in a chair and told him to close his eyes and hold out his hands. he sat down with his hands spread out wide and a grin on his cheeky face. He was hoping for cricket gear as he had just joined the team in town. I explained to him that as he had already had a big present from us, we bought him a basket ball hoop/stand thingie not long after we got to NSW, he was only getting a small present this time. His hands immediately shot in to meet each other infront of him, still didnt open his eyes and still with a big grin on his face. That movement just cracked us up, it was hard to continue with the gift giving. I handed a small package, it was a tiny bat and ball set meant for toddlers. he jumped up and down and was really excited! He was so funny! Anyway, we couldn't wait any longer, the suspense was killing us, and we made him hide his eyes again. gary bought in a huge parcel that we wrapped up in a picnic blanket for want of anything better, and told him to check it out, here was his real present. He pulled off the balnket and revealed a full set of...... cricket gear. We had managed to find him a bat, ball, gloves, pads and a bag to carry it all in. He was so excited, Saturday morning was their game and Rebekah and Chris were here to watch him and he had all this new stuff to play with. Off to bed, everyone exhausted!

And then..... the bad news..... spent Friday night listening to the rain falling, great for our water supply, but not so great for cricket, it was cancelled. But we did go into Orange to see "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" which was great! (although they werent showing the 3D version which was a shame).

This Saturday, Nicholas was really looking forward to finally showing off his gear and guess what.... I spent Friday night listening to the rain falling, and cricket was cancelled.... again! Hopefully, he will get to use it this Thursday arvo for practice. We did get him done up in it all though for some pics.

and then to top off our week , it was my birthday. Gary brought me a cup of tea and some cake with a candle in the middle and then sang Happy Birthday! It was lovely. I also heard from my Mum and Dad, my sisters, and got a call from my brother. We dont catch up very often so it was lovely to hear from him. One of the highlights though, was about 12 emails from all the Scrapbook sites I belong too sending me a Happy Birthday email. I also had my birthday announced on my good friend Pam's Scrapping Blog LOL

Isn't that cute!