Ella's Backyard Dreams Project #9: Finishing touches

The day after the backyard makeover, Pete and Lia Healy, along with Daniel, were hard at work finishing off the rest of the unfinished work in the backyard.

Part of this was some full-on grunt work digging trenches for the plumbing pipes to go, which had previously been sticking out of the grass, at times providing some manky looking rainwater on top that Scarlett seemed to like the taste of.

Since it was quite hot, the girls were inside, watching one of Ella's favourite movies; The Lion King. 

Shovelling dirt for the trenches was a fairly physical task, with Daniel and Pete both working up a sweat in the sun. Apparently Pete is not a huge fan of having his photo taken, and I believe he made some threats regarding my camera's well-being at this point...but hey, you can't please everybody. And I think all his hard work deserves to be recorded.

The new trampoline now had the netting around the sides.

I was only able to stay for a few minutes, as I was on the way to Sally's dance performance with her hip-hop class, but it was good to get a few more progress photos in daylight.

Some photos of the completed backyard with fairy lights coming soon....

Ella's Backyard Dreams Project #8: The reveal.

While there was still a little bit of daylight left, I did a quick walk around the backyard to take a video of how it was looking.

And when it was dark, it was time for the Jakas family to see what everyone had done for them...I'll let the video do the talking for this post.

More photos to come soon of the completed backyard with all the little finishing touches.

Ella's Backyard Dreams Project #7: Daniel & Emily return

 You can see photos from Part 6 here:

http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/12/ellas-backyard-dreams-project-6-almost.html

After a fun and relaxing day out, Daniel and Emily were back, much to the delight of Ella and Scarlett, who immediately ran to the door to greet them. Emily was looking very nice after her day spa makeover earlier in the day.

 Everyone stood around chatting for a while, as Daniel and Emily shared what they'd done on their 'day off.'

 After spending almost the whole day away from home, Ella was rather keen to go back, and went to the front door several times.

 To try and distract her, they all sat down on the lounge for some cuddles and mucking around.

 Over the fence, everyone was working feverishly to try and get the backyard makeover completed.

 The gazebo and outdoor dining set were in place.

 Andrew had almost completed the butterly-laden stone area outside the cubby.

 The trampoline was installed and paved, minus the side netting, with Kelly shovelling barkchips around the edges to finish the setting off.

 As dusk fell, the arch was raised, and some fairy lights put up.

 While Kelly brought in the mini table and chairs, Lia was busy setting up the table with some champagne to celebrate the reveal. There was still some tidying up to be done, so I went back over to Wayne and Gildi's house to see how the Jakas family was doing.

 Daniel had a long day out, and was relaxing on a comfy leather recliner for a while, while Ella watched some more of the Fairies on DVD.

After some more time had passed, Lia came over to tell them it was almost time to come home, and see what everybody had done. With such an insane amount of work to do in one day, the backyard still needed some finishing touches, but it had been completely transformed to what it looked like that morning.

 Once Lia got the ok, it was time for the reveal, and everyone started moving out, with Ella leading the charge to the front door.

My Cefiro #41: Extreme Horsepower Show.

After the country drive to Tailem Bend and back, there were a lot of bug spatters and corpses spread around the front end.

 I thought of cleaning the car before heading up to the Extreme Horsepower show, but figured I would only be in the carpark anyway.

 There were a few big American pickups on the way in, this Ford F150 dwarfs the Mitsubishi Lancer parked next to it.

This GMC with dual rear wheels looks like it could tow a house without breaking a sweat.

 There were some cars parked on the grass outside the main pavilion, including this tidy looking R34 GT-R.

 At the entrance there was a 1934 Chevrolet hot rod, looking very slick with its satin black paintwork and shining chrome.

The first car on display inside was an old-school Batmobile.

There were loads of cool cars on display, with quite a few cool hot rods, like this 1934 Ford Roadster.

There were some imports on display as well, including a few drift cars.

 You may recognise this Cefiro fom previous posts; it belongs to Kelly from Sleeka Spares. Since my last visit to the shop, it had undergone a full respray, and was looking quite smart with the new pink and black exterior.

Moving on, this Mazda FD RX7 caught my eye, as did the impressive engine bay.

Monster turbos seemed to be the theme of the day.

I don't usually like the whole S15 with bodykit and shiny wheels style mods, but for what it was, I actually kind of liked the look of this one.

These were probably the most deranged rods in the show, scraping the ground and wearing tyres wide enough to raise a family on.

I'm not sure if this bottle of nitrous oxide is functional or not, but combined with the tyres, ride height and chain steering wheel, at least it's a cool way to die if so.  

I have a bit of a thing for 1950s era American pickups, like this immaculate Ford F100.

This Corvette Stringray was interesting.

Why have just one huge turbo when you could have two?

This hot rod was much better presented than the other two, but with a blown V8 up front, it was just as deranged.

By this point I was getting quite tired from walking around and holding my camera, so I decided to head home, snapping a few more shots on the walk back to my car.

Gotta love tough 57 Chevs.

The next week, I was able to do a little bit of work, taking hospital interior photos for the architecture company my Dad works for. It was nice being in a hospital as a worker and not a half-dead patient, as well as being paid to be there. I found a good park next to an R33.

After a couple of hours shooting, I went into the city to Atkins Technicolour, the professional photo lab where I get most of my stuff printed. With the engagement party coming up, I'd ordered a canvas print with a photo for people to write on.

With that safely stowed in the back, I headed for home to rest.