Photos from the saddle

The start of my local MTB ride (literally over the back fence and about 200m down an equestrian trail!). Not a big loop so far, but it sure is pretty!

Home MTB skills park progress....

Multiple berms, 2 bridges, 2 jumps a few roll overs and about 750 metres of single track all in our own block! Im hoping to increase that to 1km soon. 

Happy birthday Sam

Happy 6th Birthday Sammy Tyler!

Pines

Pine forest plantation 

New home!

Its been our dream for many a year and its finally come true! We are officially residents of Murrumbateman NSW and proud owners of a lovely country home and almost 5 acres of beautiful land.

Photos from the saddle

Went on possibly my last Black Mt ride as an ACT resident today. 

Photos from the saddle

Start of the One Tree Hill climb. Stunning day, glorious views, great ride.

Block/house progress

 Garage slab formwork 

Floors all cleaned ready for the carpet and laminate boards to go down

 Dining/kitchen

 Lounge, what a view!

 The spine of the house where the 2 halves were joined, now you can barely tell 

 Dining

Our 132,000 litre water tank taking ownership of the land!

Free throw

Will showing some good shooting technique here with a couple of free throws last weekend 

Woohoo!

Lucas here with a visual representation of how excited we are all feeling with the prospect of moving to our dream home in the very near future!

Although he does keep saying he doesnt want to move anymore! (could be something to do with me dragging him out there every day to meet up with tradies in the mud and cold!)

Updated home and block pics....

 Some of the lovely view from our lounge room

 The mains trench from front gate to switchboard

 Lucas teaching Kevin how to dig properly

 Freshly oiled deck

Fixed front gate

Water tank pad ready for delivery next week

 New gas bottles for cooking and heating water

 Painted skirting looking good!

One more day to go before the house itself is completed from the builders point of view, then its just a matter of getting power/lights/fans, water and sewage connected, floors layed, wood burner installed and shed built. Then after getting all that inspected and approved from council as an official occupancy, we are good to go. Getting close!!

Rice boys school photo quartet

Handsome/cute alert! 'For the first time in forever' (thanks Frozen) the Rice boys had their school photos taken all together today. I managed to sneak this one past the official photographer!

Anyone order a house?!

Well, the day finally came where our house (that we had never actually seen prior) arrived on the back of 2 huge trucks from Wagga Wagga 200+kms away.

We watched the entire process from the trucks turning up on the street, to them connecting the 2 halves together and joining everything up, really amazing! We are absolutely stoked with the product and can see many happy years spent as a family in our new home, on our beautiful 4.8 acres of paradise!

 The levelled site a few days before the house arrived

 And here it is!! The long wide load was tricky to manoeuvre around some of the trees

 Official arrival on our land!

 House hydraulically jacked up so the truck can drive away from under it

 The 2 halves slowly becoming 1

 The back

 The front

 Kitchen

Home!!

Keeping up

Another sit down rest for this little cyclist

Its tough being the youngest, trying to emulate your big brothers and for the majority of time being well out of your depth. Its easy to forget Lucas is only 4.......although he will soon be a big brother too and be showing the new addition to team Rice all sorts of clever big boy things!

Cycling challenge # 4

My cycling challenge number 4 consisted of riding 100kms while still cilmbing at least 1000m.

Being on the bike for almost 4 hours is a challenge in itself for me, but adding the strong icy winds we had today it turned into a real battle to keep pedalling after about 75kms or so. By the end of the ride my hands and feet were numb and muscles were much more sore than they should have been.

I didnt quite get the 100kms and although it was a slow cold and windy slog towards the end, I still loved the ride and it was good to be pushed by a different variable apart from distance or terrain this time. It turned out the weather was the true challenge for number 4.

Strava ride stats - http://app.strava.com/activities/137127945

 A beautiful river crossing at the foot hills of the Brindabellas

The lovely rolling hills out near Uriarra village