On the weekend (20th and 21st of December) we were blessed with a team of Merry Elves including chief ringleader Dean who built Imogen’s wall of Lurve for our pool. The wall building and completion was kindly organised by Dean’s wife Cherrie. We say a huge thankyou to all the men who donated their precious weekend family time. They all made an amazing wall, making the front of our house basically unrecognisable to what it was. We now have only have to organise the inserts between the pillars, paving and pool shade sail.
Vanya, Cherrie, Lauren and the bubba boys : )
We also received the account today for the most important part of this whole venture “Imogen’s Pool”. Barrier Reef Pools were very generous with a substantial discount on the pool and installation cost.
A big Thankyou to Barrier Reef Pools, Owner/Manager - Brad, Site Foreman - Matt, Excavation - Stefan, Installers - Jason & Andy, Truck Driver & Soil Removal - Syd, Side Iron – Concrete pool footings – Brad and Concrete Taxi.
Side view of our front yard
Thank you does not seem to us to cover the smiles and joy you have brought Imogen with her new pool. Though it is not only the happiness from her that brings us delight it is also from watching Imogen enjoy the pool with her two brothers, Kody and Ashton. The memories we will gain from this are priceless.
“Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns.” Author Unknown
We hope you all receive a boomerang full of kindness : ), your generosity will never be far from our hearts and our minds.
We now have completed the whole fence, with Jason accomplishing a mammoth effort by assembling together the metal pool fencing, we purchased from Bunnings, over the last two days (including Christmas Day : ).
He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree - Roy L. Smith To All our Family, Friends and Imogen supporters We wish you a Happy and Gorgeous Christmas, it is with your friendship, love and support we have continued to smile and battle on this year and into this Christmas season and day.
Your love & support continue to amaze us,
We dared to dream that this Christmas we would be able to spend the day with our miracle girl. To our Christmas angels, Thank you for watching over Imogen and all of us, we are forever grateful.
I have wanted to blog again for weeks now, except life always seems to get in the way, which in its own way is a good thing. It is good because I have nothing but normal life to blog, Imogen is full of beans and it’s coming up to the fourth month since she
was again declared relapsed.
We have had many special moments this month, most importantly being the first dip in the pool. At first Imogen was cautious, may have been because the water was freezing!!. Kody was in there straight away, doing bombies and diving and swimming.
By day two he had some competition with Imogen swimming across the pool, and competing in the bombie competitions. Imogen loves the pool, constantly begging to
go in, even when it extremely windy. Actually all our fish love the pool, Ashton has even been in a few times.
We are getting the fence built this weekend, which would never have been able to be achieved without our friend, Dean. This incredible man, has been chief foreman for the cement footing. This part of the wall was never actually meant to be his job : /. Dean has arrived at our house from Chidlow every day for the last four days just after 6 am. He is also the main man behind the brick fence building which will commence tomorrow. A big thank you to Dean, and a big thank you to his wife Cherrie who nominated him for this “lurve” job : ). Without people like him Imogen’s dream would never have happened.
We have also been amazed recently by Kody’s assembly and year 6 graduations performance on the trombone. The school carols night and Imogen’s pre primary concert were also very proud moments. Imogen was the cutest star, and made us laugh when she would randomly decide to sing with the class (very casually and on her terms). Kody sang in the school choir at the school carols and did a great job. Kody has given us many proud moments this month, with his ability to give anything a go, his maturity and an awesome report. All our children constantly amaze us. Imogen also got a great report, she is enthusiastic at school and her zest for life is contagious to all who surround her.
Ashton is just gorgeous, big grins and baby smiles; he is such a placid baby and a wonderful time waster.
My Granny and Ashton
I must also mention we recently got to see my Granny, Ashton was very kind and gave her the loveliest smiles. We really appreciate the effort my Aunty Donelle went to organise this visit.
Our Friends Hannah, Anika and Peter, also came to visit and try out our pool : ).
We are all looking forward to a happy and wonderful Christmas together at our home this year. My family at lunch and Jason’s family at dinner. Christmas is slowly coming together around here, the festive lights made their appearance last night, and very quickly I managed to blow out the safety switch on the power board – hahaha. Might need a few adjustments I think, and even more lights (Jason is cringing in the corner at the thought ; ).
Life for us has been speeding forwards, though not without a few bumps, like an $800 vet bill, Thanks Molly or a sever shortage of people able to deliver the bricks we are short on for the wall. Though in comparison to where we thought we may be at Christmas in regards to Imogen we are very happy.
We are grateful for Mr Reniet’s incredible ability to help our girl, for the roof over our heads, Jason’s successful business and that we are all still living a “normal” life together.
Imogen and Mr Reniets
I was recently listening to a positive thinking audiobook and one phrase really stood out to me…
As we think, so shall we be.
This one sentence can be reflected into many aspects of our life. Take time out of your life to see the positive things, instead of focusing on all that is wrong in your world.
Thanks once again for all the support and love
Lots of love and fun over the silly season
From the Holmes Gang to you
P.S I just realized I never mention that my two big kids have finished school as of yesterday. An are next year going to be in Year ONE for Imogen and the finally year of Primary school for Kody Year SIX. We must thank all their incredible teachers for the last two years. Big Thanks Mrs Barker and Mrs McDonald from Imogen and Mrs Hodgson for Kody xx
Now I have completed updating the holiday I can begin with the next exciting amazing item on Imogen’s Dream list “THE POOL”.
Though first, I must also blog about the incredibly gorgeous thing that our friends at Caversham Wildlife Park have done. They were that inspired and in love with our Imogen, that have decided to name one of their baby Koala after her. To show Imogen her namesake they made up a beautiful framed picture of “Imogen” Koala. Imogen very proudly took it to school for news, and carries it around for all to see. We are hoping to make a visit to Caversham Wildlife Park soon, catch a glimpse of this little Koala.
I must also mention how incredible proud we are of Kody. Kody recently gave his speech to about 200 primary school students, to hopefully be elected into the 2010 counselors for his “LAST” year in primary school. Kody also just attended his PEAC art audition yesterday, even though I was not allowed in the room, I know he would have done a fabulous job. We find out the results of these two already huge achievements at the last assembly.
Ok one more thing, we all must thank our friends Karen and David for inviting us to their Thanksgiving last week. It was absolutely delicious and a real treat to be able to enjoy the special holiday with you. We are definitely having pecan pie for Christmas, I have been craving it ever since : ).
Now the grand arrival of the pool happened on Saturday the 30th of November. The lead up to this huge front yard transformation occurred over many days. Jason went to the front garden like a crazy chainsaw maniac, our once rusty, bird friendly garden then looked like a flat desert. With my favourite tree gone : (, the boys (as Imogen named them, who are actually the incredible men who have helped getting one BIG step closer to achieving Imogen’s dream) came and began to level out the front garden on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately there was a minor glitch in the afternoon with the phone line being temporary cut and the gas line being permanently cut off (only got put back on yesterday, and had the best shower last night ever!!!). We had to wait till Alinta gas arrived to cap off the gas, so that basically cut the afternoon off.
Very early the next day the soil and dirt truck arrived and the boys began to dig and load the truck up. Even to this point our little princess was still not questioning why her crazy parents would have done this to the front garden : P. It was not until the hole for the pool was being dug, did she ask “Why are you digging that hole?”, to this Jason replied ”to store all daddy’s customers cars”. Amazingly enough Imogen was quite happy with that answer. Within an hour that small hole, became an incredibly BIG hole.
Around the corner at 10am rolled a very long and big truck with the pool and crane attached. Imogen was down the hole helping the boys, so did not see the pool ‘sneak’ around the corner. Jason and I called her out of the hole and then she saw for the first time this big blue “bath”. Imogen took a split second to understand that big pool was going into the hole, not daddy’s cars. Imogen and Kody’s grins were huge and both were begging to go in, before the pool had even hit the bottom of the hole. Imogen and Kody were very spoilt and got an exclusive in the pool after it had landed helping the guys fill it up, with the whole 30cms of water allowed. After settling and organising some more pool requirements, all were ready for a sausage sizzle and salad. This then lead to the end of the first day of the pool’s arrival.
Since then a temporary fence has been erected, more work has been done on the plumbing etc (BIG thank you Matt!!) and bricks order and arrived (within 4 hours of ordering..no flies on Midland bricks). Compacting around the pool should be done by Friday, with hopefully a dip into the pool by Friday afternoon or over the weekend. Which would be awesome as the temperature for Sunday is forecasted into the high 30’s.
Imogen’s dream is official on the way, we all can’t wait to be able to share with her a care free and happy Christmas and summer holiday by the pool. Without the assistance of the boys : ), your generous donations and the incredible support of the Kids Cancer Support Group we would never have been able to reach this goal in such record time.
We send a big Thank you to all with Love and Hugs from the Holmes Gang.
Blog again soon
With Love and Hope Fiona, Jason, Kody, Imogen and the incredibly cute Ashton : ).
