Long Weekend

Hello Friends...
so great to see you all again. This past weekend has been a long weekend for us. We have been celebrating Queen's Birthday. Which just so happens to have fallen when they are doing all the celebrating in England. However just in case you don't know, here in New Zealand we have a long weekend to celebrate the birthday of the current monarch. They keep it the same weekend each year, regardless of when the actual birthday falls.
So as I write this post most people are enjoying the fact we have a 4 day working week this week.

Friday
the evening started with us coordinating all the activities we had for the weekend

• soccer
• staying at my cousin's house
• Judo
• Travelling home
• Alex's 7th Birthday
• Friends over for lunch

so despite a few protests from the lower ranks, we had a game plan in our heads as to what had to be achieved  when and possibly by whom!

Soccer

This was meant to be one of our easier weekends of the sport. The boys, most conveniently luckily, for us had both their games at school.

Because of this I had stupidly happily in my helpful mode agreed to assist with the fundraising sausage sizzle we were running. This fitted in with what time we had to be at school for Alex's game so no worries.

The morning however did not work out too well, we had to remind the boys 3 times to ensure they had their soccer bags organised. We successfully left the house, arrived at school only to have them both inform us that they had in fact not put their soccer shorts in their bags!

To say we as parents were a little annoyed was an understatement! I think Steve was ready to contact CYFS and have them taken into care!

Consequently, the boys have lost the privilege of all things electronic in our house for a week.

As you can see it was a normal early morning winter day for soccer, yes that is fog!

There was some sun somewhere, however it was at least 10am before it shone through enough to clear the fog.

This however did nothing to stop our little soccer players.

Saturday afternoon

The boys decided a few weeks ago that they wanted to participate in the Waikato Bays Judo Tournament that was happening in Tauranga. We are fully supportive of their judo so were happy to attend, however weigh in started at 7.30am on Sunday, so we decided to stay with my cousin who lives 20 mins away from the venue rather than a 90 minute drive first thing in the morning.

So we took bedding and dessert and had an awesome relaxed evening with the family, eating gorgeous lasagne and apple crumble with ice cream, to say we were all stuff is an understatement, it was a great winter dinner that filled you to the top.

We did however sit and watch the movie "War Horse" which after watching I am not so sure of. It was an interesting story, although sadly I spent the whole movie waiting for something to actually happen. I found the whole movie a little jumpy, jumping from this part of the story to that part and then on to another part, no real flow to it! But hey that is just my opinion of it.

Judo
at 7.45am on a cold Sunday morning, we joined the ranks of several other families and had our little ones weighed, all 22 and 25kg of them!

Then we went and got breakfast to be back for 9am to watch them fight their hearts out.

Sadly their fights didn't quite go how they would have liked!
Alex had only himself and 1 other in his class. So they had a best of 3 fight. The other person won the first fight and then sadly went on to win the next fight too, so Alex walked away with nothing. He had to win 1 fight to get a medal. He was devastated and very annoyed.

 Ben had 3 others in his class so he got to fight 3 times. He won 1 and lost 2 thus giving him a bronze medal.

They both did extremely well in their fights, even if they did lose some, but at the end of the day they both went and gave it ago and tried hard. We are very proud of them for getting out there and trying.
Grandma even came and watched them fights, so they had lots of cheering from the stands when they were fighting.

Home time
After judo we called back at my cousin's house and collected our bedding and then hit the road for the drive home. 90 mins is not far but when you have had a long tiring day it can seem like forever.

We were on the road at 5pm and got the pleasure of seeing a wonderful winter sky as the sun went down.

I got the camera out and took 1 picture and then Ben suggested "I get closer!"
Steve and I just fell about laughing as we tried to ask him exactly what he wanted me to do, because there was no way I could get closer to the sky!
Turns out he wanted me to use the zoom button on the camera, man they come out with such cute stuff all the time. Although he did go on to inform us that because it was a nice red sky then the next day would be nice, think he has been listening too much to his dad when he says:

• Red sky at night sailors delight
• Red sky in the morning sailors warning

I took more pictures and we all ooh'd and ah'd over the pretty sky ahead of us

I am aware that this post has turned into a long one so will end for now and tell you about the last day of our long weekend which just happened to be Alex's 7th Birthday.
Catch you soon.

Let's Get Stitched

A wonderful group of people over here at Designs by Fee decided to hold a Stitching Get Together in Tassie.
They have been planning it for the last year and it all came together this last weekend.
Apparently, from what I can read and see they had an awesome time.

So much so they are doing it all again next year in 2013.....in Adelaide.

I would love to go to Adelaide, I have seen and heard so much about it. It is one of those places I just want to visit.
Sadly I know it won't happen, next year is going to be a busy year if I go and do my teacher training. I won't be able to take 4-5 days out, in fact make that a week, to travel over there and really enjoy myself. So as much as I would love to be involved I know realistical it just will not be happening.

But on the bright side.....2014 is being held in NEW ZEALAND
Miche'le from By Hoki Quilts is taking that honour
And that one I know I can make, no worries about too much travelling time, it will be here right on my door step, because lets face it, New Zealand is small, nowhere is really that too far away, might have to drive a little because it may be the only way of getting to some places but who cares, I can drive. In fact I know that Michele lives in the South Island, so maybe a little plane ride and then a big drive!

So 2014 here I come, I will be joining in the Stitching Together Weekend

I'm Loving

Today I am loving the weekend we have just had.
On Saturday we had our annual family BBQ. We invited anyone and everyone and we had an awesome day. The sun was out, the food was good, the company was awesome and the family & friends were flowing.
People came for an hour, they came for 6. We had people in the house, in the garden and hanging round the kitchen. People got to meet new people and mums from school finally got to know mums they had seen but never spoken too.
It was an awesome day and I am already looking forward to next years BBQ

Sunday was one of those classical Sundays. Lots of sunshine and chilling at home. We had a late breakfast followed by doing nothing.
We caught up on computer stuff, we caught up on books.
The boys and I spent an hour in the park playing cricket, just hitting the ball and bowling. Actually I was well impressed with the abilities of the boys. Ben had some awesome throwing techniques and when he hit could actually get great distance.
Alex was wonderful at bowling and did some great catches. We had a wonderful time in the sun playing ball.

Then last night we went to the Hamilton Gardens to see the Sunset Symphony.
Dinner in the park followed by some amazing music. The Trust Waikato Symphony Orchestra were amazing as ever and it was a wonderful way to end a glorious summer weekend.
As always the fireworks at the end of the evening were breath taking. I am always in awe of the spectacular quality of fireworks. At one stage last night all you could see was gold sparks filling the sky. It was an amazing feel good moment.

However that feel good moment didn't last this morning when we had 2 very grouchy tired munchkins, with 1 feeling sick and looking rather green around the gills.
So 2 munchkins at home for a day of rest and re-pinking in colour!

Have a great week all x x

Friday Night Sew In Update

Friday night has been and gone and as I write this the weekend seems to have done the same as well.
But man have I had a productive weekend, thanks to FNSI I seem to have managed to do some stitchin all weekend.

I spent Friday night sorting and planning.
I first sorted all the new DMC threads I had been lucky enough to acquire from Christmas. So I had to cross them off my DMC thread list and then rearrange my thread box to accomodate all the new ones.

Then I spent the rest of the evening designing my heart for the swap I am taking part in for Valentines Day. My cross stitch design programme works wonders and I have it all ready to go now.

And then in between other little errands that needed doing around the house this weekend, I have managed to cut out and stitch together a fleece blanket for Ben.

Alex already has one that he received for his 5th birthday 2 years ago from a friend. I liked it very much, as does he, and decided that Ben needed one too as they are very useful. I brought the material to make his about 8 months ago and it has sat there untouched since, but thanks to FNSI I got going with projects and hey presto one finished blanket.

It is a blanket that is sewed the wrong way round and then all the seams are snipped to give it a raggy look. Needs to go through the washing machine now to get it looking really soft and raggy but for now Ben is happy with it.

I also came across the beginnings of a sampler that I obviously designed many years ago for someones wedding.

Sadly I have lost touch with them since then and also I had only stitched about 4 lines of it. The more I looked at it the more I realised that I would be able to adapt it to suit someone else...like me.

So with a little unpicking of stitches I have been able to adapt the date to suit my own wedding date and now I just have to finish it, maybe adding a little more to it to make it bigger.

So for me a very productive FNSI and weekend.

How was yours?

Nelson Wedding

Of course the main reason we went to Nelson last weekend was to attend the marriage of our Niece Sarah to her partner Joni.

Joni and Sarah

It turned into a wonderful family event that was short and sweet but perfect for what they wanted.

They held the wedding service at a local garden within Nelson that had a wonderful lawn and lots of plants. The gardens apparentlly belonged to the local Council but there was a house in the grounds that was part of a trust. It looked very pretty but we didn't venture in, as you needed money to visit with and also we didn't have time, maybe another visit to Nelson is needed!

The service was very short and sweet and to the point, although the celebrant could have done with a ray of sunshine pierced through her body! Just a little lacking in joy and happiness for the joyous occassion.

We had prepared the boys the week before for the fact that this wedding was not like all the others they had attended, that there was not going to be a groom and more likely 2 brides in pretty dresses. This never fazed them at all and no odd comments were ever made. Amazing what kids accept nowadays, but then guess we never made a deal out of it so it wasn't a deal to them either!

It was a very joyous occassion celebrated by all who attended.

I have lots more fun and cute pictures of Nelson so will organise another post of them later on

Nelson Family

Steve comes from a reasonable size family, he is the youngest of 4.
His sister who is 5 years older than him lives in Wellington, about 6 hours drive away. His next brother, 6 years older, lives up north about 4 hours drive away and then he has his big brother, who is 7 years older!

His big brother lives in Nelson with his wife and they have 3 children. They have lived there for the past 20 odd years, so Nelson is their home.


Steve's brother Ken with granddaughter Kayla and boys

Their 3 children are not little anymore, Sarah the youngest is 28 (one getting married) and she has 2 brothers  Craig 30 and Gareth 31.

Craig and the boys

Craig, Gareth and boys

 These are of course the boy's cousins, the boys love the fact that they have cousins so much older. It was never planned for there to be so much difference between ages but Steve's brother had his kids when he was in his 20's and then Steve finally had his kids when he was in his early 40's so turned into quite an age gap.
Gareth, the oldest, is actually a father himself and has a 3yr old daughter and a 6week old son, so the boys had fun playing with Kayla for the weekend and looking out for her at the wedding.

Me, well that now means I am an Aunty, a young Aunty I may add, seeing as Gareth is only 10 years younger than me!

But with him now having children it also makes me a Great Aunty and oh how I played on this big time at the weekend, it got me lots of hugs and snuggles with Dylan (6wks old).

Kayla (3yrs old)

Kayla and Alex, her new big friend

Dylan (6 weeks)

It was such fun to laugh along with Sarah, Craig and Gareth and then remind them that I was their Aunty and that they had to behave, we all got on really well and it was a lovely way to develope a relationship with people you are just getting to know. Feel like I have cemented my status with them nicely now, which also cements their relationship with Steve (their Uncle) a little better.

Nelson

Last weekend we went to a family wedding in Nelson.
Nelson is situated on the top of the South Island in NZ and manages to catch quite a few rays of sunlight during the day.
It is a popular tourist destination and is gorgeous with views over the bays like none I have ever seen before.
It has a huge arts culture and has a lot to showcase.

I have been there a few times in my time in New Zealand, but did just realise that the last time was 7 years ago, so do not remember too much.

The boys were well excited about going on a plane or 2 or 4, seeing as we had to fly from Hamilton to Wellington (1 hour) and then change to take the next little hop skip and a jump to Nelson (30 mins).
It had been 4 years since they last went on a plane, so very intrigued.

Mt Taranaki so clearly seen, which is very unusual, so such a lucky sight

The West coast of New Zealand

The visit for the weekend was for the wedding but also an oppotunity to catch up with Steve's brother and family. Lots of pictures to show so will post more on that side of things in another post.