Update number 2

Also have promised some photos of the garage on one of the earlier blogs and a couple of people have asked why progress photos aren't on the website! So here are some photos - it's not finished but at a stage now where it is water tight and lockable. Therefor useable!

Need to paint the outside still, and put some vertical battens on it. Interior needs the wiring for lights and powerpoints finished (it's alsmot done) and then we need to tidy up a little around the outside. We've also sprayed all our lawn to kill it so that we can level it properly and then re-sow grass. Plans are to also extend the deck and eventually plant some trees/shrubs/hedge/flowers. But all in good time!

This is how it all started - a big mess everywhere!

Building in winter is never a good idea - especially when you're building below ground level! Luckily it didn't take too long for water to drain out again (about 1/2 day). but it was constantly muddy and not much fun!

Getting concrete down was a big step and finally no more mud! Which also meant that the whole driveway area was a lot cleaner and we had more space again for the cars.

Mum and dad came down a couple of times too to help with the framing and putting the roof on - was much easier than doing it by myself - especially standing up the frames!

And this is what it looks like now basically.

Last but not least - our nice lawn at the moment! :-)

Finally - an update!

Sorry to all those that have checked the website only to find the same old photos and stories.

We had some professional photos taken a few months ago and have received these now. So here a few photos of us and Josh from August - so not the latest!

Josh obviously is another couple of months older now and has changed again - he's very interactive and at the moment needs a lot of attention. As soon as you leave the room and he's on his own he starts screeming - which can be testing!

But he's rolling over, and 'talking', and has a really catchy giggly laugh! So lots of fun. He's got two teeth now too - lower front - and started on 'solids' food a couple of weeks ago (still breastfeeding as well). He eats a lot too - which is just well as he's pretty active and needs all that energy. He's got a dummy looking mesh bag with handle which you can put food in (apple pieces! - he likes apple) and he can then suck and chew on it to get mushed up fruit and the juice out through the mesh. Works really well and he quite likes it.

Will get some more recent photos up soon but at these photos were quite cute too.

More cute photos of Josh

Here are some pics of Josh - just over 8 weeks old now - in fact 2 months tomorrow! He's so much more interactive now and 'talks' lots and grins heaps.

Our new house

We've bought a house! In mid May we moved into our own home, so thought I better put some photos up for people to look at. I haven't actually taken any myself so these are photos the real estate website had before we moved in. Looks a little messier outside at the moment. We've had a small shed (2.5x3.5m) moved in and are collecting all the bits and pieces to build a garage (a big garage!!! 9x7m). Will take some more photos later once we've got the garage maybe but for now these will do.

Inside is pretty nice but the gardens need lanscaping (a job for the spring!). Because the photos are from the real estate agent website from before we moved in, they have the previous owners furntiure in it not ours!

More photos of Joshua

Another update on Joshua,


He's growing pretty quick and doing well. He's behaving well too and has started sleeping 'through' the night (well at least from 10.30-11pm through to 4.30-5am). We've had our first outings - dinner at La Porchetta which he just slept through but then fed for almost an hour to make up for all that sleeping when we got dessert at the chocolate boutique. Also went to Rotorua for a couple of days and he slept all the way down and back and didn't mind the night in the hotel either. He's becoming a lot more interactive too which is cool! here's some more photos of the little monkey.

Our new arrival

Joshua is here!

Finally after 9 months (plus a few overdue days) we've met our latest addition to the 'young' scheibmair family. Joshua was born at 1.56am on easter sunday 8th April and weighed 9 pounds 4 or 4.2kg. He was 56 cm long, which isn't bad given the midwife told us that Beck would probably deliver a 'small side of average' baby! A bit of a surprise for all of us incliding the midwife.

Unfortunately he arrived with his fist by his head and so Beck needed a couple of stitches for tears but otherwise it was , although very long, a normal labour and delivery. Beck managed to do it without any pain relief even - though if she would have known how big 'baby' was she would have been a lot more worried I'm sure!

Both came home sunday night after about 15 hours in hospital and are doing really well. He's sleeping and feeding OK and Beck is recovering quite quickly too. A happy family all round really. For now that's all we have time for, but will update this soon hopefully!

Here's a couple of photos of our big little Josh.

Baby update

Not much to report - only two more weeks to due date! Baby room is ready and if it came today we probably are?!!? :-) Just thought should add a couple of photos of Beck. The first was at the beginning of February and the second about a month later (12th March). She still looks much the same as the March photo.

Baby according to the midwife is kind of behaving - it's head down and facing sideways; so Beck's trying to get it to turn to the back (for shorter and less painful labour aparrently!?). Also not a big baby - small side of average which Beck is rather pleased about (again shorter and less painful labour aparrently! :-) )

That's all for now.

Our next VW project

Since we have completed the beetle convertible I've been increadibly bored :-) and so mid last year I began on the next project - a VW kombi limo. I've played around with a couple of sketches to mimic what we think it will look like (not sure about colour yet!):

After some thought as to how long we want it we finally decided on two additional 'middle' or sliding door length sections. That would make the van around 7m rather than the standard length of 4.5m. We did quite well in finding the three suitable donor vehicles that each had their own little problems and so it didn't feel quite so bad cutting them up! Chris and Sandy have kindly made some space in their nice big concrete floored shed for me to work in. So over the last few months we've cut up the three vans into the sections that we needed, pulled some usable spare parts off the rest and then took the remainder to the scrap metal guy. We are now at the stage where we have all the sections we need inside the shed and removed all the left-over pieces from around the outside of the shed to tidy Chris and Sandy's place up a bit! I suspect that there won't be much progress for a few months after April and so a decent tidy-up was needed before then obviously. The plan at this stage is to have the parts welded together and on wheels so that it can be towed to the VW nationals in hamilton in Easter 2008. That gives me another year to align, cut, weld together and reinforce it. Below are some pics of progress to date.

The above was donor number one, which will be used for the front section, and so was cut just behind the sliding side door.

Donor number two will give us the rear and as a bonus this camper was a factory sunroof van so we will have a nice large sunroof above the front end of the bed to look at the stars at night!

This last one we got really cheap as it already had sunspension and everything stripped out from it. But as we only wanted the middle third (the sliding door length) that was no problem.

Below are pics of each of the vans cut, and the last photo is what we have in Chris and Sandy's shed now. Note that the last photo shows the middle section from the silver van on its end with the underside visible.

And the remainder went to the scrap metal guy in two loads:

A new arrival on its way

Finally! Have been meaning to update this page since last year, but never got round to it. As most of you should know by now, we are expecting an addition to the ‘family’ in early April. The due date is 3rd April so we’re getting pretty close now to the peace and quiet being shattered at home. Beck is doing really (and has been pretty good throughout) and is starting to get pretty big now - and still has a few weeks to grow! Below are a couple of prints from the scans at 20 weeks just after we got back from our germany trip. We had to laugh as it looks like baby is laughing in the print - in reality we think it was just opening its mouth ready to suck its thumb. Still looks funny though!

The print below is the baby's face which looks rather like that of an alien than a human - but we have been assured that's normal! :-)

We didn't want to find out what the sex of the baby was. We decided that we'd rather get a surprise in April, and besides it makes it more fun for others to buy baby things as they should be fairly nutral. A good way to slow the flood of baby items pouring into baby's room!

Beck had her baby shower a couple of weeks ago and the way she described the aftermath is probably quite appropriate; she said our lounge looks like the baby factory monster threw up in it. So we're pretty sorted for most things now, we have a cot from one of Beck's mum's friends, a pram from Beck's dad and maz, getting a highchair from Beck's mum and rex and my parents are making us a change table. Beck and I have bought new curtains (Winnie the Pooh) and painted some draws for in the baby room and another of Beck's mum's friends said he will supply us with some nappies and baby creams, etc. Bring on 3rd April!

That'll do for now. Will try and get permission to take a pic of Beck on day to post on here too!