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I decided to have a big bash for my 30th birthday (actual birthdate 04/09/1972) this year, so it was action stations to get the deck built and then get all the little bits and pieces done before the party started.

Preparation went into full swing on the Friday night with the arrival of the Spit. Saturday morning dawned dull and drizzling, so I was up at 6:30am to cover the electric parts of the spit with a bag to keep the water out. I then decided to make some modifcations to the tarp over the deck and spent most of the next couple of hours up and down on the roof getting it sorted out. As I was doing that, Danny arrived with the most enormous tarpaulin we have ever seen. It must have been 15m by 15m, and ended up covering from 2-3 tiles up the roof, over the deck and creating a huge covered open space underneath where we put the spit. There were a few problems with the ropes holing the tarp down, as the ground was so wet the pegs just pulled out of the ground. We fixed that with a few garden rocks.

Dad arrived at 10:30 and swept the deck clear of water while I had some much needed breakfast. I really couldn’t face the wiring of the deck balustrade so dad ended up fixing a broken chair inside while I put the string of 30 party lights up with Bern’s help.

Later Danny got up the courage to start drilling all the holes for the wiring and Jason and I got stuck into putting up enough of the wiring to stop people falling through unless they were really trying to. In the process Connor managed to fall down the stairs, and we wondered if there was any point to our work. (He survived with a nasty scratch and bruise beside his right eye.)

Jason and I managed to lug the fridge back into its rightful place on the deck, and put the BBQ in its place too before I suddenly found it was 5:30pm and people were due to start arriving soon. I ducked in for a quick shower and came out just as Speed arrived with his amp so we could set up the music. We basically got that done just as the first people started to arrive. In the meantime Jase had been doing a huge amount of setting up and cleaning up, not to mention all the work that Bern and Mon had done during the afternoon blowing up balloons and buttering bread and generally getting things together..

During the evening there were a whole bunch of people that helped out, especially Brendan (organising the meat and the spit, BBQing, carving etc), Rachael (salads, spuds and keeping the kitchen clean) Jen & Tam (clearing up) and all those who brought Salads and Deserts:: Lisa, Chris & Jeanette, Caz & Trev, Tammy, Mon, Julie and Sue. Special thanks to Marie for the beautiful birthday mud cake.

All in all I had a great night, and it was wonderful to have a bunch of my family and friends around. We need to do it on a smaller scale (less stress) but more often.

Thanks again everyone.

It has been over two years in the planning, but our Deck is finally built. I still have to run the cables around the sides so you can’t fall off, and oil the timber, but most of the work is done. There are some photos here, but for the time being they are only of the fully built deck. The construction photos were taken with an old fashioned film camera, so we have to wait till the roll is finished and developed, scanned etc. (which won’t be too long).

Actually there are a bunch of other things that need doing, like baseboards, lights, speakers, a roof etc. but the hard work is done.

Bernie and I spent all of last week at the Hillsong Christian Conference run by Hillsong Church in Sydney. It was an awesome time with great speakers, lots of information and plenty of opportunity to praise God.

I attended the Production Elective, which taught me heaps about setting up a venue for music (mixing, monitors etc) and other stuff about recording, making CD’s and running the music in a large church.

This conference is well worth a trip to Sydney and we’ll be going back next year, although that might be a little interesting with a 5 month old baby.

Well, we started doing a bit around the pond area at the front over the couple of weekends. Bern weeded the whole area and started the process of getting it to look good. Then Jase and I managed to manhandle a bunch of Huge (some 100Kg+) rocks into place for the waterfall. After a quick test we found the waterfall was fairly good, but not perfect, but by that time Connor was getting grumpy so Jase went home.

I decided to go out last night after work and see if I could improve things but one of the rock was faw too heavy and in the process of trying to move it, one of the other rocks fell off and rolled into the pond, smashing the pump in the process. Hopefully I can fix it with some super glue, or I might need to go and buy myself one of those hot glue guns.

In the meantime I’ll need to organise some help again I think to switch two of the rocks around.

Last night we went to see what could best be described as an interactive musical called The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The original story was written by Charles Dickens, who had the ill manners to die before completeing the story and telling us whodunnit”, which is where the interactive part comes in. Towards the end the audience are asked to vote on who the murderer is and which two characters should fall in love (and do the penultimate duet). It was quite an enjoyable evening. I love live theatre.

Last weekend saw a bit of work out in the garden on Saturday, with the tree in the garden finally comming down. There is still lots of work to be done cleaning up branches, and many of the sleepers still need to be cut up to firewood size. I’m off work next week so we should get some real progress then, although Bern having her knee reconstruction on Wednesday and our evaporative air conditioning is going to be installed on Thursday.

The main part of the retaining wall is done. Many thanks to Bern, Jase & Mon, Terry and Daniel for all thier support. There is still a heap of work to do, finishng off the corners and breaking up the old concrete steps and replacing them with a nice sloped path. There is also the cleanup of all the old sleepers (next year’s firewood) and cutting down the tree in the soon-to-be vegie patch.

Another busy week has seen Bernie totaly destroy the inside of her knee again, blowing it up like a baloon. It has also seen only one layer of extra bricks go down on the retaining wall, mainly because we ran out of stones to put behind it.

Bernie & I spent the weekend starting to build our retaining wall with help from Jase & Mon and the Kids (Connor provided moral support by waving from the window. He is so cute.) We got 3 courses of bricks down and Bernie and I are nearly dead, but a few more days and I’ll have a reasonable body! The only problem is that it is dark by the time I get home from work so I probably won’t get much more done until next weeekend

This gets a special entry.. Graham lost his twin brother last Thursday night in a terrible car accident. Bill was driving home near Yarrawonga, and swerved to avoid a tree branch blown down in the storm. He lost it in the gravel and hit a tree. Bill, if you can read this, We’ll miss you. I’m glad you had the chance to spend dome time with Jen and Graham last week.