New Walls

What a busy week this has been! I said that when the new floor came in that our walls looked a bit tired and needed a little spruce up. Well, over the last few days we went ahead and did it and gave our living room walls a fresh coat of paint.

One of the hardest tasks to do before we even started was deciding on a colour. I guess the wife and I didn't really want too much of a dark colour as we felt it wouldn't look too good at night and we had to be sure that it went well with the colour scheme we already had with our blinds. We went and chose a selection of light greens and blues and finally deciding on a light blue colour called Angora Blue.

My wife scoured the internet for some DIY guides and found some handy tips from Bunnings where we eventually bought all our supplies: plastic sheets, rollers, brushes, paint tray etc. We had to prep our walls by cleaning them with sugar soap which the kids were only most enthusiastic to do. I let them to it because once we started painting it wouldn't be a good idea to put house paint and kids in the same room together.

At any rate, once we had our walls cleaned and prepped, it was almost a simple matter of using the roller brushes. It took a couple of coats but the results were good enough. Of course, we're not professional painters and there are blemishes here and there but it was our first attempt at a DIY/renovation thing and I dare say it's not half bad. Ok, ok, if you see a few errant paint marks here and there that would be my handiwork, not my wife's.

Valentine's Day

This year we didn't really fall into the Valentine's day trap of overpriced flowers and chocolates. Fact of the matter is, our little boy went into a full blown tantrum this afternoon when we picked him up from daycare. He insisted on going out to eat as we sometimes do when we're too tired too cook. We didn't have plans on going out as we wanted to go straight home. He didn't quite like it and didn't want to take no for an answer. All the way home he was bawling his eyes out and kicking his legs against the back of the front seat. He was screaming and carrying on and when we reached home, I had to carry him to force him out of the car.

It took a good while before he got to calm down again but not without a lot of raised voices and threats of putting him into the "naughty" corner. In the end, we got him to quiet down after we explained that we couldn't go out to eat all the time. He said his apologies to me, his mom and his sister for spoiling what was otherwise a calm Valentine's day for us. A few minutes later, he was all smiling and laughing as he played with his sister and had himself a cookie or three. Now, he's happily snoring away in dreamland.

He doesn't do tantrums very often but when he does, it's a real doozy.

Keeping Up With Blogging

I know I said I'd be posting about some of our trip to the Gold Coast but since we've got back I've been finding it hard to sit down in front of the computer and just write. I don't know, could be we've just been too busy at home and work. When we got home, it was already our daughter's first week at Year 1, and my wife has started regular work as well so we're all getting used to the new routine. On days that my wife works, she leaves home early so we get the kids ready for school first and as my wife leaves for work, it's up to me to bring the kids to school and daycare. We pick them both up together at the end of the day and head for home for dinner or sometimes just eat out when we're feeling particularly tired.

At any rate, with the new flooring, we've also noticed that our lounge walls are looking a bit tired so we're now contemplating painting the walls as well. So we've been occupied looking at paint colours as well as finding a right time to do it. Ah, well, real life catches up for the moment and I hope to resume my regular posting schedule soon.

Gold Coast 2007

We just spent a nice 5 day vacation up in the Gold Coast in Queensland. We usually take our holidays going back to the Philippines but this time we thought it would be a real treat for the kids to see some of the theme parks here in Australia and also we parents thought it wouldn't be as hectic as going back to the Philippines. We thought it would be nice to go on a "real" holiday for a change.

The hotel we stayed in was voted best resort hotel for families in a poll conducted last year so we really had high expectations of it. However, our first impressions were quite dashed when we saw our room. It wasn't exactly what we pictured in the brochure but we tried to make the best of it. The rest of the resort, thankfully, was up to par. It had 4 swimming pools with a small water slide and even a hot spa. The resort catered for the kids with an adventure playground and even a Kids Zone where parents can drop their kids off for a couple of hours.

Except for the swimming pools ( and the buffet breakfast! ) , we didn't take advantage of most of the resorts amenities. We had quite a full schedule. The day after arriving, we went to Warner Brothers Movie World, the next day we visited the beach at Surfer's Paradise. The 4th day we went to Dreamworld, another theme park, and had a day of shopping on our last day.

I'll try to post about our theme park adventures next time. I've put up some pictures in our Flickr site just to show how tiring it was!

Click on picture below to do a slide show of the pictures we took.