Christmas Camping...

Becks, camping?  Yes I can hear you non-believers out there!  

Well, it wasn't CAMPING camping - we were in D's mum and dad's lovely caravan, and only 20 mins drive from Timmers to collect fresh ice, food supplies, and shower!  Yes, now THAT'S what I call camping!  Ha ha ha :)  

We totally gate-crashed on my friend Gina's camping holiday, camped out on private property alongside the Little Pareora River.  The water beside the campsite was very shallow, and great for the kids to play in while us parents relaxed, and there was a deeper waterhole just a few minutes walk downstream for when we wanted to get wetter.  Fantastic!  I took quite a few pics (as you do), so here's the pictorial run-down on our camping expedition....

Men cooking 'oh-oh-ooohhh' 

(said in the style of Tim the Toolman Taylor)

Can you SEE the size of that barbie?  Crikey it's a good'un!

If you look from photo above through next three photos, you get a sweeping view of our campsite from the river....

That's our caravan off in the distance

J pretty much spent 99% of his time riding a bike - if not his wee 12", then it was Cam's larger 16" bike that he spent all day on.  He had a blast.  It was great that the water wasn't too deep at the site too - he even got confident enough to get right in and lie down in the shallows.  Although the temps getting up around 30 degrees sure helped that.  It got to around 35 degrees on day - WAY TOO HOT for this kiwi.  Seriously.  Way.  Too.  Hot.

Here's Cam with J - he's Gina's boy, and such a sweetie.  J followed him around most of the time, but he didn't seem to mind too much.  They found as well as a love of bikes, they had an obsession with lego in common.  Lots to talk about!

And when it got really hot, we went down to the waterhole.  Several people (myself excluded!) jumped in off the ramp into the waterholw producing fantastic photo ops - see for yourself....

Shawn

Paige

Isabella

Paige again!

Curiously there was this kind of 'rock-shelf' on the edge of the waterhole that you could also dive in from.  Almost looked like they were walking on water!  Shawn did a magnificent dive off the rocks...

Al

And of course, once I get the camera out there's always that point in time when my son acts up for the paparazzi.  Only a mother could love this face, and even then sometimes it's a struggle!  What a performer!!!

My man (awwww)

Aleisha

A pile of dirty dusty rocks?  Sure I'd love to climb all over those with wet clothes on Mum!

He found a 'cellphone' shaped rock....Hello?  Hello? !!!

The rock shelf stars again - check out the facial expressions on the divers!

Aleisha in action...

Lovely form...

That's a big splash for a little girl!

Jake and his new best bud, Cam

My two troublemakers (just kidding boys!)

The beginning of The Great Noodle WaterFight (don't ask!)

So all in all we had a fab time, thank you so much to Gina, Shawn, Aleisha, Cam, Al, Lee, Paige and Isabella for letting us gatecrash your holiday.  We ended up staying 5 nights in total, and could've stayed longer but home was calling as the return to work was not far away.  Bugger.

On our last night (New Year's Eve), they had a wearable arts night, where we had to make costumes from rubbish bags, which we had to wear from tea time until bedtime.  Plastic is HOT to wear for that length of time I can tell you!  We took out a bunch of glo-sticks for us to wear, and there was even singstar hooked up to a generator!  Talk about all the mod cons!

Here's J and I in our creations...

And here's all of us, looking GORGEOUS!!!

Well kiddies, I'm off to bed to get my nose stuck in a book for a bit, then it's back to the office again tomorrow.  Man today dragged... must be Monday-itis me thinks!  Anyone else suffer from that?

Toodles, B x

Christmas at our place...

Christmas Eve at our place was pretty cruisy - got to catch up with my good friend Ange and her fiance Andy again before they headed back to Kuwait.  They had been out for her sister's wedding (which I mentioned in earlier posts).  They came and had a few drinks, and we had F&C for tea.  I got a really cool silver pendant necklace from Ange that has my name engraved into it in Arabic.  Totally awesome! D got beer (always a popular present!) and J got a way cool K'Nex set that you make into a big rig truck, which can drive!  Fantastic.  Talk about spoilt!  

Then our friends Heather, Darran and Oliver came round so that the kids could exchange presents.  I finally got J into bed about half nine.  Before he went to bed though, he'd written a note for Santa, and left him a piece of cake and a Steiny Pure -  'we can't forget the bottle opener Mummy, otherwise he won't be able to drink it'.  Seriously.  Wonder where he learnt that????!!!

And THIS is what he found on Christmas morning.  Seriously spoilt.  

Under all that paper is his little two-wheeled motorbike and all the appropriate safety gear - helmet, neck nut, elbow and knee guards, body armour, gloves etc.  It is a lot, we know, but if he was into ski-ing for example, we'd be buying him all the ski gear, etc.  Just the luck of the draw that what he loves is one of the expensive sports.  

HUGE props to Scotty at Riders HQ for doing us a sweet deal on all the gear, and hooking us up with some stickers and stuff too.  Need cool gear?  Go to Riders!  Seriously, GO THERE!

Fairly early Christmas morning, trying out the bike for size

About half nine at night, on Christmas Day, having 'just one more go before I go to bed'

My son the poser - only a mother could love this face (and even then...?  Ha ha ha)

'Once more Dad?'

He is still a little cautious and wary about the bike, but that's a good way to start out.  If in doubt while on the bike, he hits the kill switch, another good habit to have.  It will take a little bit to build his confidence on the bike, but once he's happy, the only thing stopping him will be perhaps when he runs out of fuel! :)

More laters, Toodles, B x

What DOES 'TT' stand for anyways?

Around mid-November, D entered in his first TT event, just out of Methven.  Actually, I think Clayton talked him into it!  And don't ask me what the TT stands for - I have no idea.  I'm more of a cars'n trucks girl myself, but I'm going to have to get used to this motorbike jargon huh?  It was a LOOOONG drive to get to the event, but he seemed to enjoy himself, although did complain that his bike just wasn't fast enough - are they ever tho?!  Ha ha.  Anyhoo, here's some shots of the action.  It was helluva dusty when they started each race...

Ready...

Steady...

And they're OFF!  Holy crap batman!

Look at my man go!  Yeah!

Where is he?  Look for the '125' near the middle of the pic.

Clayton in action - on the Kawasaki (#905)

J was pretty well behaved considering how long he was stuck in the car for to get to and from the event.  To be honest, I think he enjoyed the food he got to eat that I used to stop him from whinging!  (What an awful mother I am - oops!).  No really, he did enjoy it.  Especially seeing the wee fellas having a go.  It won't be long and that'll be him I spose.  

Righto - am off to have a cold shower cos this girl is overheating.  Back soon with more updates from the past!

Toodles, B x

I DID IT!

Yup, I passed my exams.  The results arrived at work on Monday 22nd December - when they said it'd be a couple days before Christmas, they weren't kidding!  Anyhoo - YEEEEHAAA!!!

I am planning on enjoying the time to blog-post and blog-surf freely before study starts again in March.  Look at it this way - I'm now one-third of the way there!!!

Creating Keepsakes Xmas Decoration Drop

I regularly receive emails from Creating Keepsakes, one of my favourite magazines to sit and pore through.  Before Christmas they sent out an email about a Christmas Ornament/Decoration Drop, and they were keen to see it go worldwide... So I thought, why not?!  The idea is brilliant - make your own ornament or decoration, print off a tag supplied by Creating Keepsakes to attach to it, and leave it in a public place.  The idea being that people who found them would hopefully read the tag and post a note on the decoration drop-off blog that CK had set up.  Bloody brilliant!

I made a couple of extra christmas crackers and the boys and I dropped them off at two appropriate places for us - the Hospice and the Hospital.  These two places were in our thoughts as Nan had only passed away a few days beforehand, at the Hospice.  As a complete aside, the new wing of the Hospice is FANTASTIC, and the people who work there are amazing - I don't know how they do it, but they are incredible.   Anyhoo, waffle aside, here are the pics of our drop off...

My christmas crackers

J leaving a cracker outside the Hospice

Our second cracker in the Medical Ward lounge at the Hospital.

Hopefully the 'finder' was someone who appreciated our gift.  I hope it brightened their day.  I plan to do this again next year, a little bit of kindness towards others is good for the soul :)

B x

Back track a little...

Ok, so I need y'all to back track a little for me now...  with all the other things going on prior to Christmas, I never got any blogging done, and there is SO MUCH you need to catch up on (even if it IS old news!).

This year, J sent a gorgeous letter to Santa.  Being the good scrapbooking mother that I am, I captured the moment with my camera (of course!).  He really put a lot of effort and concentration into his effort:

I just LOVE that Santa apparently lives at the 'Morth Pole' now!  Ba ha ha ha.  How totally cute is that?!  Love. It.

So after happily crafting his letter, he tucked it into the envelope and entrusted it to me to send to Santa with the mail at work the next day.  Amazingly, Santa even wrote back - who knew?!  Ha ha ha ha.  I love that honest, unconditional, belief in magic.  It's a shame we lose that as we get older.  It's definitely something you can't replicate again in your life.  And definitely something as a parent you can really enjoy in your child.

Well, this post should've been about mid-December.... more to come to bring you up to date, by going backwards!  How irish is that? Mwah-ha-haaaaaaaaa!!!

Toodles, B x