Honeymoon

Yes Steve and I are going on a honeymoon in September when we get married.

The whole plan was that we would, as a family, go to Dubai where my parents currently are. This was organised last November by Steve and my father, part of that other story about my engagement that I still need to tell you!
So since we got engaged the wedding has been planned around us having our honeymoon in Dubai in September, thus the reason we chose a September wedding, get married the week before we go to Dubai, simple really.
Anyway, this last week there have been a few developments shall I say and sadly Dubai is now not a happening thing. Several different factors leading to situation that can not be changed and therefore not the wises thing to do.

So my parents solution to it is that my mum will now have the boys for a week here in our house and Steve and I will go away for a whole week by ourselves!
Yes you heard right...A WHOLE WEEK BY OURSELVES

I never dreamed I would get a proper honeymoon, well, not that I wouldn't have a honeymoon, but you know, with having the boys I always presumed that where ever we went they would come too, part of the joy of doing everything backwards!
I always imagined that we would be one of those couples that had a second honeymoon when the boys were older and we would say at the time that it was because they had come with us on our first one.

"So where are we going?" I can hear you all ask...

Well we thought of Australia, seeing as it is just a hop skip and a jump across the water, but then thought we ought to go somewhere a little more romantic and exotic so would you believe we are going to Tahiti, to one of the islands in the French Polynesian Region.
It is a dream honeymoon, golden white beaches, crystal blue clear water, hot sun, quaint little rooms amongst the gardens of the resort, I could go on and on....

So the boys will stay here, Ben will have started school by then, so he will be out all week, Alex will still be at Daycare 2 days during the week, so mum will have a quite an easy week actually, at least 2 full days to herself. So I think it will all go well.

Joys of Parenting

I can honestly say that I was the one to instigate having children in this relationship.
Steve has been married before and children was not something that was going to happen in that relationship, so when I met him, children were not really on the agenda.
It took me several years before he agreed to children and I think I can honestly say, that even with the bad days, he still wouldn't change any of it.
To prove my point, yesterday I woke just after 6am to hear Steve and the boys in the boys room singing 'Miss Polly had a Dolly'
Seems Steve had taken Ben back in the middle of the night and ended up sleeping with Ben, because his bed was cold and he wanted daddy to warm it up for him.
When Alex woke up he joined them and Ben then put the light on, got out some books and started reading with daddy, one of the books was 'Miss Polly'

Last night Steve was telling me all about it and we were laughing so much, about how Ben was the leader and instigated the reading session and also about the fact that I wondered if Steve ever thought in his life he would be singing Nursery Rhymes at 6am!

Guess that is parenting for you.

Raclette

For those that don't know what Raclette is then read on.......this is a form of Swiss cheese, and when cooked under a funny little grill can create the most amazing dinners to share with Go check out here to find out much more about it.

My family first got introduced to this wonderful meal in Europe.

My parents now actually have a raclette machine, although coming across cheese for it here in NZ is sometimes a little challenging.

Anyway, the way it works is that you cook up a whole load of boiled potatoes, have dishes of salad, pickles etc and a nice big plate of assorted cold meats.

Everyone has their own little grill plate and this is where you place the cheese to have it melt, whilst the cheese is melting, you then place what ever food you want on your plate. When cheese has melted you pour it over food on your plate and eat whilst the next lot of cheese is melting.

So all in all a very slow process of eating, but that makes it good, because there is lots of chatter whilst slowly eating, where eventually you don't realise exactly how much you have eaten, or not, but that you feel quite full anyway.

We have some friends here in Hamilton who have just informed us they have a raclette machine and would we like dinner with them one evening. So the night is planned and I am now going to check if I can find the cheese in the local supermarket again.

My parents, as I mentioned, also have a machine and I think I am going to have to go and raid their house for it because we have a couple here in Hamilton who I would love to have over for dinner one night, and this would make for a wonderful evening. Although having just read the website I have for it, I think I might be purchasing one myself in the next couple of years as they are alive and well in Aussie and ship to NZ!

Mama Mia

The smash hit musical hit the stage here in Auckland in 2004.

Steve and Ben brought me tickets for chistmas and we had a blast.

The stage show was amazing and it was a fabulous night out, lots of singing and dancing. I would see it again tomorrow if I knew where it was playing!

So imagine my surprise when earlier this year I saw an advert at the cinema for the musical movie! Starring Meryl Streep, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and many other well know people.

It is finally coming here on July 10th, which turns out to be before the USA, wow NZ is priviledge to get something before the US.

I will be there, at some stage, to watch it on the big screen. Not sure if I will invite Steve to go with me or my girlfriend Wendy.

Out already quite a lot next week so will maybe have to be the week after, but this is one movie I will be watching on the big screen.

Bridesmaid Dress

I found a pattern yesterday for the bridesmaid dress to be made from.

I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, although I think the dress maker will find she can make it in one evening.

It is plain and simple and I think will suit my bridesmaid just right.

Now I have to find the material to make it from and get it all over to Rotorua.

This is the actually pattern, I just have to decide whether I want the little bolero jacket made to go with the dress? Was thinking of maybe getting it made in a contrasting colour, maybe gold. This would then go with the colours of the wedding. The main colour of the wedding is a burgundy maroon wine colour. This colour square gives you an idea but the actually colour is a little pinker. although I think most of the stuff used in the wedding will not actually match exactly but will be all very close in the colour range of the spectrum.

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???