Wedding Expo

Yesterday I went to a local wedding expo at the Hamilton Gardens.
It was a lovely little event and I managed to gain a few ideas for those last little things that I need to do.
Unfortunately I had already chosen a venue, photographer and a dress because that is what 90% of this expo was about.
But....I did manage to get a pair of shoes at 1/2 price and they are so cute, just what I was looking for.
I also managed to find out about companies within Hamilton that hire out decorations for parties, and as I so far have nothing to decorate the venue with then this was very helpful.
I will be going to check out their showroom very soon to get an idea of things to place on the table, like candle holders and vases etc

We don't actually have a theme as such that is running through, we have a colour and other than that we are just going with stuff that has meaning to us and just keeping it elegant.
The venue for the reception has coloured walls so I really don't want to load the tables with too much colour otherwise we will have a colour overload when you walk in the door. So the tables will have white linen and a very small amount of colour brought in on the table by candles and flowers. Still trying to decide if I want to have the chairs covered or not, will see what the company can do and also how much it will be.

I also met with my bridesmaid this last weekend to see if we could find a dress in a shop, as it is ball season here. We really didn't find anything in the right colour although we did find a really elegant dress that looked great on her, but it was in a grape colour, and although this is in the right spectrum of the colour we have chosen, it wasn't quite the right colour, so I think we will be getting a paper pattern from the shop and getting her dress made, although we will keep it quite simple.

I also have all my wedding lingerie ready for when I have my first dress fitting with Jodie. It is getting quite exciting now and I wish the wedding was very soon rather than 12 weeks away. Although we almost found a dress for Kerry that was a expensive as my underwear I just brought from the bridal shop, Kerry and my mum are going to have to squeeze me into this thing on the day, but it is comfortable and will make the dress and me look wonderful, just as it should for the bride.

Cat

When we have gone away before we have left the cat a whole load of food in the wendy house out in the back garden. This then allows him to have somewhere dry to eat and sleep if that is what he wants.
We even put a towel in there for him to sleep on.
Unfortunately he didn't see us go on Friday and so we are not sure if he did eat the stuff in the wendy house or if one of the other cats did.

We can't really ask him either because we haven't seen him since Friday afternoon!
Yes that is right, the cat that adopted us has suddenly disappeared.

Night Away

Yes we have just had a night away from the boys.

We all drove, in the pouring rain, to Auckland on Friday and after leaving the boys with a friend for the night, Steve and I had a night in a hotel and went to see the show with some friends.

We saw Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

It was amazing. The costumes were fabulous and the whole thing had been done so well. The even changed some of the words to add kiwi humour into the script.

It was an enjoyable night out.

To Dry or Not To Dryer?

We are in the middle of a huge storm that has come across New Zealand.
We have had torrential rain for about the last 2 weeks on and off.

It is cold and very wet!

Ok we have had some spectacular lightening and thunder storms to go with it which have been amazing, house shaking amazing actually. Apparently we had 1500 bolts of lightening on one night, I am not actually sure if anyone in the Waikato was asleep at 3am that night, well with the exception of Alex!

Now I don't own a clothes dryer, never have!

In fact I was never bought up with one. Mum never had one, it wasn't the thing to have in England.

I have never had one the whole time I have lived in NZ either. Can't see the point, have a wonderful clothes line in the garden and a heater in the house that when clothes are placed on a rack and left over night they would be dry the next day.

When I rented accomodation when I first lived here, then yes there was a dryer, I did use it but only for sheets, towels and underware and this was only when I couldn't get them dry on the line.

In the last 2 weeks I have decided I am sick of wet washing.

I don't particularly need a dryer, but I can see the advantage of having a second hand one in the garage for those odd times. I know they are electricity eaters and that in these expensive times everyone is recommending that you get rid of your dryers, but like my mother, who has one in the garage but never uses it, it would be nice to know it is there in those desperate times.

I usually take the pile of wet towels and sheets to the local launderette to get them dry when the weather is really bad that I can't hang them outside. When we were in Auckland I could do this and it only cost $6.50 for the biggest load you have ever seen. Here in hamilton it is so expensive. One small washing basket load, which is probably 1/3 of the size I would have in Auckland, cost me $6 the other day and before that I got charged $10!

With Alex toilet training at the moment, which is going really well, then I am constantly having racks of wet washing in the garage which are not drying, the heater in the house is always drying the clothes in the evening and I am not enjoying it.

Add to this the fact that we are just about to install a heat pump in the house so the heater will dissappear and suddenly I am going to get over come with wet washing.

Now I don't want a brand new one, I am happy to go to Trade Me, auction website and purchase a second hand one, just something that will finish off the clothes if need be and also make it so my house no longer resembles a chinese laundry!

Meeting

I follow several blogs, ok they are all based in the US, but it doesn't mean I can't keep up with what they do.
Gen and Suz are both mothers of quads, yes that is right, 4 littlies all at once!
Gen's mob just turned 2 and Suz's mob turn 1 in August.
They both have wonderful stories to tell of their pregnancies and life with the quads.

Gen has just posted about a surprise holiday her husband organised, turned out the boys organised a secret weekend away with all the other quad mum's, which turned into a couple weekend. Yes Suz was there and it looks like they had a ball.
They are so lucky to have each other to talk to about what they are going through and i am so happy for them all to have had a wonderful time away together and to also have such wonderful husbands who went to all that trouble to secretly organise it.
Weel done guys

Living Together

Steve and I have been together for just over 8 years.

Like all relationships we have our good days and bad and the relationship takes work.

I am always looking at books when I see something that takes my fancy to find other little different ways to make things work, to get ideas for what has worked for other people and to find some fun things to keep the relationship fun and interesting.

One such book was one I borrowed from a friend a couple of weeks ago.

It was called 'The Making of Love' Staying in love as a couple.....even with kids!

It is by Steve & Shaaron Biddulph and is their expanded and revised edition.

The book was apparently first written in 1998 and they had just been about to retire it, but people kept commenting on it and hailing it as such a success to their relationship, so in the author's words...

"So instead of a dose of euthanasia, the book has been resuscitated, massaged, Viagra'd and given a major renovation!'

I thought that was such a cute thing to write about a book.

The Gingham Dress

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly. 'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped. 'We'll wait,' the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted. 'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him!

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.'

The president wasn't touched.

He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.'

'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.'

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.'

For a moment the lady was silent.

The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?'

Her husband nodded.

The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them................................

A TRUE STORY By Malcolm Forbes

'People will forget what you said,

People will forget what you did.

But people will never forget how you made them feel'.

Haircut

When I annouced that I was getting married, the first thing everyone asked, apart from where was it happening, was how are you having your hair?


My answer was "I have no idea...?!" like I have no idea on the theme I want, the style of my dress or come to think about it pretty much everything to do with the wedding, I was never one to sit and have it all planned when I was 12!


If you read the bridal magazines you will be overcome with all the beautiful pictures of brides in there, you will also notice the common theme that runs through and that is that all the brides are shown with long hair. Not one with short hair, almost as if you have to have long hair when you get married because that way you can have it so seductively piled high on your head with flowers wisping out of the style with the veil nicely stuck on top.

Well looks like I will be breaking with tradition yet again by having short hair!
The first thing my hair person and SIL said was "Grow your hair!" this was because at the time it had just been cut and was rather short.
However I never planned for it to have grown 20 inches in 6 months.
So I did as adviced, hey I've never been married before, I don't know the best amount of hair to have to maintain a veil throughout the proceedings!

Well this week I succumed and headed straight for the hairdressers. Take at least 1/2 an inch off all over please, I can't stand it looking like a birds nest for the next 3 months!
So now my hair is neat and tidy yet again, I feel human again and actually look better, more me.

So I will still be getting married in September with short hair, it won't be cropped short, just a reasonable length that is more me, the veil will sit nicely even if I have to glue it in place, but at the end of the day I will feel like me and will enjoy it more, rather than worrying about how it all looks and regret it later.

Water!

Yep that's right, water, that is the solution to the Ginger Crunch.

Steve looked at my breadcrumb dough last night and said 'let's add some water?'

So we slowly tsp by tsp added some water, all 3 tsp in total.

And hey presto it all worked out well.

Made the dough just bind together well enough to actually not be too crumbly.

And the ginger crunch is beautiful.

Memory

Its Wednesday again and time for another WFMW Tip.

Since having children, which is just coming up for 5 years, I have noticed how bad my memory is!

It is not totally shot but enough that sometimes I will think about something, get up to make a list of the things and then only come up with 2 of the 3 things I was thinking about.

My long term memory seems fine, but the average day to day stuff can sometimes just slip right by without a blink.

Now to someone who can remember the most stupidist details and was always able to remember everything for the day, then this can get a little frustrating and annoying. Just another way that motherhood has affected my life that sometimes bugs me!

When Ben was first born I found that the way to solve this little problem was to have a notebook on the counter in the kitchen, and anything and everything got written down in it.

If I thought of something I had to do, then down it went, if I needed to write a number down, then that is where it went, when I was trying to organise things this is where I did my calculations.

Made life easy when you wanted to look back at something and be able to find it.

I have noticed that since we have been in Hamilton I haven't been using a notebook and things are getting forgotten and lost again.

So the notebook has come back out into the kitchen and hopefully things won't get forgotten or lost again!

Not as They Seem

I have been over here in NZ for just over 10 years now.

There isn't really anything I miss from England apart from some nice food items.


Jaffa Cakes:

These are small round biscuit like cakes with a round orange jam slice on the top, topped with chocolate. They are devine and unfortunately the small pack of 12 you can buy just seems to dissappear way too quick for anyones liking.

There has even been debate throughout England at one stage as to whether this was in fact a biscuit or a cake, apparently it came down to how much tax McVities was prepared to pay on them. You apparently pay more tax on biscuits than you do cake in England.


Finger of Fudge:

This is a small finger of fudge covered in chocolate made by Cadbury's UK.
It is a small confectionary item and sells for about 15p (about 75c to a $1 NZ)

They again are devine and just big enough for a treat, well that is what the advertising campaign said all those years ago!

Alpen Cereal:

Alpen is a muesli cereal with hazlenuts and sultanas, made by the company Weetabix, same people who make Weetabix and Cocopops etc in UK

I am not a dried fruit person but this cereal is lovely and so easy to pick out the fruit part (I know fussy people!)



Now these 3 items are things that you can not get here in NZ freely, as in they are not in the supermarkets.
They are however imported by some people who have set up British Food Shops within New Zealand.
There is one such shop in Auckland, just round the corner from where we use to live.
We have frequented this shop occassionally and in fact I visited it on my way home from the funeral last week.

Now as usual what your memory remembers and what you think things where like are usually different and this time it is not different.
Jaffa Cakes and Fudges will never change, there is nothing they can do to them to ruin them in anyway shape or form.

Alpen on the other hand, well, I am sure if I had been eating it often over the last 10 years I wouldn't have noticed the difference, but having just eaten some for the first time in about 6 years or so, I definitely noticed a difference and I will not be rushing out to purchase another over priced box of imported cereal.

It just doesn't taste the same as I remember it!

Ginger Crunch

Yesterday I decided to make some Ginger Crunch.

For those that are not aware, this is a dry biscuit base with a ginger icing on top. Very gingery and very nice.


I had my trusty Edmonds Cookbook, the one all NZ houses shouldn't be without, and I proceeded as stated.

Ingredients:

125g butter softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cps plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ginger

Method:
Cream butter and sugar. Sift all other ingredients until a dough is formed. Knead on a floured board and then lay in tin.

Bake in 190c oven for 20-25 mins.

Now there is ingredients for the topping and I will give them to you in a moment, but unfortunately for me I never got to that part. For 2 reasons mainly.....

1. Having followed the recipe as stated all I ended up with was a large mixing bowl of breadcrumbs. No dough, nothing that would ever in the slightest be kneaded! Seemed to me that there was too much dry ingredients and not enough moist to form the dough?
2. Never answer the phone whilst making anything, especially when your children are hovering to help. 1 phone answered and the next thing I know Ben and Alex are mixing, pouring, spooning and sifting all the breadcrumb dough into any and every container they could find. I actually ended up abandoning the cooking and getting out the vacuum cleaner to clear up the kitchen as there was floury breadcrumb dough everywhere!

Not actually sure what happened, guess I will never know. But I will get some more butter and try again another day.
Oh yea, and for those that want it, here is the topping part.
Topping:
75g Butter
3/4 cp icing sugar
2 tblsp golden syrup
3 tsp ground ginger

In a saucepan combine all ingedients until butter is melted, pour over base when cooked. Cut into squares whilst still warm.

The solution to the problem is to add 3tsp of water to the dough mixture, comes out beautifully.

Know the Feeling...!

An older, tired-looking dog wandered into my yard;
I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of.
He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head; he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the hall, curled up in the corner and fell asleep.
An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.
The next day he was back, greeted me in my yard, walked inside and resumed his spot in the hall and again slept for about an hour.
This continued off and on for several weeks.

Curious I pinned a note to his collar:
'I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap?'

The next day he arrived for his nap, with a different note pinned to his collar:
'He lives in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of 3 - he's trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?'

Training Alex

This is going slowly but surely.
Daycare have been helpful through the week and we are now only having nappies in use occassionally.
Running around with nothing on seems to be working well, but doesn't help that we are now in winter so therefore not the warmest time to do that sort of thing.

He is slowly getting the idea of when he wants to go and therefore we are succeeding well.

Oh well onwards and upwards, can't expect to have it achieved within a week, but then 2 would be nice!

Work

I currently work at a Private Day Surgical Hospital.
All the cases we do are predominately day stay and they usually go home within 3-6 hours of completion of surgery.
This is my first time working in a Private setting and it sure is different to the Public setting.
I honestly thought there would be more variety in the instruments and resources we have for the surgeons, but I am told all the time that what we have is what they get! I thought the Consultants would at least get to use what they would like to use!
The work I currently do is a little boring, and some of their nursing practices do leave me a little cold, nothing too serious, but enough to make me question my own practices all the time.
I currently work 3 days a fortnight, and pick up extra lists when I am able to, as long as it fits in with the family.
I predominately work on Dental lists at present, which amounts to a large load of Wisdom Teeth and the occassional implant work.
Now the people I work with are a great bunch and so it does make for an enjoyable day when you work with good people. You can get through 4 or 5 wisdom teeth extractions in an afternoon very easily with the jokes flying and the music playing.

But.....I don't feel the job is going anywhere. It is a little hap hazard, if the surgeon doesn't have a list then I don't work, sometimes I don't feel there is a routine to what lists I do and so you loose interest very easily. There is also no oppurtunity to advance to anyother position and I think that is what is bothering me, to go to a better position means to leave the company.

The full time work I have just completed was at Waikato Hospital (Public) and the vibe just walking through the corridor put a spring in my step. Made me realise that as much as I love the people I currently work with, there has got to be more out there.

I want a job where I actually feel like I am achieving something, working towards something and even completing things.
Now yes I do get things done in my job, we get people's surgeries out of the way, take their pain away etc but it is not doing it for me.

I know a few people at the Public hospital and I bumped into one of them a couple of weeks ago. We did the usual catching up thing and then I mentioned about work. He told me of a few things that may be coming up and it got me excited. I decided that I needed to send him my CV so he could let me know if anything comes round.
The other day I passed him again in the corridor and he asked if I was into Research??
Turns out there is a Research Nurse with Trauma available and he wondered if it was something I was into.
I now have the job description and have read through it. I have even considered calling the person on it to ask more questions.
On the same day this got given to me I also had a chat with a lady I had just met and through talking to her it made me realise that I need to send my CV to some other people within the hospital.
So now I don't know if I am interesting in doing an 18 month research about why people have falls and injuries at home or whether it is just the first thing to make me sit up and look at what I am currently doing.
I guess just reading about a job that makes me have to think, work towards something and aim for the finish line are more important to me than I thought.

Whilst talking to the lady the other day I realised that I want a job that is problem solving, with organising and planning, taking situations, running with them and then working out why they are not working or even how we can make them work better and more efficient, all within a medical setting.

Hey not too much to ask for is it???

Breakfast Talk

This morning whilst having breakfast, the conversation with the boys got on to how we could travel to the moon.

Yep that is right the moon.

Ben is going when he is 5, but then Ben is apparently doing everything when he is 5.

He knows you have to wear a helmet and a suit and that you have to go in a space ship. His will have number 1 on it and I think he is hoping to get there first.

Alex is going in his own space ship and his will have number 5 on it, his favorite number at the mo.

Apparently Daddy is going with Alex and I am going with Ben.

Alex says he needs a map to get there as he knows it is high in the sky but not actually sure which direction to take.

This is not the first time we have had this conversation, we have even talked about what food we would have to take with us and how long we would be gone for.

It is such fun having these silly but very serious talks with the boys.

Camera

On Friday morning we heard Ben and Alex having a little disagreement.
Steve got up to investigate only to find Alex leaning on the lens of the camera trying to close it!
Of course that meant 1 jammed camera.
So at 8am I am on the phone to the Insurance company to get a claim logged so we can start the ball rolling to see if it is replaceable or repairable and whether the insurance company will help us do this.
So now we are without a digital camera.
Yes there are pictures on the card in the camera, so the first thing when it goes to the shop on Monday is to get the pictures taken off the card and put onto a disc.

So now we wait and see what the damage report says when it comes back!

Wedding Update

The dress material is now back in the country and has been delivered to the dress maker.

I haven't actually seen it so apart from the small square I have on my desk I have no idea what it all actually looks like.

Not too bothered, not much I can do about it now, just have to let Jodie work her magic and create the lovely dress for me.

Life

Life has been busy this last week or so and getting close to the computer to do any sort of blogging has not been high on the list.
I have been working full time, which has not been too bad. A little boring with what I was actually doing, but different and fun.
Steve went to Australia for 4 days and so it was just me and the boys.
Was fairly easy just the 3 of us, had a good routine sorted and the days went along quite nicely.
In fact the first day we were really late out of the house was Friday when Steve was home!
If I hadn't been working then I think it might have been a long 4 days but hey we would have survived!
Good to have him home though.
The boys helped me make a sign that said "Welcome home daddy" on it, we put it on the wall at the bottom of the stairs so he would see it when he got home late on Thursday evening. It is actually still there at the moment, but will take it down today.

Would take a picture of it, but unfortunately the camera is not working, what happened you ask? That is another post and I will fill you in on it in a while...........let's just say Alex was involved!

Grease

Grease is the Word

Would you believe that on Monday just gone, 16th June, it was 30 years since Grease was released in the cinemas.

As the guy on the radio said, to explain it to the kids, who think there is nothing better than High School Musical, then Grease is mum and dad's HSM but with sex!

Everyone knows a song or 2 from Grease and everyone is still quite happy to watch John Travolta dance!

I was in Kuwait when this came to the movies, I was not quite 8 years old and no I didn't see it then, in fact I think I was about 16 or 17 when I finally got to watch this movie.

Do you know that Sandy and Danny only kiss once in the whole movie!.......and that is at the beginning on the beach.

But then if you got to watch it in Kuwait, nobody actually got to kiss because they weren't allowed to show those scenes, so they got cut!

Oh how life goes on.

Joke Time

My father is always sending through jokes.
Some are funny, others are not, some are just down right obscene!
But this one really made me laugh.....

Driving to work this morning on the SZR, I looked over to my right and there was a woman in a brand new BMW doing 80 miles per hour with her face up close to the mirror putting on her eyeliner!!!!
Shocked, I looked away for a couple of seconds and when I looked back she was still putting on the makeup but drifting halfway into my lane!!
It scared me so much (and this coming from a bloke....) that I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the bacon roll out of my other hand.
In all the confusion of trying to straighten up the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my mobile from my ear, which fell into the coffee between my legs, causing it to splash and burn BIG JIM AND THE TWINS, causing me to scream, which made me drop the cigarette out of my mouth, ruined my shirt and DISCONNECTED AN IMPORTANT CALL.
Bloody Women Drivers!!!!!!!

Next Child!

This morning Alex decided that he didn't want to wear a nappy!
So we put little undies on him and told him he had to use the toilet.
We took him straight there and he did good.
A little while later he told us he needed to go and so off we trotted and did good again.
Unfortunately half hour later we had an accident.
Oh well part of the progress.

So here we are, 11.30am, 2 hours after we started and we are going well.
He has just gone when asked and I think we are in for a long day!

Unfortunately this week is not good for this type of training as Steve is off to Australia on business tomorrow for 4 days and I am working full time this coming week.
So unless daycare are prepared to keep it up right from the early stages and I can put up with all the wet washing each evening then we might be on the home ward bound of having 2 toilet trained children!

My babies are growing up, where did the time go??

Friday 13th

Yes folks that is correct, it is that special time again when everyone runs round in circles trying to decided if they are suspicious or not.

It is Friday the 13th.

Me, I actually think it is quite a cool day, but then I think my dad had something to do with that because many years ago he started a Friday 13th Club. Got the idea from the US when we lived there.

Now this club could only have 13 people attend the event, there were more registered, and they tried to have a lot of fun. They were all pretty close friends so it did help, although they lived all over England.

Now they did simple things like going out to dinner, where they got the restaurant to produce a menu where the price of everything was $13 or added to 13. To the very wild like spending 26 hours in Amsterdam or going brewery hopping in Edinborough in tuxedos and having to sample 13 different drinks.

The guys all paid $13 a month towards these days so when it came to the day it didn't cost as much, and as they don't happen very often it was simple to get the day off work.

So they embraced the day and had fun with it which I think was great.

I actually went to the first dinner, although in the rules no girls were allowed, but I think a special rule was passed just for that evening as I was the sober driver or something like that.

Wedding Ettiquette

Sadly I can't wait for Shannon to do a 'backwards' WFMW as this question is burning inside me and I want to have an answer.

So I am sorry that I am doing a backwards one on a normal WFMW.

Now as you are all aware I am getting married in September.

Everything is going fine and all bookings are coming together really well.

Who ever said that organising a wedding was a stressful time? What were they talking about, although ask me that at the beginning of September!

Anyway, my question at present is this......

"Even though we have placed an RSVP on the invitation, do you chase people to get a reply or do you automatically assume they are attending and count them in the numbers for the reception. Or do you assume because they haven't RSVP'd that they are not coming so therefore don't include them in the numbers and then have the embarassment of them turning up on the day and not having a seat for them?!"

What is the right thing to do?

People have until Aug 18 to RSVP and we have informed the restaurant that we will give them finally numbers at the beginning of September.

Do I follow up with people closer to the time or do I just leave alone??

Goodbye my Friend

Sadly today Steve and I were informed of the death of a friend.
This lady was someone we had both worked with in the past at Auckland Hospital in the Operating Theatres and she in fact was the person that took over Steve's position in Auckland when he left last year.
We didn't know her closely, but we knew her enough to say hi if meeting and to catch up on what everyone had been up to.

She was a wonderful person, full of life and character.
She will be sadly missed.
She leaves behind her partner Tina and their 3 children.

So to Kirsten, you were a bright star so full of life.
We will miss you here.
Take care

Kathryn and Steve x x

Alex

Alex has taken to whinging.
Man can he be very stubborn at times!
Although Steve and I are still not sure where he gets it all from....???
Yea right...!

We are trying our hardest to ignore it and not react to it, so that hopefully he will get the message that it doesn't get him anything.

Full Time Work

So this week I have started my full time work for a fortnight.
So far it is going alright, although a little boring.
Monday was my first day of teaching the nurses in Waikato Hospital about the extra software that is being updated on their IV Infusion Pumps.
I had 6 sessions to teach. No one turned up to the first session, I had 1 person at the 2nd and 2 at the 3rd. The afternoon sessions were not much better, with only about 2 people per session and no one for the last session at 4pm!
Yesterday was slightly better, I now felt more comfortable teaching the information so I think that made the day more fun.
Again no one turned up to the first session and then after that I has a steady stream. I even had 6 people in one session at one time, that was fun.

So what do I do in between sessions and when no one turns up?
I sit and read a magazine and catch up on some very long over due sewing.
Yes that is right, I am being paid $47 an hour to embroider my quilting squares!
Yesterday I managed to use the over head projector as a light box to put some designs on some material that I need to stitch. Now I just have to put the backing on to allow me to stitch it.
So for the first time in a year I am actually getting some stitching time in, also I have a long over due quilt to finish for a present that was due last November!

So maybe this working full time is not all that bad!

School for Ben

There are plenty of schools within Hamilton. Several quite close to us.
But of course we like the one close to Steve's work.
Ben has passed this school on many occassions and quite happily tells us that this is where he wants to go.
As this school is an area that we are not zoned for, then we have had to make an "out of zone" application.
Ben came with me when I filled in the paperwork and that has convinced him even more that he is going to the 'blue and white school' (colour of the buildings!) as he calls it. Their uniform is actually red and black.
We have had to wait several weeks for the ballot to take place and finally we got the call today....
Yes, Ben got in and so he is going to the school we wanted, that is a great school, has a good reputation and is located in a great place for us with our morning set up getting everyone to their relevant places at the right time.
Everything just seems to be happening right for us this year.

Breathing

Ben is a mouth breather!
He holds his breath as he is eating and makes the most horrendous noises!
He knows how to breath through his nose but just doesn't seem to want to or it maybe that he can't, not sure which actually.
I have checked out on line about Adenoids, as sometimes it makes me think that maybe Ben's are enlarged!
But he doesn't have any of the infection symptoms that they tend to talk about.

If you or your child's adenoids are enlarged, it may help be hard to breathe through the nose. Other signs of constant enlargement are:
- breathing through the mouth instead of the nose most of the time
- nose sounding blocked when the person speaks
- noisy breathing during the day
- recurrent ear infections
- snoring at night
- breathing stops for a few seconds at night during snoring or loud breathing(sleep apnoea)

Yes he has difficulty breathing through his nose, but none of the others.

So on we will plod with the very noisy meal times as Ben continues to hold his breath and see if it maybe might just right itself!

Priscilla

At the end of June a group of us have got tickets to see Priscilla Queen of The Desert The Musical in Auckland.

It will be a fabulous night out and I am really looking forward to it.

It has had rave reviews and looks to be a fun and colourful evening of song and bright costumes.

So it was made quite clear to me, after it was discovered that I had never seen the movie, that I needed to see the movie before I went to Auckland.

So Steve and I watched the movie whilst at the caravan this weekend.

Well.......what can I say.......now I knew the story line and had nothing wrong with that but I sure did find the movie very lame!

I found it very bitty, and definitely made on a budget.

It was not as fab as I thought it was going to be?!

Now this has not put me off going to see the musical in a couple of weeks, I know that will be amazing, but I don't think I will be rushing out to watch the movie again anytime soon!

Doors and Heat

We have an old house and a heat problem as I previously mentioned.

We have a doorway between the dining room and the living room and have decided that we need to place a door there as the dining room gets cold. This in turn is making it difficult to heat the living room.

In the garage is 3 old doors that Steve has found and he is sure one of them will fit the doorway.

So he got them down last weekend and proceeded to strip them of all metalware so he could consider sanding them to get rid of the green.

Of course he had little helpers to make the day go smoothly along.

They did lots of work on the doors, but did one little thing backwards.....and that was that they did all this work on the door and then decided to see if it would fit!

Of course 1 of the doors was way too big and the other too small.

So the whole day could have been utilised slightly better, had they measured the doorway first.
So am not actually sure when we will now have a door in the doorway!?

Sanding the House

The previous owners of our house rented it out.

Turns out the previous people to live here liked fire!

So much so that they decided to have a small wee fire one evening and then thought "lets go bigger" and proceeded to place a couch on to burn, apparently the neighbours had to come over and threaten them with the fire fighters because the flames were too high!

Anyway, this meant we ended up with one wall that had the paint all blistered off. Nothing too serious, just needed to be sanded back and painted before the yucky wet winter weather sets in.

Steve got down to sanding this wall with a little help from you know who, that's right, our local helper, Ben.

He had such fun using the sander to assist with the sanding.

Someones Birthday

Happy 40th Birthday to my darling cousin Malcolm.

Man aren't we getting old!

Hope you have a super day.

Birthday

We have had a very busy day today for Alex's 3rd Birthday.

He started the day with an enormous pile of presents which would have happily kept him entertained for the whole day!

He decided that he had to have a Thomas cake today, Thomas the Tank Engine that is....my cake making skills are not that flash!

So in between swimming lessons, that went really well and everyone did so well, we tried to find things to make a Thomas cake. We found some suitable items.

We didn't have a party this year, he is only 3 after all, doubt he will remember this day that well! But we did have some friends round for dinner. So we decorated enough for him to feel like it was a special meal.

The cake turned out better than expected and he had lots of fun getting into the spirit of his birthday and he was all for blowing the candles out. Good old Betty Crocker and Vanilla Frosting!

Alex gained a crane and a construction set for his birthday, which he happily combined to see if he could rebuild the crane!

He also got 2 books for his birthday, my boys are always getting books and they love them, so we had 2 lovely new books to read at the end of the day, although when it was sleep time this little bundle came down the stairs wanting mummy. I gave him a big bear hug and he promptly fell a sleep in my arms.

Just the way I like to end the day, my gorgeous baby a sleep in my arms.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy

Happy Birthday Alex

Today my baby turns 3.

Where oh where did the time go?

He is such a delight, a charmer in his own right and oh so cute.

He has received lots of wonderful presents today, some I can see going out with us at every possible moment today because he will just not want to let go of them!

I will post some pictures of him on his special day later when I download the camera.

Have a great day everyone.

Rotorua

Rotorua, as many of you now know, is just over an hours drive from where we live.
As all my family are there then we go that way often, not as often as I would like, but it is easy to go when we have to.
The drive is very pleasant through the Waikato countryside and like any road in New Zealand through the countryside we are not talking of dual carriageways and straight roads. These roads go straight through farming land and so bend at every possible moment.
This can make the trip interesting but also very annoying when you get stuck behind a huge truck with double trailer that is travelling at 50ks an hour!

To get the Rotorua, you have to cross the Mamaku Ranges. Nice big hill with huge sweeping canyon to the side, and of course the road is as close to the edge, apart from the trees as they can get it.
The weather is also very unpredictable crossing the ranges because you go so high. It can be lovely in Hamilton and then you hit low cloud on the ranges.

Yesterday we went to Rotorua for Harvey's 4th Birthday party. It was foggy when we left Hamilton but in fact the ranges were ok.
Had a great time with all the relatives, even got to watch some of the Targa Rally, another story.

As we left, it started to rain and I knew we would be in for a slow ride home.
You may remember me talking about how I got stuck in Rotorua due to floods last month, and the fact I didn't want to drive home at night on my own in rain and fog, too spooky.

Well as we left last night I had that same feeling, although I knew we were fine as Steve was driving.
Visability was quite poor, the rain lashed at the windscreen and we drove at a rather slow speed, just like everyone else, or at least most people.
When we were down from the ranges and through the first town we pass then everything cleared and it was fine driving.
I am just grateful to Steve who drove very carefully and too the conditions and got us all home safely. It makes me feel safe to know he is there caring for us all.

The Cat

I caught the cat snoozing in the sun the other day.

It was the way his head is was just there that got me, not lying on the ground, just held up to catch the rays.