Monday Monday la la la la la la

Good evening,

Tonight I'd like to talk to you about concrete slabs and what happens if you do not put the right pipes in before the slabs go down.  The concrete slab has to be cut into in order to put the pipes in, and then concrete re-poured over the new pipes.

We don't know what happened to cause the above situation, but I do know the builders are blaming the plumbers and the plumbers are blaming the builders.  Only because I overheard comments which didn't make much sense until our main man builder sent through an email outlining the problem above.  He downplayed the problem but reading between the lines he is a bit annoyed.

Moving right along, we have bought a dining table off Trade Me.  It's an 8 seater!  It's massive!  We can have many parties!  Here it is:

A heavy-duty, glass top, 8-seater dining table strong enough to withstand the activities of small children.

It's definitely not 'the one' but it will be great with small kids and I know that I will not worry about what they do to it. The chairs are not ours, and I am still searching for some lovely pieces to perch our bottoms on.

We spent the weekend camping, or at least we tried to.  We left Auckland at 3pm on Friday afternoon to find it took us 45 minutes to get to the first motorway exit on our way north.  This meant that our one hour trip would actually take three hours, approximately.  We turned around and went to McDonalds and took the kids to a park near the beach.  It was great fun and less stressful than sitting in traffic, hauling up our tent and cooking dinner in the dark.

The next day we set off and arrived at the campsite to find our friends looking a bit drawn and tired, but ready for a party for three little ones (a 1 year old, a 4 year old and a 5 year old).  There were balloons, party food, games and streamers which is not bad for a camping party!  It rained a bit on and off but stayed mostly dry and we had a dinner of burgers (home made ones this time). 

However the next morning, it poured!  We all took down tents in our rain jackets, juggling sodden children and soggy breakfast cereal. 

This is the amount of rain that fell in mm.  See the highest bars there?  That is the time we were packing up camp.

We arrived home wet and cold and tired - but having an adventure like that is kind of fun.  After hot showers and some rest, we were all feeling better and then lentils for dinner ensured we felt virtuous nutritionally also.  Next time shall we trust the weather forecast? 

Framing turns out to be great for drying wet tents!

More house stuff to report in the next few days.

x