We braved the elements and decided to have Christmas Dinner outside this year....
And the girls even made a festive ginger bread tree...
So it's now 2010 and we are looking forward to our first full year down here. Highlights of the year so farincluded our trip to the beach at Mount Maunganui on New Year's Day to collect Lana, who spent New Year's Eve there with some school friends. Kirsty braved the 'chilly' Pacific without a wet suit (Chris and I bravely wore ours) and stayed in for almost 2 hours, catching some surerb waves on her boogie board. Kiwis love their cars and the road behind the beach was full of proud drivers parading their suped-up, reved-up, pimped-up motors.
We had an offer to go camping yesterday which Lana accepted, leaving me behind to re-oil the decking (3 pots used and still not finished yet) and unpack still more boxes. We bought some bedroom furniture in the Boxing day sales, to replace the cardboard box 'bedside cabinets' we have used since we moved in. This meant that we've finally been able to move clothes from piles on the floor and tidy up our bedroom - bliss.
In a post-Christmas shopping blitz we also bought a three piece suite - Kirsty loves it as it reclines - a bit like a dentists chair. The arrival of the furniture prompted us to clear out the lounge we we've been using as a box store since November. We also got a large TV cabinet to replace the one I got at a Garage Sale here for $10 in November. The downside was that the tiny TV we bought from home looked ridiculously small on it .... Much to Chris' opposition I went TV shopping this week and found a much more appropriate screen in the sales. One store advertised a very few 50" TVs on sale on Jan 2nd so I dutifully joined the throngs milling outside the store at 8:30 - OK there were 8 of us; three were there because they thought the shop opened at 8:00; one man coming to buy a fridge for his camper van and four of us hoping to secure a mammoth TV. The doors open and we rush in and by 8:33 all four TVs and the fridge are snapped up....... It is now respendent on its stand in the lounge and we can sit in our reclining sofa and enjoy the best of Kiwi TV. (It's so Bl***y big we could watch it from the garden - ed.) In fact the TV here is OK, as long as you record everything and watch it without having to endure the all too frequent adverts.
It looks like we will have our first UK visitor this week with the arrival of Tom who is travelling around New Zealand in a camper van. Tom was the brother of Chris' little bridesmaid all those years ago and is now a surf instuctor so we're hoping for a couple of private lessons at Raglan this week... watch this space.
It was great to hear from so many people over the Christmas period - the girls are very jealous that the UK has had a white Christmas (in some parts), we'll just have to put up with the sunshine for the next three months now.......
Just in case you hadn't seen it earlier our permanent address is .......
308A Hautapu Road
RD1
Cambridge
3493
New Zealand
All the best
Richard & the family.
We had an offer to go camping yesterday which Lana accepted, leaving me behind to re-oil the decking (3 pots used and still not finished yet) and unpack still more boxes. We bought some bedroom furniture in the Boxing day sales, to replace the cardboard box 'bedside cabinets' we have used since we moved in. This meant that we've finally been able to move clothes from piles on the floor and tidy up our bedroom - bliss.
In a post-Christmas shopping blitz we also bought a three piece suite - Kirsty loves it as it reclines - a bit like a dentists chair. The arrival of the furniture prompted us to clear out the lounge we we've been using as a box store since November. We also got a large TV cabinet to replace the one I got at a Garage Sale here for $10 in November. The downside was that the tiny TV we bought from home looked ridiculously small on it .... Much to Chris' opposition I went TV shopping this week and found a much more appropriate screen in the sales. One store advertised a very few 50" TVs on sale on Jan 2nd so I dutifully joined the throngs milling outside the store at 8:30 - OK there were 8 of us; three were there because they thought the shop opened at 8:00; one man coming to buy a fridge for his camper van and four of us hoping to secure a mammoth TV. The doors open and we rush in and by 8:33 all four TVs and the fridge are snapped up....... It is now respendent on its stand in the lounge and we can sit in our reclining sofa and enjoy the best of Kiwi TV. (It's so Bl***y big we could watch it from the garden - ed.) In fact the TV here is OK, as long as you record everything and watch it without having to endure the all too frequent adverts.
It looks like we will have our first UK visitor this week with the arrival of Tom who is travelling around New Zealand in a camper van. Tom was the brother of Chris' little bridesmaid all those years ago and is now a surf instuctor so we're hoping for a couple of private lessons at Raglan this week... watch this space.
It was great to hear from so many people over the Christmas period - the girls are very jealous that the UK has had a white Christmas (in some parts), we'll just have to put up with the sunshine for the next three months now.......
Just in case you hadn't seen it earlier our permanent address is .......
308A Hautapu Road
RD1
Cambridge
3493
New Zealand
All the best
Richard & the family.
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