An Inconvenient Truth

Hi All

Bob and I just saw the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and it was absolutely mind blowing. Please, if you all can, go and hire the DVD and watch it. It is not for one minute boring, it is real life, actual happenings. It shows how quickly and how in such a short space of time we are destroying the planet. If your like me and always thought "it's along way off being a big problem" then once you see this you will KNOW that we have got to get our bums in to gear and start doing our part to stop Global Warming. It is predicted that the entire North Pole will have melted within 50 years, that pretty much kisses The Netherlands goodbye and all but floods hundreds of major cities around the world including Australia. Spread the word all, we all have kids, or care about our future enough to want to do this.

Sorry to sound preachy, but watch the film and you will understand. On the right hand side of the screen is a Pledge counter. I challenge you all to Pledge and get our counter up.

Cheers.

Ki

This is that picture of Kiandra. Poor Ang couldn't figure it out so good ol' Dan came to the rescue :)

Hi everybody. This is my first time to contribute on my own so please be patient with me. This picture is of Kiandra sitting in her bumbo chair. She has had a really big week this week. (Anyone without children stop reading here - you will be bored!) While recovering from her first tummy bug we discovered the arrival of her first tooth! She is a little grumpy but no trouble as always. She can sit on her own for a minute before falling flat on her face & now holds her hands out to go to her favourite person rather then a stranger. She chews on her feet rather then her hands and drools like that dog in Turner & Hootch. Speaking of dogs Beau is her best friend. She thinks he is great & so do I as he does not require 8 batteries like most of her XMAS presents, he just keeps going & going........................
Justin is away on another work trip that they informed him about at 10:30 pm last night & he left at 3:30am this morning. He is pissed off, which is funny cause it takes a bit to get under his skin. He is hoping to be home for Australia Day as we always like to have a BBQ but if not he will be home by Saturday. Either way Mum is cooking a lamb roast Friday night so I will be there with or without him. With any luck Glenn & Lisa will be visiting. Ki has a bit of a thing for Glenn, she always smiles at him and stuff & I think it is cause he does not carry one like the rest of us in that baby talk way. It is as if his attention a good challenge for her.
We are off for our usual holiday in Tathra on the 19th of February. It is good to have the caravan as we do not travel light & everything fits in.
Life is really great at the moment & I am very lucky to have all the things I do but I have to say it - I am going insane as a stay at home mum. ( mainly as Ki is asleep more then an average baby)I have even asked Justin to start being a bit more demanding (eg; 3 course meal every night) but he says I should just take it easy. If things were much slower around here I would be asleep. I am keen to go back to work, but can afford to be picky & not work myself into the ground again. It may take months to find the right job. So Dan when you are wondering why I am not contributing to the blog it is cause all I have to talk about is babies & food. Take care everyone.......

Belated Christmas & New Years Wishes

Hi all,

Sorry it has been a while but what can I say the last few weeks/months have been hectic - none more so than over christmas & New Years. Just to quickly fill you all in I have been busy studying to get my final exam out of the way so that I can graduate this year - so far no luck but I will keep pottering along with it - just one measly pass is all I need. Glenn has been busy applying for jobs which is great. His health is going great. The drama since christmas has been that my pops health went down hill rapidly and the Drs were talking only 2 weeks to live. My family were very distraught as pop has been a major part of our lives. He struggled his way through christmas, getting sent home on christmas eve day to basically die as there was nothing they could do for him in hospital - we were angry and hurt at the callousness of it - he couldn't look after himself but they were sending him home!?!. Mum come to visit pop just before he got really ill and was staying with him when he had to go to hospital - her 2 week stayed turned into about 12 weeks. We finally relocated pop back to mum and dads in Albury last weekend after he was released from Junee hospital. The Dr's are now talking that he may have 5 months or more to live (he has fluid retention which is collapsing his lungs and pressuring his heart - and the fluid tablets to relieve it are killing his kidneys so it is no win all round). I am much more at peace with what is happening now which is good. Mum is a great help too as she is doing such a great job looking after him. He will probably be moved into nursing care soon. So that was all a very big emotional upheaval.

Over the break my whole family was home so it was good to see them. Caught up with Ellie which was great. Glenn and I went to Eden with Ang & Justin and some Tumut-ites for New Years eve. It rained the whole time but was lovely anyway. I must be getting old cos I fell asleep at 11.30 - totally missing ringing in the new year! My friend Scott came home from Japan and we hung out heaps over the new years break. Then the day he was meant to fly home his brother in-law committed suicide so he postponed leaving for an extra 2 weeks while he and his family dealt with it. I attended the funeral and the wake. It felt odd cos I didn't know the deceased but I was there for Scott which he really appreciated. It just seems that all my friends lives are crap at the moment - I mean they are strong but are all dealing with death or disease. I hope that you guys are all OK. Sorry to bring the mood down a bit - but that's where I've been at lately. Things are looking up though and hopefully I'll have some more cheerful blogs to post soon - perhaps relating to a house warming party for the summerell clan....2 beers anyone? Here's a pic of me not being doom & gloomy at our xmas party, it was in the members stand at the MTC, it was at night so there was no actual racing going on.

More pictures

Here are a few pics, thought it had been a while so the first one is Lachlan, Mackenzie and I, then there is Bob and Lachie making Milo balls and then a good one of Mackenzie.

Hope everyone is well.

Need some ideas guys!

Just wanted to rack your brains for an idea....
We are thinking about doing a sponsorship thing to raise funds to go to South America - we found out we are heading to Argentina when we do all that volunteer work for four months. Anyway, we thought to have a sponsorship form where people can donate instead of just asking for money would be a good idea.
Thought it would be good to work the van in somehow (a big white van is a bit of an icon here), a lot of people know us from that and it could be quite funny. We want something interesting, not just a climb or walk or something, so what do you reckon we could do with the van?
At the moment all I can think of is how many people can we pack into the van to sleep? Like sleep one night with 5 people in it or something...
Suggestions????
Thanks guys! JodesX

Mmmm snails!

MERRY CHRISTMAS GUYS! While you were chomping on... ah.... turkey and ham... we were munching into snails, and let me tell you they were great! Christmas in Paris and having a good time. Yep, wish you were all with me! Funny, love the lights and the cold feel and all that, feels sort of more Christmassy, but being away from home doesn't. Did a few of the main sites today, Notre Dame, walking along the river, eating a not-so-great crepe, and we actually scored an upgrade in our hotel from the turned out to be nice (amazing I know!) French lady in the hotel. Bitterly cold here. Feet and fingers freezing! Couldn't see much of the good old Eiffel Tower today through the fog. Let us know what you are all up to, would love to hear! Love Jodes and Danxx

Merry Christmas

Hi All

What's going on? No new Blogs in a while :)

Well, I thought I would just say that I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Only 5 sleeps to go. Hope everyone gets spoiled.

Cheers
Danny, Bob, Lachie and Kenzie.

Fun at work

This is a couple of pics from last week at work. We were raising money for Make a Kids Day (clown doctors mainly). The first pic is me and my staff at the bank and the other is our Dollarmite Addy (all the kids thought she was Dora the Explorer) in front of the bank car. It was heaps of fun walking down the street with this Dollarmite, everyone was just gob smacked, it was funny, we raised about $260 which wasn't too bad from one day.

You want photos!

Ok what do we have here. St Finbarr's Cathedral in Cork - very cool inside - has a touch of Westminster Abbey to it I think. Where we live on the map, but Danny would already know that (lol). And a portrait of me!

Yep, pictures are ALL MINE

No recent significance with this shot - took it while in ummmmm Egypt. What other photos would you want me to put on this site?

Can't ad a picture????

Hi All

I have been trying to ad a few pics and Ellie, I know you have been having trouble too adding pictures. Apparently there is something wrong with Blogger, I was in their forum and about a million people are having same problem, so my bet is to ride it out and it should get fixed.

Cheers
Danny

Alca-ma-hol...

Hey guys

Just a quickie as there's lots of bumming still to do... only 3 wks to Xmas!! And then it's the NY and I have to start job-hunting! No fair!

Not much going on - in between eating and drinking very well (!), I'm still cruising at the beach, but I'm also teaching myself French from this DVD I've had for ages now - it's really interesting. J'aime la plage! I'm also doing a bit of drawing, which I don't think I've done since high school - interesting too, although think I have a way to go before I'm a particularly good drawer!

Lisa and I had a brilliant bum around and catch-up the other weekend when she was down in Sydney (no pics of Kylie Lisa?). And last weekend Mark and I went up to the hunter valley and did some wine tasting - it was brilliant! I've never done it before, but it was so good and so much fun - I want to go back again soon. I can't believe I lived in Canberra for so many years and never visited the wineries around there! Doh...

Has anyone seen the movie The Corporation? We rented it and watched it again last night - such a thought-provoking movie (although it's a bit propaganda-ist itself!). I just ordered a copy of it online. It really is amazing when you think about how much stuff you buy and how much of it you throw out again (packaging etc but also when you just chuck stuff out instead of trying to reuse it or fix it if it's broken). Was just having a dig around and found this good little checklist of stuff you can do that's really easy to build into your routine. Think I'll go back to hankerchiefs...

Hmm no pics today since the site won't let me upload them for some reason - will try again another day. Take care guys.

Well.... here's some more.

well hello again. Been a little quiet lately... been busy at school and doing some social writing for the paper. Cool thing with the paper is I get to go to whatever social events I want for free (pretty much). Went to the theatre this week, and a wine tasting and the launch of the mini cooper (which wasn't that great... more like a night club and I am getting too old for those sort of things.... lol)
Anyway, to fill you in on some bits: last weekend we went away and stayed in a nearby county called Kerry again. We helped out a mate of ours who is doing his Phd on some sort of fish studies. It was beautiful there but really cold! Nice local pub though, in practically the middle of nowhere! Stayed in our van in the pub's carpark. So windy here lately! Yesterday a guy got blown off the bridge into the river because it was so windy. And I was on bus duty at school which means because these kids have so many 'problems' we can't let the little things walk from the bus to the school building - who knows what they will do or where they will go. So in practically terential rain and wind I had to go out and lead these kids in, bus after bus... lovely!
Taking it easy this weekend though. The pics are us at a lake on Kerry, the lake, and Dan and some of our mates in a pub on his birthday.

Me Again

Don't know if you all know, but my brother Ben and sister Jessie were personally invited to compete in the World Line Dance Championships in Nashville next December and I have conned Bob into letting me go with them. I am pretty excited. We were all going to go but it would have cost way too much, so Bob has agreed that I can go as long as I take Lachie, so it was a deal. I still have over a year until we go, but I am already planning where I want to go (Nashville will only be a small bit of the trip for me - line dancing isn't really my thing, i'm just the fan club - lol). I want to try and get an around the world ticket so I can come home via London (hopefully arrange to see you Jode), Dubai and Hong Kong. Anyway, hopefully I will do it this time, everytime I arrange to go on a big trip, something comes up and I can't do it. Well, just wanted to share that with y'all.
Oh, this is a pic of Lachie and I at Whiteman Park in Perth, he thought the steam train was Percy (from Thomas the tank engine).

Bye.

Hi All

 

Well thanks to Ellie, I have discovered how you are all able to sign in and do posts in your own name rather than using my e-mail address to log in. I have sent “invitations” to you all which you can accept and set yourself up a google account. I just did it for myself, it was pretty simple.

 

See Ya’s

 

Danny

Hey guys

Well had a great day of bumming yesterday :) Did a bit of touristy stuff, cos I still feel like a tourist here! Did a wander around near circular quay, to macquarie place, which started as the garden of the 1st government house in the 1700s. The anchor from the sirius is there, which was one of the ships in the 1st fleet - interesting, it looks so dodgy and hand-made! There's also this little obelisk monument from 1818 I think, which they erected to mark the point from which all distances to other towns were measured - it's this incredibly plain looking stone thing, which apparently they hated because it was too ostentatious! Here's a pic. The first street light in Australia was also put in there - it was lit with whale oil! Yummy!


Then went to the Museum of Sydney, which is built on the site of the first government house, which was built in 1788 and pulled down in 1849 or something I think. It's pretty cool - lots of stuff on the early governors and convicts, and the aboriginals point of view of settlement (invasion?). They've also marked out in different coloured granite on the pavement in front of the musuem the original outline of the house where the foundations are, and the black grid is what they used to excavate the site in 1990. Looks like they've got a great cafe there too, so will have to check it out sometime.


Then Mark and I went to see Sarah Blasko last night in Newtown - she was good, really enjoyed it - a bit more rocky than I was expecting. Crap support act though - he got the shits because the audience wasn't responding to him enough - get a grip dude...

Correction

Hi All

Just for those that don't know. Ki is Angela Lovett's baby. Angela is now Angela Ward and Kate is now Kate Dunn. Kate only has two boys, Joey (3) and Harry (1).

Cheers
Danny

Xmas pics!

OK, now I'm on a roll... just found some pics from Denmark at Xmas last yr - Jodes, Daniel, Mark and I went over from London. Here's us pissed as on Xmas eve night in this little pub near our hostel:









Here's us actually at Xmas lunch at this massive buffet in Copenhagen (complete with zany hats, which I think we had to bring - can you remember Jodes?). Xmas eve is much bigger than Xmas day in Denmark, so we did well in the end to find a big lunch like this as most places were closed - well done Jodes.

Here's a couple of snowy pics:


Now it's off to bed - I'm tired, it's hard doing nothing all day ;)

bits & pieces

Hi guys

Hey I just made myself a contributor individually to the blog instead of through your email Danno. Just means I don't have to remember your email address ;) And also that you guys can tell it's me that has posted. It's in the admin settings if you want to do the same.

Also, just changed it so that only the last wk's (7 days) postings will be shown on the front page - think it was getting a bit too long!