Uncle Richard & Cynthia Visit NZ

Earlier this year our cousin Cynthia came to New Zealand for this first time with her dad. It's been 12 years since we all visited Australia and there were only half as many of us then ;P So the little people were excited to meet her for the first time, and the older ones were looking forward to catching up after so long!

I'm blaming the lack of photos on phone problems *cough*. They were in the country for two weeks and we all enjoyed the catch-up. :)

: : Traditional NZ fare ;P : :

Aussie Trip {Part 4} Maclean Lookout

Sorry guys, just a short post this time since my laptop's kicking a stink (running at 100% CPU when I walk away from it!?). Maclean has a lovely little lookout point, where most of these photos were taken. By memory we trekked up to it once on our 2005 trip, with lots of little people and bikes in tow; this time it was a lot easier so we walked up quite a few more times! :) Admittedly this almost daily evening walk with one or two cousins was something I missed when I arrived back in NZ. It was really nice just walking, talking, and listening to the chirping of frogs or some such wildlife sounds in the early evening.  

(Side note: All but the last image were actually taken when we drove up one day; visibility was much more limited on our walks)

: : I was gonna say that I was admiring these houses, but maybe it's actually the palms and blue sky :P : :

: : So beautiful : :

: : Not sure why I needed this one :P : :

: : I wasn't sure what to think of this, but I'm told sugar cane(?) fires are pretty standard in Aus, : :
 so thought I should be a good tourist and snap a pic ;P 

Wellington Adventure! || Part 1

Last month I spent a few days in Wellington visiting Nana while Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa were away for a few days. Nana lives with them now, so I got to stay in their {flash} house! (Thanks for having me!!) Check out my room:

Aren't those curtains amazing? :D

I flew down late-afternoon Friday (hooray for an amazingly smooth flight and landing!), and Uncle Marty and Aunty Denise picked me up (thank you!). They stayed to have McDonald's with us left some wonderful donuts (anyone know of a Donut King in Auckland? :) )

On Saturday Uncle Marty, Aunty Denise and her sister, and Kurt (my cousin) dropped in for a while, followed by a visit later in the afternoon from one of Nana's cousins. Basically we had an easy day, and wrapped up the day with Ever After. :)

I got a ride to church on Sunday, and the new experience of staying at the church between services! Thankfully the time didn't drag, and soon I was back at Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa's. Uncle Marty picked us up for dinner at his and Aunty Denise's place (a curry - yum!) and thus my second full-day in Wellington passed quickly.

Sorry about the quality,
I took this on Mum's phone.

On Monday Nana and I got the house in order, and soon Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa arrived home. Loads of washing resulted from their trip, and I was at the washing line when the rumbling started. Yep, my first time feeling an earthquake. Where we live here in Auckland, the ground shakes slightly when trucks or trains pass us, so initially I thought a truck must be going passed. Only it carried on for longer than normal, and, well, the shed doesn't tend to rock back and forth! No damage to speak of where we were, only a few small things got knocked (er, rocked?) over. Not quite sure how the photo frames in the above pictures didn't fall down though! The 6.2-magnitude quake centred 10km north of Castlepoint, Wairarapa. I'm told we felt it much more strongly than most that hit down there, so it's surprising that we didn't feel any after-shocks!

After picking up Jesse from the kennels and having dinner, Uncle Bill pulled out a couple of his guitars for a jam session. (Why can't I play from memory yet?!) Afterwards we all watched Mt. Zion (That's an NZ movie, has anyone else seen it?).

Visit to Airport



The chips Dad bought from KFC were (not surprisingly)
very popular!



The Campbells are a homeschooling family, originally from South Africa. Mrs. Campbell's father (Mr. V) had been here in NZ for quite a while, and Dad decided we should go to the airport to see him off for Africa. I'm not going to write much for this post either, but I will post a few pics with captions.

I got to drive there, yay 20 minutes closer to 120 hours!



Jagos and Mr. V




Seth, Mrs. Campbell, Mr. V, Nathan



The Smiths Come for a Visit



Mrs. Smith plays the piano for us

 One day during the holidays (sorry I don't recall which one exactly! lol), the Smiths (our pastor's family) came over for afternoon tea.

I must say the double choc chip muffins were, as usual, a hit! Sorry, no pics, but in fact I'm probably doing you a favour - if you saw a pic of these mouth-watering, choc-filled muffins, you might salivate so heavily your keyboard would be kinda gross...:P

But anyway, to get back to what I was writing about...



I'm not sure the ukelele is supposed to be on the tramp...!

 Nobody in our family can really play piano (Danielle was taking lessons last term, but no-one is learning right now), and Mrs. Smith is Grade 9 (!), so it was really nice to hear the piano played that well, despite the fact that she played from memory because we don't have any books her level!

Monique enjoyed Keith (4 months) and the other little ones (she loves young children).

Amelia enjoys our trampoline

Diana and Amelia LOVED playing with each other. I think Amelia has probably only met people within our church so far, and it is relatively small, so I think there is like one other girl her age (who is our cousin!). Also, my siblings were talking for AGES before the Smiths even came to NZ about being friends, going to their place to play and whatever!

Despite the fact that I was sewing, I still managed to read to Aaron (4yrs). He just loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so I got to read parts of a few books to him (haha little ones aren't patient enough to listen to a whole story!), and name the characters on the covers of the books shown on the back covers; thankfully their names were written down, or I would have been stuck!!! lol



Amelia and Diana pose...



 I think Mum enjoyed sharing some of her accumulated homeschool knowledge; it's nearly 11 years since she began homeschooling me!

And mainly, everyone enjoyed socialising for a few hours!

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Well, um, I hadn't planned to write much...consider yourself lucky!!! haha

Bee