Oscar learns the Danish alphabet

Short post... 

Today I found a book that uncle Daniel bought for Oscar with the Danish alphabet. So today at lunch we thought that he could have a little look at the extra 3 letters.

What we didn't know is that the Danish alphabet is so funny to non-Danish speakers....

See Oscar's reaction below in video.

xxx

Building Our Custom Designed Home (or not)

It's time for an update on our new house!

Last time I did an update, we were busy designing all the elements of the house, like floor plan, kitchen look and materials, bathroom look and materials and in general material choices for the floor plan we designed.

Well, since then, we contacted some custom builders to get an idea of what sort of pricing we were looking at to get our house build. Well, that was easier said than done... probably mostly because we wanted to build with eco-friendly material and use building methods that didn't fall into the "normal" cookie cutter sticks-and-bricks way that most builders in Australia use!

They also wanted some house plans drafted up (drafts with elevations etc.) before they even wanted to entertain giving us a quote on building the house. 

So we ended up hiring a company that specialises in doing drafts of custom floor plans. While they were very helpful, in the few meetings we had with them about our plans, they kept stressing that because it was a "custom build", and because our plans included some "out-there" design features like raked ceilings in the living/dining/kitchen and double sided fireplace, and we wanted "eco-friendly" heating etc etc we should expect the price tag to be 30-50% more than a normal build...

On top of that, at the second meeting we had with the designer discussing the actual floor plan, there was issues with the raked ceiling we wanted (expensive price tag), and lack of hallway space between kitchen and bedrooms/bathrooms and our (according to them) MASSIVE bedrooms; their suggestions were we might as well use some of that bedroom space to make a hallway between the kitchen and bedrooms/bathroom as there would be issues with food smells and re-sale of the house (if we ever wanted to do that).

So after that second meeting, we looked at each other and went - what's the point? We will have to comprise on main features we like with our floor plan, we have to comprise on a lot of the materials, and we will end up spending 25-40% more than what we though was a generous budget!! If we can't build exactly what we want, we might as well look around the nice display homes and pick one that will work well for us - and stay within budget! 

So we pulled the pin on our "Dream Home" plans, and started from scratch....

Luckily, Point Cook is still a growing suburb, so there were a lot of new display homes to look through. We ended up finding 3 homes which had some of the main features we were looking for: Raked Ceilings, Master Bedroom NOT at the front, and options to customise the floor plan to suit our needs a bit better! One of the homes we dropped straight away because there were just too many small rooms. We then had meetings with sales consultants from the remaining two builders, and one builder was just able to provide more of the features we wanted than the other at a more competitive price, so we ended up going with them!

As per our usual standard, we didn't waste much of the sales consultant's time (although we did take a bit more than the 1/2 hour we spent last time we bought a house off the plan ;-D), so after 

• 3 meetings, and 
• visiting 2 display homes (in Point Cook and Berwick - a 1 1/2 hrs trek to the outskirts of South Eastern Melbourne) and 
• 2 visits to their colour selection office, 

on Friday the 7th April the wife went out and bought a house! Well, Kasper would have come with me if it wasn't for another of Oscar's colds, so he stayed home looking after him.

We are really excited now the choice has been made. The home we are going to build is the "Dunedin 29" with Porter Davis. (CLICK LINK)
If you follow the link to their website, select Size 29 under Floorplans and then under "Design Options", select "Raked Ceiling". This will give you the base floor plan we are building. We are very excited as we will get one of our main features through the dining living room: the raked ceiling!!!

HOWEVER we have made some changes to this plan...

Here is OUR plan:

This will be our "Dunedin 29" floor plan 

As you can see, we have made a few changes:

• Lounge room at the front
• Master bedroom where lounge was originally
• We are merging bed 3 and bed 4 into one large bedroom for Oscar, but leaving both doors and robes in place, so in the future if we sell, we can easily put in a wall to make 2 smaller bedrooms.
• Re-jigging the WIP (walk in pantry) to be part butler's pantry with benchtop space for appliances (like coffee machine, kettle etc), space for microwave, drawer storage, and shelves the rest of the way around. The corner of the WIP has been turned into a "pull-out" pantry, where we can reach everything easily even if it's stored in the back.
• Adding some benchtop space in the laundry plus extra cupboards underneath. On the other side where we have deleted a linen cupboard, we will install IKEA broom and linen cupboards with pull-out laundry bags feature! 
• Added some doors and deleted some doors!

On top of these changes, we will install electric panel heating and underfloor heating in the bathrooms to avoid any vents for hot air and dust particles being blown everywhere.

The house will be built in Hebel (which has better insulation features than bricks), and have double glazed windows and doors throughout. We are also adding sound insulation to all indoor walls, so we will end up with a lot of our original requirements we had for our own house plan.

If you would like to get an idea of what the house will look like, check the pictures on Porter Davis website (link above) under photo gallery section called "Bondi". I have included a couple here...

Entry / Hallway (we will have light timber floors throughout the house except bathrooms)

Raked Ceiling feature in Dining / Living area

Raked ceiling feature looking back towards the entry

Kitchen with massive island bench! Plus a feature you can't see here: pull-out bin cupboard under bench!!!

Kitchen seen from living area

Laundry - we will do something similar with a long benchtop, but with high broom and linen cupboards on the right hand side of this image, plus we have deleted the door out to the alfresco.

Rumpus room - this will be Oscar's play room (and his private "teenage retreat" when he gets older) ;-)

Well, that's the update for now. Of course, we are currently still waiting for our block of land to be developed, so we don't expect to be able to start building until December 2017 (if we are lucky), or early 2018...

Indian Summer Visit to Werribee Zoo

It's been a while since our last update, so here are a bit of news about what's happening...

Yasmin got started with Tordal Property with my first client signing up. The client has two properties, where I currently manage one, and will take over the other shortly. I've had a lot of fun getting into things and learning to use the property management software - PropertyMe, which is a cloud based software package that covers everything from maintenance, communication and inspections to trust accounting, but it's all very easy so far! 

I also had my first inspection in March, which went well as I got to try the mobile feature of the software where you take pictures as you go and enter comments per room on your mobile phone - at the end you just publish the report and the landlord can log on and see inspection comments and pictures! Brilliant!

Kasper finished up with Target in Geelong on the 24th March and have been busy with interviews for a new job. He starts his new job with TabCorp on April 18, which is in the city, so he will have to battle peak hour traffic again :-( But as a bonus of not starting until after Easter, he got a few weeks off to enjoy at home with Oscar and me :-)

We have spent this time wisely to try and finalise our new house plans, but more about that in another blog post....

As we have had a brilliant Indian summer so far (temperatures has been mid to high 20-s throughout March), we decided to take a family trip to Werribee Zoo last week to enjoy the nice weather. 

As Oscar is obsessed with busses, we decided that Kasper and Oscar could take the bus to Williams Landing train station, and I could pick them up from there and go to the Zoo. Apparently that was a big hit! Oscar was full on singing "Wheels on the bus" all the way, and even got a cheeky teenager to join in :-)

As the Easter school holidays started last week, 1000s of other parents had the same idea about enjoying the nice weather at the Zoo, so the Zoo was packed! Nevertheless, we had a super fun day spotting some Australian animals and getting a ride on the safari bus (Oscar's favourite)!

Here are some pictures from the day.

Driving the safari Jeep with a little mate

Fun on the big net swing

Weeee swing up high!

This playground is so much fun - big slide

woo-huuu so much fun!

Moving the big balls from one end to the other

There you go!

Walk around the Australian section, we spotted a koala sleeping in the tree

Up and close with the kangaroos

It is a bit safer on daddy's arm when an Emu walks past

Some grey ducks and a kangaroo (Oscar was more interested in the ducks :-) quack quack)

December 2016 - Happy New Year!

Despite good intentions, I didn't quite get this post about December 2016 up before 2016 ran out... Oh well, better late than never :-)

Christmas Eve - 24 December

Even though we have been living in Australia for 14 years now, some traditions you just can't change... one such tradition is that we celebrate Christmas on the 24. December in the evening.

This year, Oscar understood a lot more about Christmas and Santa Claus and presents, especially since he had a advent calendar where he received a present from Santa Claus every day in December. He was quite excited every morning to go and find the next number on the advent calendar and open the presents. Most days were just a small present with a little toy car (hot wheels), because Oscar still doesn't eat lollies or chocolate, so we had to do something different.

On Saturdays and Sundays, he received some "larger" presents, e.g. a set of toys with little diggers, excavators, dump trucks etc. or a little puzzle. All in all, he really enjoyed his presents.

On Christmas Eve, we decided to get him dinner and a bath before starting the festivities with all the presents under the Christmas tree. So while Kasper gave Oscar his bath, I ran around like crazy getting all the presents under the Christmas tree. By the time Oscar was done and dressed in his pyjamas, he came into the family room and saw all the presents under the tree and went nuts!! :-) Presents, presents, presents... We managed to sing a few Christmas songs before he was let loose to go and get the presents :-D

Then he came with the presents one by one and we helped unpack the presents. All presents was studied closely and played with enthusiastically before he remembered that there were more presents to open under the tree.... so the whole process took a while to get through. Oscar was just as excited about mummy's and daddy's and Bailey's presents as well and was a good little helper in regards to opening all presents.

Little Bailey also turned 11 years on 24. December, so she was pampered with yummy presents and a lip-smacking dinner of roast pork with all the trimmings!!

Pictures from the evening below...

Christmas tree with presents

New chair from grandma mormor Ulfet and Christian (was put together earlier in the day)

cool underwear from uncle Dani

Cool car with disco lights and music from friends

Played a bit with the car, but now it's time for the next present

Big world puzzle from Mummy and Daddy

Magnetic drawing pad & learning alphabet from grandma farmor Lise

Cool star wars and disney cars clothed from uncle Dani

Water Wow colouring with animals from grandma farmor Lise

Getting another present under the tree

Found Bailey's present, and she loves opening it herself :-)

To Daddy from Oscar and Bailey - here you go Daddy

Oscar testing out Daddy's new headset while Daddy tries to convince Oscar the car is more fun :-D

Another present from Mummy and Daddy

Wow! Duplo firetruck playset

Another present for Bailey, a new toy!

which she happily took to her bed to play with :-)

Present from granddad and grandma - bedstefar & bedstemor Hans and Elin

A nice memory game :-)

Present from cousins Bertram and Savannah

It's a magnetic alphabet 

Finding all the letters

and putting them on the fridge

Last present from granddad morfar Ole, Bailey is quite excited too

Wow, it's a Duplo digger!

Playing with my Duplo digger, but getting a bit tired... bedtime for Oscar after a big day!

Our roast pork Christmas dinner with all the trimmings :-p

  

Boxing Day Christmas Lunch (26. December)

For Boxing Day, we had invited some friends over for a Danish/Aussie Christmas lunch. In short, we prepped food most of the 25. December and the 26. December in the morning. 

While I was busy prepping food in the kitchen, Oscar and daddy played in the garden with Oscar's new kitchen set, booking their own food... as it ended up, Oscar had a picnic lunch in the garden before his nap.

Oscar had just gone to sleep for his midday nap when guests started arriving, which was good, as everyone had presents for him (more presents to open when he woke up).

Everyone also brought small presents for our Kris Kringle game (pakkespil), which was a lot of good fun! But first, we served up all the traditional Danish Christmas lunch foods like ryebread, herring, currysalat, fish fillets with remulade, prawns with aioli (Aussie), and eggs, served with snaps, beer, wine and soft drinks of course :-) 

2nd round of food came out, and people couldn't believe it! They had eaten a lot of the fish, even though we told them to pace themselves!! We then served a big smoked ham (Aussie), roast pork with red cabbage, home made liver pate with bacon and mushrooms, browned potatoes, and a couple of fresh Christmas salads. Everyone loved all the food, even though all were pretty full by the end of 2nd course!

Time for the Kris Kringle game. All the small gifts were placed on the table, and the dices went around the table. Every time someone rolled a 6, they could pick a gift. Once all gifts were taken, we set the alarm for a secret time, and the game continued, this time every time you rolled a 6, you'd steal a gift from someone else. Of course, there were a few gifts that were extra popular, so a couple of the presents went up and down the table a few times, while everyone nervously awaited the alarm to ring. Lots of laughter and screeching in delight every time the gifts ended in front of you!! Luckily, everyone ended up with gifts :-)

And amazingly enough Oscar slept through it all!! 
When we finished up the Kris Kringle game, he finally woke up, and came out to greet all the guests. And then found all the presents they had all brought for him, so happy little boy went around to all the guests, asking them to help him open the presents :-)

I recruited one of the guests (who works as a barista) to man the espresso coffee machine, while I served up a dessert of ris a'lamande with cherry sauce (see recipe under recipe section of this blog) and homemade marcipan.

All in all a very good day, and everyone had good fun :-)

Here are a few pictures from the day!

Table is set and ready for Boxing Day Christmas lunch

Oscar playing in the garden with his kitchen playset

picnic lunch in the garden

Picnic lunch in the garden

Christmas lunch - all the lovely ladies on one side of the table :-) L-R Ania, Cher, Daisy and Jing Jing (JJ)

Cheers! Martin and Lee

Ania, Cher and Daisy

A look at some of the food + table

Managed to get all guests in one photo :-)

And a picture with me too :-)

That's it for this time...