Funny Kind of few Weeks ...

It's been a funny kind of few week's here at home. By funny I mean that the girls and I have been really up and down with the emotions. Adam will be thanking his lucky star's he has missed it all.

So many drama's going on at the moment, my head is spinning and I really hope it's going to stop soon. The girl's are finding things really tricksey and stressful at both of their schools, this has been my main headache. I have had many conversations with teachers and meetings too, trying to work out a few issues and have more meetings to look forward to too.

Typical isn't it, the shit always hits the fan when Adam is away. Ad misses it all and I can even picture him sighing with relief and a little smirk on his face cause he has dodged another one!

My darling girls have been doing anything they can to avoid school. Not just the normal "I don't want to go" to school thing. It's much more intense, they are both very teary and sad and really dreading going to school everyday, that is every day!! In a way I don't blame them with the situation they are both in and I am now questioning whether I have them in the right schools or not. Not that there is anything wrong with these schools, we love these schools, it's just the circumstances have changed now.

There are plenty of other headaches but another one I have had is mainly the stories coming out of India from my dear husband. All the sad stories of the incredible poverty, crazy people waving machine guns in his face, water tanks on the Baldur been filled up with putrid water with dead rats in it, yep the boys have all been sick a few times and bloody Skype not working when we really need to talk to each other.

The past few weeks have been really tough though, normally I can cope fairly well and just get on with it. I guess we are in unknown waters at the moment so I'm tripping out just a bit. Not to worry though, we are getting back on track. Adam has been home for almost a week, can't believe it. Why is it that when he is away the time drags out and when he is home it seems to speed up? What's with that! 

The girls and I went to pick him up from Brisbane airport which was an adventure all on it's own. They both did great as we had an hour and a half wait till Daddy finally got through customs.

Jaimee was getting a little embarrassed that her sista set up camp on the floor while we waited. What ever makes the kid happy I say, so I just said to Jaimee "no one knows who we are so who cares"!! She was sort of ok with that.  

We moved from one side of the fence to the other to get just that bit closer to the doors trying to will Adam out. You wouldn't believe it but the little tv ran out of battery, "freak out", thank god for the big sista with an iPod.

First thing we had to do was stop at McDonalds so Adam could have his large big mac meal fix and Madison found a friend too.

We had a really late night, home by 10.45pm into bed about 12.30am, the girls were very excited to have their daddy home, me too. So after we got to check out all the treasures Ad had brought home from India we was ready for sleeping.

The next day Madison had it all planned out, she needed to fit in as much as she could with her dad just in case he went back to work. We took the Indy dog for a walk down to the park. Poor kid, wouldn't go anywhere near the play equipment as there were a lot of little people (under 5 year olds) there. So we sat and chatted to the ducks at the pond for awhile.

We then had to go op shopping, the kid is learning so fast. My little Madison was so desperate to get to the beach but we were all exhausted and the weather turned nasty. So we had a fair few meltdowns but that's ok.

Jaimee and her friend Connie, don't cha just love chics with scooters!

Love this Pic, Walking home!

It's so good to have Adam home! Even if he was a bit stinky from India :) Don't worry, the India smell is starting to wear off, haha!

We are heading off to Byron Bay tomorrow. A beach holiday for the girls, we are all so excited! Looking forward to some sunshine and a good book maybe even a glass of red.

Steph

x

The week gone by ...

Monday ...

Jaimee off to school and Madison home for one more day, she just wasn't quite right and there was swimming at school. Best the kid stays home rather than get sick again and the thought of poor Miss Andrea & Miss Tracey doing battle to try and get her to miss out on swimming! That was never gonna happen my friends. 

Madison wanting daddy home every 5 minutes, crying in the shower for an hour :( My poor little darling.

Skyping with Ad, he has made it safe and sound. Longest travel day ever, tired but happy. The plane flights we good and India is chaos!

This as good as it gets, dinner together! Jaimee is on her iPod live streaming Minecraft and Madison is watching barnyard, the making of the movie. My little geeky spectrum girls, perfect and happy:) what more could I ask for. Maybe we could have the daddy back sooner that would make it perfecter, is that a word or did I just make it up, ha!

Madison in the shower for the 3rd time, might ring the gas people and get an early delivery.



Madison is either a astronaut or a scuba diver, she makes me laugh :)

Tuesday ...

Madison back to school, not an easy start as it is still dark when I got her up at 6.00am and the "No School" routine begins.

Jaimee off to school.

Me madly playing catch up with the house work and the grocery run.

Ahhhh, a cup of tea and catching up on my favourite blogs.

So Madison was pretty stoked on Tuesday afternoon when we had our friend big Humphrey come for another sleepover. Big Humphrey and mini Humphrey hit it off exceptionally well, no growling or biting.

Can't say the same about our adorable Madison. Apparently Tuesday was the day for tipping over her desk at school, a bit of cat claw scratching and oh, let's not forget the biting of the teacher, so sorry Miss Andrea!

 

Sharing a icy pole with friends.

Just hanging out watching a movie.

Having a little snuggle.

Wednesday ...

Can't believe it, the J girl home sick again. This time the allergies have struck us both down, damn hay fever and damn the change of weather.

Madison has school photos, crazy morning getting ready, trying to do hair, bother! and the first time I have actually had our bus friend Cheryl knock on the door to see if we were ok! 

Making Chicken soup with heaps of vegies to make me feel better. Pity the girls wont eat it, Jaimee said it looks like something else, I'd rather not say what! I admit it wasn't pretty in the end but I assure you it was yum and healthy and the best thing to have when its cold and I'm sick too!

My chicken and vegie soup, still need to add the soup mix lentils.

Thursday ...

Jaimee and I dragging ourselves off to the chemist to get hay fever cures! Nasal spray and antihistamines.

Crushing up a antihistamine in red cordial so Jaimee would have it. The girl has a tablet phobia and medicine is always a hard issue to deal with. It could be the tiniest tablet in the world the kid will still freeze up and freak out.

Skyping with Ad, he has been sad, telling me stories of poverty and the not so magical side of India.

This is just around the corner from were Ad is staying in India.

Thank god, Madison had a good day at school. I have proof :)

Jaimee attempting to stop the runny nose, bwwhahha, naughty mummy:)




Love it! Jaimee really needs to take out one of her ear buds so she can hear her mum sneaking up for a photo, haha!!
 

Friday ...

Jaimee being extremely disappointed to call off the sleepover she had planned with friends. Next weekend.

Again, dragging our sorry stuffy heads and sneezy noses off to the shops as the weather has turned cold and poor Jaimee has no winter gear as she has for some reason, grown. In and out as fast as we could, and I got new slippers, fist pumps, whoohhoo! Think its the hay fever, ekkk!

Talking Porn with Jaimee, Bwwahaa!! She clicked on one of those ad's when she was on YouTube, nothing hard core just enough for her to flip out and be weirded out, haha! Love it when shit gets real and the conversation just flow with no awkwardness.

Indy freaking out!

New slipper, wintery warmness.

Saturday ...

Ahhhh the serenity, Me happily playing with this blog and all is quiet! Hmmm me thinking this is to good to be true.

Skyping with Ad, xxxx

Indy in a barking kinda a mood and freaking out again, thinking I'm going to give him one of his vallium tablets if he cant settle.

Jaimee watching nail art tutorials and wanting to do my hair. I hate my hair being brushed bit like Madison who really hates it! The kid always gets dreadlock just above her ears because she like to tuck it behind her ears. The scissors come out every now and then. She wont wear her hair any other way and now would like to have hair like Jaimee, long!

Madison being ever so good and happily doing her own thing, think it's because there is no school on Saturdays. Or something is brewing.

Madison delivering me a cup of wee. Me promptly removing all types of vessels from her bedroom. She went through a phase awhile a go were she would pee in just about anything that would hold it, haha, well not funny at the time. I swiftly remove any types of objects but this time she went in the bathroom and got one of the cups she plays with in the bath. Thank god it wasn't out of the kitchen hey! Pheww.



Jaimee's nail art.

Sunday ...


Nice sleep in till 7.00am, bloody dog started barking, will be threatening him again with the vallium.

Easy morning, like easy mornings!!

Baked some Gluten Free Dairy Free Banana muffins for Madison and me, smells so good when they are in the oven, hope the neighbour are jealous, hehe.

Madison happily drawing in her books while watching a parade of all her favourite movie characters on You Tube in Mexico. I'm sure this kid can understand other languages, she does watch a lot of things in many different languages but she will also change the language setting on her little TV to which ever suits her at the time. God, I'd love to know what she understands and what she doesn't!!

Jaimee wanted some home made damper but she settled for scones with choc chips. These are the real deal, full of gluten and dairy, Ad will be upset he is missing out. They normally wouldn't last 10 minutes sitting on the bench.

Jaimee's nice new winter snuggly pyjamas, poor kid still not well. I hope this is it now for the sickness till spring.

 

 One week down & 5 to go till Daddy comes home.

Steph

x

Back to being the FiFo wife again ...

It's that time again, Adam is heading off to work on Sunday. So it is back to being the Fly in Fly out wife. My hubby has been home since the end of January when the 1st stage of the Darwin project was completed. Adam has been a fly in fly out worker now for about 2 years and the swings vary on different projects.



This is Ad in his sexy hi-vis and safety gear, I'm sure the HSE (Health Safety Environment) guys would have been stoked, Bwahahaa! Ad standing in the bucket of the excavator on the Baldur.

It was a bit tricksy at the beginning well pretty bloody tough actually. Especially for Madison, the first six months was hard until the girls got the idea of how it was going to work. It wasn't just hard for the girls but for Ad and I too and is still hard from time to time. Exciting though, this kind of work was very different to what Ad was doing here on the coast.

Ad was working a 6 day week with 12 hour days in a quarry and having one day a week family time. Only problem was he was so fatigued that he would either sleep or surf, not much quality family time there but work is work right. Due to other factors and some very unfortunate circumstances we were at a cross roads and hence here we are living the FIFO lifestyle.

This new kind of life style has opened up a whole new world for us and we do like it, a lot. Adam see's it as though he is only working for half the year then home the other half. Although in saying that, he works damn hard. A 84 hour week with overtime thrown in, 7 days a week for the whole swing, No days off unless there is a cyclone or some other major weather event. Seriously, the boys work hard! We wont talk about the mischief they get up to cause most of the time, I just don't wanna no!!

So here is were I really need to get the technical bits right or it will be off with my head Alice in wonderland!

The first project he was on was over at place called Barrow Island in Western Australia. He was on a 5 week on and 5 week off swing. Adam was operating a 130 tonne triple boom excavator placing 14 tonne x blocks to create a 16 metre break wall. This is actually quite impressive but don't tell him I said that ;)



This is a different machine, a 70 tonne long reach doing slope work. All those x-blocks took a while to place, it's like a big jigsaw having to get them in the right spot.

When that project finished he was then fortunate enough to go to a place called Onslow in W.A. This is where he first met the Baldur and started to work out on the ocean. The Baldur is a non propelled backhoe dredge which is a 550 tonne excavator on a pontoon barge.

Did I get that right babe? Yep, I am on fire with my machine knowledge ...
 
Adam is one of the operators of the excavator. The Baldur was digging a trench for a gas pipe on the ocean floor. This was a 5 and 5 swing too although we had a few extra weeks thrown in there at one stage so he was away for 8. That really sucked!



This is the Baldur and there is Ad's office with the big bucket swinging off the end of it!



The barge in front of the Baldur that is being loaded is a split hopper. It takes 5000 tonne and is 80 metres long. It take the material that's being loaded out to sea and it splits in half to dump the load.

From Onslow it was then up to Darwin were the Baldur was digging a birth pocket for a gas plant in the harbour. This was a good roster it was 4 weeks on and 4 weeks home. The second stage of this project will start around Christmas time. So he has been a very busy boy up until the end of this project.



This is in Darwin and that is Ad's brother Russ if you can see him, it's a bit of a where's wally pic :) The boys are changing out a ram cylinder on top of the boom of the excavator. 

It is a start of a new project and this time the destination is Mumbai, India. Exciting right and I am bit jealous but so good for Adam, it's very cool that Ad get's to travel with his work. 

It has been a long time having the boy here at home with us. 15 weeks in fact, well there was a week that he went back up to Darwin for work, it was a bit of a mudfest and mozzie ridden adventure but I'll post about that another time cause there are some cool photo's and video footage.

The girls and I have gotten very comfortable and use to having him home now and I see tricky times ahead. This past week I have had that tight feeling in the pit of my stomach and a hint of, oh shit, it's just us girls again running through my mind. Come Sunday morning I will have two very teary girls and most likely one teary mum! Ad will leave at 5.00 am and it's going to be a really long day of travel for him.

It's kinda funny Ad is doing fifo work as he actually hates to fly in aeroplanes. The crazy man loves to watch all of those air crash investigator shows too, what a nut!! He will jump out of them, planes that it is, he just doesn't like to be on them with out a parachute, haha.

India, I've got to say, I think will be amazing and an eye opener. Ad is under strict instructions for lots of photos and video too. He has his survival pack of malaria tablets, electrolytes, Imodium, and the tablets to stop the throwing up. I am a little worried about the food thing, if I make a mild curry he sweats under his eyes, haha! They have a cook on board so it shall be interesting times ahead.

Good luck babe we are going to miss you like crazy but your going to have an amazing time even if you have to work too.

Maybe I should be saying good luck to India as they seriously don't know what there in for with the Boskalis crew, behave boys!!


Steph

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