I think it's great to have a brother. I like mine. Having a connection you can trust. (The same is true with sisters, of course).

It's really beautiful to share a part of your life together. To share life-experiences with another being, many beings.

I am glad for the time that we share with them - these two magnificent boys.

Devon is a wonderful little boy. He's every so clever, with a bright active mind and an inquisitive nature. He loves to explore, climb and dig.

He is cheerful, sharing many beautiful smiles throughout his day with us. It is a pleasure to be his guardian.

As he said, just the other day: "I have a very big vocabulary for such a little boy!" He certainly done, and a keen intellect. Watchful, adventurous, kind.

SEE: Devon Age 3

Devon turned three this October and had a face painting party. Our friend Natasha (yes, the butterfly-fairy) was just the perfect person.

Devon was painted to be a lion.

Devon's Third Birthday - Face painting

Earthdance Festival 2006 was a beautiful event. An event for peace.

I was invited to speak. I was the final presenter in the chapel-area, scheduled for the same time as my sister, Shawn-Aileen, was getting married in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

I was speaking on the work of Dr Masaru Emoto and his water crystal photographs. It was an honour to speak at such a wonderful event.

Something interesting also happened while I was speaking that day...

It was hot, and had been for many, many days. I dressed in my most breathable clothes (hemp), and carried my gear to the chapel.

At the exact moment I began to speak about 'water' and what a precious resource it is for us, the skies opened up and it began to rain.

The rain was a much needed, and made a spectacular backdrop to the message I was sharing. The chapel has two sides made of glass, allowing a beautiful view of the fields and hills in the distance.

It rained and rained and rained all through the talk, finally tapering off just five minutes before I finished. The sound of tapping on the tin roof finally quieting.

It has since been said that at my sister's wedding exactly the opposite thing happened. It had been raining for days and at exactly the moment her outdoor wedding began... the sun came out! Then disappeared again, covered by rain. Amazing timing, eh?

We were offered a bed in a cabin alongside several of our good friends! We stayed the night, having toured the entire Fairbridge village listening to music and relaxing amongst the trees.

As I said, the Earthdance Festival is a festival for peace which happens in over 200 locations around the world simultaneously. (London, Paris, Rome, etc.)

It was a beautiful weekend filled with laughter, music, dance and play.

See our photographs of
Earthdance 2006 - here.

We left the Earthdance festival half-way through. The cabin we were sleeping in was only available for one night, so after my speech we packed up and headed for home.

We were glad to be home, yet there was still a longing for what a fun time everyone was having at the festival...

Sunday morning we arose.

I took Devon to Danica's for some playtime and on the way home I saw a sign [[HOME OPEN=>>]]].

That means, "Come on in an see the house now, it's open, and the Real Estate agent is there," in Aussie.

Only a block from home, I turned down the road to see which house was for sale.

We'd looked at another one half way down for $545k but it was too traditional for our tastes, with a very small back yard.

I drove past that one... and there at the end I saw the sign.

Just a week before we'd written a list with everything we would like in a house.

We listed the rooms, what they'd be for, that we wanted it to be unique, bright, spacious, with big gardens, a cellar (I added this), a back garden for playing, a trampoline (Tila added this), a cubby house for the boys, room for fruit trees and veggie gardens, an outbuilding, plenty of parking, easy accessibility... and most importantly - it must be in the neighbourhood.

Well this certainly was the nieghbourhood, I though, as I reviewed the list in my head as I drove towards the sign.

PRESTIGE PROPERTY FOR SALE
"A World of its Own"

• Huge sub dividable block
• Unique, limestone and timber house
• Separate studio workshop
• Beautiful gardens with bore reticulation
• Central gas heating
• Underground Limestone Cellar
• Second story balcony
• Minutes from Freo and Coogee Marina (yes, the beach that was stolen.)

"Once in a lifetime opportunity," it read.

We also wanted parkland behind us, and this one bordered the park on 2 sides!

I sat there in the car, thinking.

I took out my mobile phone and called the estate agent. "Hey, how much for the house?" He replied, "Offers above 850k. If you're nearby, come and see it, the house is having a home-open right now."

Yes, maybe we will.

I went back to the house and told Tila that a house with most of the features we've been looking for is for sale.

She couldn't believe it.

Then she said, "Yeah, but what about that price! Really..."

"Come on," I said, "Let's go and have a look. Look as if of we could buy it."

So we did. And we did. :)

On the way back from looking at the new house our neighbour John offered us some honey from the HUGE beehive he found in his wallboards.

What a day!

Dream house and fresh honey.

Yum.

Paint your life the way you want it to be.

As Tila was in signing and checking paperwork I was out painting a 'manifesting painting' to hang in our new house, once we got it.

Thanks to Stewart and Carol's generous gift we were able to get the deposit in on time - something we COULD NOT HAVE DONE without them. Thank you VERY MUCH.

I am very grateful.

We signed the paperwork and our offer was accepted, the banks had already given us approval, so now we just had to wait for the legalities and paperwork.

We asked the owner if we could get in prior to possession to clean and paint, as well as pull the 4 years worth of weeds out. They agreed!

We got to it.

This is our adventure in pictures...

See the preparation in a
Restoration PHOTO GALLERY

Enjoy.

We've found our family home.

It's in exactly the same neighbourhood as we were living in - only 101 yards away.

We made a list a week before with what we wanted, and it matched the list exactly. Even down to "trampoline" (tila) and "outbuilding" (me) as well as "fruit trees", "lots of light", "privacy", "backing on to a park", "space for two offices", and my favourite "a cellar".

It's magical

Set at the end of the road with a regional park on two sides, it feels like we're out in the middle of the country.

There's a lot of gardening to be done (left for 4 years), and Devon and I already uncovered a BEAUTIFUL crescent shaped pond (which we've now cleaned out and filled with fish).

We're cleaning the pond>> (Which neither the previous tenant nor the estate agent knew was there).

Goodbye good house.

Blessings, blessings.

I find it's different doing work to a house if you're the owner of a house.

Now that we're in negotiations for the property, the owners were willing to give us the keys so that we can clean and redecorate. (*after signing a few papers, or course).

Thank goodness! We were ready for action and did not hesitate to begin the transformation into our family home.

We worked until 4am the night before moving day getting the house as finished as possible.

That included second-coating every piece of whiteness, painting four walls, a door and several doorframes. Tila did every skirting board and is a HERO for it (I'd have left them, but they look GREAT done. Great job beloved.)

It was one heck of a night. I even cut the tin for the oven hood against the ceiling, removed several cupboards, and did I mention paint?

We did SUCH a great job with only one wall unpainted (which we did two days after moving in) and two skirting boards.

After finally scrubbing the entire living area and bedroom free from paint drips (I really must be more mindful of my drop cloths), we closed up for the night, and went back to Davilak for our final night's sleep there.

We've spent a lot of time 'schmick-ing" the place. I've so far used 19 tubes of "No More Gaps" to seal the gaps that are everywhere. We've also re-painted the entire living and sleeping area.

My darling wife has been wanting to share these photographs with you for AGES, so here you go...

Redecorating our New Home

Devon has an amazing vocabulary, many people comment on his use of language.

The other day, he said, "I have a very big vocabulary for such a little boy!"

Yes, Devon you do.

He has ever referred to this cubby house as HIS cubby house, and wanted to paint it as soon as possible.

There were stencils of teen-aged graffiti stuff on the outside. The inside needed a clean, but lo and behold, we had it glowing...

Being a father again is great. It's neat to have another little being around. Now there's a cute 3 year old and a cute 5 month old in our lives. Very cool.

Darshan is quite a chirpy fellow - he squeaks! The boys sound the same through the baby monitor when they're 'talking'. Darshan even has inflection in his voice now (not just one sound, but a variation of notes).

It's amazing to hear another little voice.

Darshan is an early riser, having one of us up with him as the sun peeks itself over the trees (ie: 5:45am).

He's got BRIGHT blue eyes, a beautiful face and happy disposition. He rolled over around the middle of December, and began to really reach out and GRAB things not long after

He can now also say MAMA (20 Dec), which I think is REALLY something for a little baby.

He's a very aware being, interested and joyful.

Moving-in, boy and baby, much happened in December. We had a beautiful holiday period settling in to our new home. We had twinkle-lights on the tree and sun shine in the garden... still adjusting to this.

The only way to share it is in photographs, so here's another web-gallery of the month.

December 2006 - Western Australia

I LOVE GARDENING. I love it.

This garden is amazing. I knew it from the moment I saw it.

Terraced limestone walls rising to the back fence, a beautiful back lawn, a patio piazza, brick-paved laundry area, sand play area, the middle lawn and veggie patches, the upper veggie patch and chook (chicken) house, the circular gardens, courtyard, the journey garden, the front yard and lawn, wide grassed verge and parking area.

YAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOO.

We've been into every area except the side garden and Journey garden, and the circular garden was only just planned last night (Sat, December 16, 2006). We've moved 2 tonnes of green waste (weeds, prunings, grasses, logs, etc), and have pruned the mulberry bush to half it's size.

My goal is to support it in becoming a sustainable, organic, energy efficient, high yielding permaculture garden system. I've just gotten 11 bags of sheep manure to feed the trees. The apricot tree's yield (about 30 apricots) went to the fruit flies, but we've got a healthy growth of macadamia nuts, avocados, and apples (at least we think they are apples). The locot trees will blossom and fruit again soon, and we are all grateful for that!

There are two yet unidentified trees that look like deudicious trees, but we'll have to wait and see. There is also a bunch of banana trees (which, apparently you have to dig out and replant the baby trees if you want to get bananas). And a curry tree (the leaves give curry flavour) - several friends have been trying to grow them for years. I had to rescue it from being swamped by giant ferns, but it's OK now - we just had curry flavoured with the leaves - YUM!

How blessed I am to have such lovely beings around me. My three lovelies really are divine.

On the afternoon of our first day in the house we noticed something hovering over the parkland - many somethings in fact.

From our balcony we could see the sky filled with.... dragonflies.

Hundreds of them.

WOW.

Neither of us had ever seen this many dragonflies at one time.

Within 20 minutes the 'flock' of them had passed... but not before we got a photo of one that entered into our office and sat on the window>>>

The galas (big black parrots) landed on our house and trees this morning, our first morning in our new home.

See him there, sitting on the cinmney.

How delightful!

Devon is always so participatory. He loves to do things, whether it be sweeping, digging, bouncing, or playing he's always happy.

He's such a handsome boy!

It's been almost ten years since we embarked upon our inner journey. Ten years since we first explored our inner experience, our sense of self.

It's been an amazing adventure venturing forth into this uncharted space.

It was my beloved Tila that found our first guide, Brandon Bays, in London all that time ago.......

Once we had the experience of being outside and inside the body at the same time, everything that we saw to be true became untrue (and vice-versa).

Anyway, it was my pleasure to create a space worthy of the work that is done there.

(Tila is a Senior Accredited Brandon Bays Journey Therapist)

In one day.

Mouseover to see the difference between 9am and 3pm that same afternoon. >>