I'M BAAAAAACK!!!!

Oh GEEZ! How long does it take to get Broadband turned on at your new house? Well, in our case... over a week. There are few thing that irritate me a LOT. This was one of them. Turned out we had a snowball effect of disasters.
1) The phoneline was disconnected before the internet was switched to the new house.
2) So when the ISP tried to connect at the new house, it was denied.
3) And they didn't call us to tell us that. Dimwits.
4) So we called and they tried again.
5) And it failed again.
6) And they didn't call us ... again. Dimwits x10
7) So we called back. And they explainec 1-6 FINALLY
8) They then informed us that they are a subcontracting company (we knew this) and that their main hub had renovated without telling them (DIMWIT Hub company), so our old internet plan (10gb at 2mb for $49.99/month) was obsolete. ARRGH!
9) They offered us 1gb at 8x slower for $30/month or 10gb at 8x faster for $54/month. Tell me which one I chose. Ha! Me who uploads pictures like it's a hobby. Oh wait. It is a hobby.
But that was friday. And that means NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL MONDAY!
10) Cue the aggrevated *Growl*.
11) Then my dad called the main hub who then called us to tell us there wasn't a fault on the line. Duh. We knew that. Obviously, our phone's been working. But when I asked the woman a question she WOULD NOT ANSWER. She just kept repeating that there wasn't a fault and we should call our subcontractor. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
I don't know of anything much more frustrating. I finally hung up on her, coz I was getting nowhere.
12) We called this afternoon to see if the internet was sorted out (we bought a new modem, so we hadn't linked it up yet and could't tell).
13) It was then that we started having issues. Turned out the phone line in the lounge doesn't take the Broadband, it's only in the spare bedroom. So sorry Havie (my sister), when you get here, you'll have to be the hub for the net, but we bought a wireless modem, so we won't be checking internet in your room. Rest easy.
14)I'M BACK!

And what was a doing you ask?


We were doing the ship send off. The ship usually docks along side a wharf on the *other side* of this harbor (than what you're seeing) over to the far left. The day before it sails out, we bring it to the "visitor friendly" wharf (the other's full of greasy fishing boats and it's a long walk out) for a special dessert reception in the evening and a big "shindig" the next afternoon. The "big shindig" caled a the Send Off was all my responsibility. From the sausage sizzle (NZ equivalent of a hot dog stand) a 7m high inflatable slide, ship tours, signs, requesting prizes from local businesses, all the invitations, the colouring competition, the adult's raffle, etc etc etc. I had a fantastic team of people to help! YAY! And that was a God-send because I took 10 days (give or take) off when Joshua passed away and came back to "not a lot of problems". The only major thing that fell through the cracks was that we never invited our local "bigwigs" like the government people and such.
It went great, without a hitch (minus the van dying in our yard the morning of - Matt had to get my dad to come back for him, the BBQ, and the slide!) AK!

We had our uniforms on for the day. It's not really a uniform. The ship's crew wear those navy polos and khakis - so we "mimic" them. Oce only had a black shirt. Cute huh?

Somebody shared her french fries (chips) with Oceana. FAST FRIENDS! In fact, I think that's part of the reason she now can say "Paddee". :)

It's coming together slowly. It's not that bad actually, this photo. There's the camera bag and my mum's purse cluttering the shot. And some clean dishes that needed to go away. But not bad huh? The rest of the house is coming slowly. I'll take some "clean" pictures of the rest of it - coz all I have now would just set in stone my clutter. No thanks.

More to come. I have work to do though.