Winter update!

Another update from wintery Perth!  Man it's cold!!! Never been so happy to have a proper heater in our house!

After several weeks of being a lady of leisure I was approached by my old boss (from the Emperor's Crown) to see if I was interested in some temporary work.  As I didn't have anything else at that stage anyway I decided to go back to the Crown for 5 weeks doing 3 days a week.  I have also been pretty busy with 2 applications to become a Adult Custodial Officer as wel as a Juvenile Custodial Officer.  Both are basically Prison Guard positions with the only difference being working with adults or children.  I had to answer several questions in my application and was then invited to participate in a test (an aptitude test and a personality test).  I succeeded in both (hooray I am not crazy ;-) and now have to prepare for 2 panel interviews. Pretty nerve wrecking as I have always suffered from performance anxiety and get ridiculously nervous when I know I am being judged.  But I am preparing myself well and I guess all I can do is be myself and do my best!

Another exciting thing is that we finally got a skylight installed in our kitchen!  Our kitchen is right in the middle of the house and it always feels very dark.  But believe me, this skylight brings an amazing amount of light into our kitchen and we are very happy with the result! The first photo is without the skylight and the 2 after that with!

Below some more photos from the last couple of months! Some photos from a friends Hens night, their wedding, a beautiful sunrise, domino and Neil and myself at a birthday!

Special Birthday

This year my birthday was pretty special.  I woke up from some noise at 6.30am, I heard the front door close indicating that Neil had left for work.  I was dozing off again when I heard some more noise in the kitchen. I got up and slipped into my bathrobe and as I walked into the living area I heard voices and suddenly I saw my mother with dutch treats in the kitchen "SUPRISE!!!"

Who would have thought! She'd apparently been in Australia with her friend Sjaak for almost 2,5 weeks travelling up north with the in-laws!! They had an amazing time but my mother said that next time she'll suprise me first before travelling!
While they were here I still had to work several days but we made the most of the time we had going to Fremantle, playing games, do some sightseeing in the city and spend quality time at home.
It was lovely having them here! And to top it all off we had the same flight to the Netherlands ;-)

Dutchy-Land

From May 1st till May 19th I went to the Netherlands. I had an amazing time with all my family, Meeting my new nephew and catching up with old friends!!

I spend the first week at my mother's, celebrated my grandparents 60th anniversary, I went shopping with my cousine Margot and met up with an old friend of mine Alice, I did some more shopping with my mother and had an amazing pancake at the best pancake restaurant in the Netherlands!!

 The second week I went backpacking and stayed a couple of night with each of my sisters and a friend. I spend time with my 2 oldest nephews at a goat farm, attended my nephews baptism, went to a town called Dordrecht, spend as much time as I could with Jaap and had tapas in Alkmaar with Mazzz.

   

My last week I stayed at my fathers place and went to the "dolfinarium" (Dolphin park), caught up with another old friend and relaxed for a lot of the time!

As you can see, I had an amazing time and loved it.  But it was obviously a bit difficult as well considering Neil wasn't there.  But we texted each other like crazy, emailed regularly and phoned whenever we could!  But it was hard and have already decided that I will not go on holidays by myself anymore...

Love Ivet

Hertzy Update

G'Day all!

Thought we'd just write a quick update about how things are in Canning Vale!

The sun is shining less often, it rains more and the grass it getting greener!  Autumn is starting to show itself more and more which is a nice change.  Gone are the hot, sweaty days.  And we're enjoying it!

Most of you (who don't live here) have probably heard about the freak storm several weeks ago.  After 3 months of drought the rain came back with a bang!  I was luckily driving home just before it hit our neighbourhood, in fact, the dark clouds were chasing me and I caught the first little bit of drizzle as I pulled into the driveway.  Neil wasn't as lucky and walked (or ran probably) home from the bus stop in the pouring rain.  At 5.30pm the garden was flooding, the power got cut off and there was no mobile reception.  We made dinner (we luckily have a gas oven), pulled out the candles, games and a book and settled in for the evening at the dining room table.  It was a really enjoyable evening in, we had an early night and didn't find out about the extend of the storm until the power was back on at 9am the following morning. This is obviously our side of the story, but I've heard too many stories of people's car's being damaged by the hail and floodings everywhere.  So as you can read we've been more than lucky!

We had a great Easter break.  Neil spend his long weekend as usual at the Science Fiction Convention in the city and I made use of that by having a girls weekend which involved way too much chocolate, wine, good food and a ridiculous amount of movies! 

Now it's back to reality.  The travel agent that I've been working for since December has been taken over by a different company.  Unfortunately for me that means that because of downsizing and restructuring wages and hours my contract will not be renewed.  My last day will be on the 28th of April, so as you can imagen I am quite busy with job-hunting at the moment.

On the 30th of April I will be going to the Netherlands for 3 weeks, which I am really looking forward to. And hopefully after that I will be able to start a new job.  Fingers crossed!!

This was in short what we're up to at the moment!!!

We hope everyone is doing well!

Love Ivette and Neil