Christmas 2009

Labour Weekend in Taupo

Auckland Museum

Brooklyn's 2nd Birthday

Last weekend we went down to Taupo to be part of Brooklyn's 2nd Birthday party. Sadly the weather forecast was not good, rain all weekend, and it did. So with about 10 children, parents, friends from Auckland and Luke & Anna's youth coming it was decided to move the Party to Anna's parents' house. This worked out to be a very good plan as the council had also decided to turn the water off in Luke & Anna's road, not great when baking and preparing for the animal party.

Brooklyn's 2nd Birthday

Anna made an amazing Lion cake, bear cupcakes and lots of snacks and goodies.
The Kings' house looked amazing with all the balloons, animals, and table decorations, Anna as an interior designed certainly has a knack of making everything look beautiful.
Brooklyn was dressed as a tiger in his striped tee shirt, tiger ears, and tail. As his little friends arrived they all came dressed as animals. Some of us had our faces painted.
Bryn was the balloon modeller and did a wonderful job of making something special for all the children.
The children had great fun playing with all the toys, the mini trampoline, and each other.
A game of pass the parcel was played while the Lion King played in the background. Not sure that all the children understood the concept of the game, but they did all like winning a present. Somehow Birthday boy won two, I think it must have been rigged.
Afternoon tea was a great time with cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, animal biscuits (yes the very same that were around when we were younger), lollypops and all kinds of things that you only get to eat at parties.
When it can to singing Happy Birthday Brooky had a huge smile on his face, but hadn't quite worked out how to blow out the candles, so on the third attempt Daddy helped.
It was such a great afternoon, although there were four grandparents there who were rather tired after it all.
Karine & Rowan were unable to make it up to Taupo but had a little chat with Brooklyn during the weekend.
We are so proud of the job Luke & Anna are doing with Brooklyn. He is a delight, is chatting really well, and has a cute sense of humour already.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Christchurch Visit

Christchurch July 09

Five days in Christchurch spending time with Karine and Rowan. Great to spend time with them in their own home for the first time since they were married. Good to visit Arise Church and see the amazing progress they have made in just 2 years. Some of the photos were taken along the River Avon early on a frosty morning. The light was good, and the steam rising from the river was spectacular.

Wharewaka Point

Wharewaka Point

Lake Taupo is beautiful at sunset. We headed down to Wharewaka point at the right time to try and get some good shots. The sunset colours were beautiful, and Brooklyn was on his very best posing behaviour. Very pleased with these shots.

The Wedding Day

Rowan and Karine are now married. The big day has been and gone and we are beginning the recovery phase. It was very successful and everything went according to plan - even the autumn weather. We have photos posted at http://weddingpics.alivenz.com/.

If you were there on the day and took photos, you can upload them to that page to share them with us.

Not long to go now....

Hi there, it has been ages since we have written anything here, I think I have to take to blame for that as Ian asked me ages ago to do a new blog..... so here it is.

In February we were thrilled to have a visit from Richard & Jane Reynolds from UK. We have all known each other for over 30 years, Ian & Richard go back a lot longer.... so it was great to have them to ourselves for a week. We all clicked straight away as if it was only a week ago we saw each other. What fun we had catching up. They had just spent two weeks in our beautiful South Island and were amazed at how awesome New Zealand is. They loved church and felt at home in it, loved how rough Piha the black sand, and the wild seas, and didn't seem to mind the smell of Rotorua. And the Valentine's night dinner was wonderful. It was sad to see the go, but great having them here.

Brooklyn in Auckland

Last weekend we have Luke, Anna & Brooklyn here. Brooklyn changes every-time we see him, and the thing most noticeable now is the amount of words he has. He is always happy to try new words and sometimes tries to string quite a few of them together. He is 19 months old now. He has a name for us all now which is great and makes sure he uses it when he is needing something.

He is something of a technical whizz as he knows that Nanny, Poppa & Bryn live (most times) in their computer at home. He only has to ask mum or dad to talk to us, and there we are. Oh the wonders of Skype.

While he was here we took him to Bird Barn to see the pets. There were heaps of gorgeous puppies, kittens, fish and birds. He did enjoy it but was quite frightened when a parrot asked him a question. He shouted for him mum. When we went over to have a look the bird continued to chat and said "hello" "How are you". This became the highlight of the weekend. And even this week on Skype he was telling us about what the bird said to him, complete with mimicky voice.

The Wedding

Karine & Rowan

Not far to go now. I leave for Christchurch on Saturday to spend the last six days with Karine, to get all the last minute things done. The pedicures, manicures, fake tans, no not really, although some of them sound nice. It will be great to be there for the last few days. Ian and the rest of the family are flying down Thursday morning to join us.
The wedding will take place on Friday 27 March at 1pm in Christchurch. We are all so excited and can't wait for the day to come. We love Rowan and know he is the right person to look after our little girl for the rest of her life. It has been so good getting to know him, and we look forward to more of that.

Hens Night

Last Thursday we threw a Hen's night for Karine as she was up in Auckland working. It was a fun night with a few of her friends. One of the tasks the girls were given was to create a wedding gown for her There were three teams, the bodice team, the skirt team and the accessory team. Look at the creation they came up with, who know's maybe Karine will wear that one for the big day.

Anyway, watch this space as very soon there will be wedding photos up.

Love to you all

Judi

Feeding the Ducks at Western Springs

Western Springs

Butterfly Creek, Auckland

Butterfly Creek

Today Anna was working up in Auckland so Ian and I got to have Brooklyn for the day. And what a beautiful day is it. Blue skies, sun, and high humidity.
We decided to visit the petting zoo that is linked to Butterfly Creek. At first glances it did not look too interesting, except that if you are only 17 months only it seemed to looked amazing. There were a number of pens with rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks, chicks, a big goat, rainbow lorikeet and parrot.

At first Brooklyn went in cautiously checking out what the other kids were doing, and then climbed up onto a hay bale to check out the rabbits. He then noticed a goat that was hot and lying down under in the corner and so we went to check it out, at a distance. He saw that a little girl was stroking a rabbit that was just wandering around, and then went to see some guinea pigs in their pen. He wandered for a while going from pen to pen, climbing up on the bales to look over the railing, and each time was amazed by what he saw, there were many oohs and aahs. The next time he wandered around, he said "Goat" and saw that the goat was wandering around, so we went over to look. He did make sure that Nana had his hand tightly in hers. This went on for about 20 mins, he was getting braver and closer to them each time.

We wondered outside to see the rest of the animals that were out there. He wasn't too keen on the baby chicks, they were just lying there, but as we walked past the hens, the rooster crowed and Brooklyn thought that was so funny. After that every time it crowed Brooklyn mimicked the sound giggling. He met the donkey, and even lent over and stocked it, but was not happy when Granddad tried to put him on the donkey's back. We then went on the little train they had there, again for adults, not too exciting, but Brooky seemed to enjoy it.
It was then time for refreshments, so we went to the cafe for a cold drink and snacks for Brooky.

While Nana went and put everything back into the car, Granddad took Brooklyn for one last look, and this time he was the only one there and saw a little rabbit that was wandering around. So he sat down and played with it. He had such a wonderful time. What a cool afternoon. We were exhausted when we got home.... that is Granddad and Nana, Brooklyn was off on the deck, playing with the water in the watering can, cleaning Nana's window. What a wonderful child!