G2’s Birthday and Taranaki Anniversary weekend

For G2’s birthday Robin and I travelled to Palmerston North, picked up the boys and spent the day together. We had a lovely time. We took the boys to the Museum and found this amazing interactive house there. Both boys loved it and had a fabulous time playing with all the things there. They tried out doing some plumbing and also helped build a wall. What a great place for children!

Anniversary weekend was an opportunity to travel to Palmerston North once again. This time I picked up both boys and brought them back to our place for the weekend. I brought their bikes back with me and on Saturday we went to the walkway. What a great day we had! Both boys loved riding their bikes along the walkway…I had to run to keep up with them! Robin dropped us off and took the car to the bridge car park. We met at the bridge. The rest of the afternoon we went to the park. A big day but one filled with fun. Here are some photos of both events.

Time goes so fast

I just realised that I haven’t loaded anything onto my blog since last year! And there has been so much to share as well! We had everyone home for Christmas, even C2 and D2 from London, and we had some fabulous family times together. C5 turned 20 on the 15th of January, D2 turned ? on the 19th of Jan, C6 turned 18 on the 24th of Feb, G1 turned 15 on the 24th of Feb as well, G3 turned 6 on the 5th of Feb, G2 turned 6 on the 29th of Jan, and Robin turned 57!!!!!! on the 2nd of Jan!!! WOW!!! So many birthdays and so much fun! We had a big family holiday in Rotorua and Hamilton to show D2 some of New Zealand. We also walked our walkway twice. Once with C1, D1, G1, G3, C5, her bf, C2, D2, Robin and me; and the other time with G2 and G4 on their bikes…I walked/ran behind them! Jordan worked at Powerco with Robin and C5 over the holidays and stayed with us most of the time as well. He is doing well at Uni and is onto his second year. C5 is now onto her final year of nursing and has been working at Taranaki Base Hospital. She has also left home and is flatting with a friend who is doing nursing as well. C6 has entered her Uni years. She is now living at the Auckland Uni Hall…and loving it I must say (by the looks of her photos oin Facebook….a little worrying I must add). No….seriously…she is a good girl and is studying hard. So that leaves Robin and me at home alone!!! After 6 children and many years, we are now home alone!!! Thank God for our Scrapbook/computer room! It entertains us nicely! I am loving the lower work load I must say. I only need to do washing twice a week! My house stays tidy..everyday! And the bathroom is amazing! It stays clean and we don’t have masses of towels to wash everyday! I do miss the company though and the girls brought LIFE into the house (boys did too, but that was many years ago really as C4 left home at 17 and he is now 25). We picked up G2 and G4 last weekend for 3 days and that was a very special time. I love having some of my Grand children in NZ even if they do live a 3 hour drive away.

Our family was also in 2 magazine publications. C4 and D3’s Wedding was featured in ‘New Zealand Weddings’ and G1 was in ‘Dolly’ magazine as a model! I am so proud of them 🙂 and have copies of both magazines to keep forever!!!

I am once again very involved in mainly music and have been leading the second session all term (and helping with the first session). We have 40 families coming along to that session (the same at the first) and we have lots of fun. I love singing and as I don’t worship lead anymore it gives me an opportunity to keep music and singing alive in my life…and hopefully blesses a lot of people at the same time.

Mum and Dad celebrated 64 years of marriage on the 4th of March. Well done I say! We all went out for tea and spent the night chatting about our childhood! We had lots of laughs and I think Mum and Dad realised just how much we appreciated our family and them as our parents. We took some photos outside the restaurant and had a laugh as we looked at the photos. The restaurant name was ‘The Ugly Duck’ and we took the photo under the sign. I was right under it! It was a bit of a shame that Rodney wasn’t there (as all four of us girls were), but we did get a family group photo on Christmas day 🙂

I’ll attach some photos as a sample of the time from November 2011 until now March 2012. Have fun browsing them xx

 

Just wondering?

Does anybody ever read my blog????

Lately I have stopped writing on my Facebook profile and the only person who noticed is D1. I thought that I would just write on my blog but wondered if I am just writing into nothingness? I guess I can still share my thoughts , dreams and my everyday life and leave it at that, but I did think that this is a great way to link up with family and friends. Perhaps there are only a few of us really that use their computer on a daily basis?

I do have an amazing life! We live in a fantastic house. It isn’t perfect but it is ours and as I always say, it is a work in progress. I don’t think it will ever be finished. We have been painting the outside walls for approximately 10 years! Each summer we try to do just a little. Enough to make a difference but not too much to make us sick of the job. You see the whole outside of the house was sprayed with a product called ‘Rhino Coat’ and man is it hard to get off. We have to use heat guns and scrapers and it is a very slow job! Today we painted the last of the back wall…yay!!!! I did one very silly thing and painted one whole area in white, which I thought was topcoat. I did say to Robin that is was drying a bit dull too! It wasn’t until I was nearly finished when I  looked at the bucket of paint and found that it was UNDERCOAT! I know…you would think I would have checked that out properly before I started. Normally I would have! Today, I was pretty upset before we started. Robin had plans to build the base for his new water tank! I wanted to finish the painting so we could get the big planks of wood off our conservatory roof! These were used to stand on so we didn’t break the Novalight roofing, but they also made a horrible noise all night long when the wind blew…and they kept me awake at night. I wanted them down! So being grumpy at the thought of possibly another week of broken sleep, I got determined to get up on THAT ROOF and paint the wall myself! Did you know that I hate getting up on the roof? Well I do and even worse is getting back onto the ladder to get down! I guess that somehow I worked myself up so much that checking the label on the paint bucket was the last of my thoughts! Although I did think I had checked that it was topcoat. So after finishing the layer of undercoat over the first topcoat…I had to do another layer of topcoat paint to finish the wall off. Thankfully Robin felt sorry for me and he left the water tank for another day and helped to finish the painting. The planks of wood are now off the roof, stored in the back shed, and the wall is finished!

We now have to finish the front of the house and then it will be painted all around. Maybe this summer?

After that it will be the flat (which is connected to our house), we will need to paint it the same colour as the house….so we actually have another whole house to paint! I guess that by the time we finish the flat we will need to start all over again….what a lovely thought…NOT! At least the preparation time won’t be quite as painful as this time 🙂

Yesterday it rained all day so I decided to do some sewing. I cut out and sewed at whole patchwork area to make a single bedspread. I am thinking of giving it to C6 to put on her bed at University Hall next year. I just have to get some more material to finish it off. I will post a photo as soon as I can. I also managed to do a little internet shopping! Just as well it’s pay week! I love www.simonsaysstamp.com as they have set postage prices unlike many other American internet shops. I just have to be patient until my little package arrives. Hopefully it won’t take too long as I have ordered some Christmas papers to make my Christmas Cards with.

Tonight is Sunday and I love our Sunday night dinners! Tonight we had 10 of us….well 11 but Jess was a little late. A couple of months ago we decided to have family dinner get togethers and have it at different places each week. It was our turn tonight and we had Chinese takeaways! We all put in towards the meal and the person whose place it is at gets to chose the type of takeaway! Last week we had fish and chips at Mum and dads place. The week before it was Indian at Judy and Lens!

Right..time to sign off and get myself ready for another busy week! Robin is already in bed. He and Jordan leave for work at 7.30am. C5 is working at the hospital 3-11pm tomorrow and C6 has her first exam! I have to get to church to set up for mainly music…and catch up with the washing and housework…fun fun fun. I also have to start my J100 readings. 5 to read before Thursday night homegroup. This week I plan to be much better organised! PRAY for me PLEASE…I am such a time waster 🙂

Saturday the 5th of March

This week has been an emotional one. The clean up is still happening after the BIG earthquake in Christchurch. 165 people died! and possibly more! It is so sad. Jordan (C5’s boyfriend) is back home from University. He couldn’t stay at Canterbury Uni until it was cleaned up, power back on and water running again. He was only there for 10 days and is just managing to cope with the change of plans. C5 on the other hand is delighted to have him back home again! Tonight they have gone out to a dress-up party. I have added some photos of them and also some of my G4.

Don’t they look great!

Judy (my sister) and Len have moved into their new home. They have been busy getting it ready for nearly 3 months after transporting the house onto their farmland. C3 (my son) has been busy doing lots of different labour jobs for them so the job could be made earier. C3 has been demolishing, then rebuilding, making fences, concreting, building decks and heaps more! He has had his mate Colin helping him. I have had the job of looking after G4 every day from 1pm until 5.30pm while they build. That has been lots of fun and yet also very tiring. I haven’t the energy I used to have with young children that I had nearly 20 years ago. G4 is a very active little man but is growing up into a lovely little chappy. He will be 2 on the 25th of May. My baby C6 turned 17 on the 24th of February, and G1 (my grand daughter) turned 14 on the same day!

Mum and Dad have celebrated their wedding anniversary yesterday (the 4th of March). They have been married for an amazing 63 years. Congratulations Mum and Dad…you are a fantastic example for us all and we all love you xoxo.

Today has been a wet day and I have taken advantage of the opportunity to stay indoors and scrapbook! I love days when I can sit and scrap and not worry about anything else! I did do some housework though. I managed to stew up lots of apples from our trees and got 3 2litre containers full and into the freezer. I now have 5 containers in there ready for winter. The tree is still laden with beautiful apples so I plan on getting many more done….hopefully.

I will put up some photos of the scrapbooking on the next post 🙂