family – Page 8 – Pamper Stamper

July 23, 2013September 21, 2018

A Patchwork Present!

My holiday is planned for the whole of August and my daughter-in-laws birthday is in August while I am away. D3 is a beautiful talented lady and I wanted to give her something special for her birthday. As both her and C4 live in Sydney, I usually give her a gift card or get something delivered from an online store in Australia. Last year I gave her a years subscription to the Donna Hay magazine. But this year my youngest daughter planned a trip over to Sydney and it was at a time when she could take a package for D3 over with her.

I had three days to create something! Robin said he would be okay to help around home while I concentrated on sewing! Below is a series of photos of the progress and the final product. And….she loved it….yay 🙂

July 23, 2013September 21, 2018

Looking back, I can now see that God was working!

Way back in April I posted about my job ending at the ANZ Bank and how upset I was about the way I was treated during the whole process. I must admit I hadn’t really enjoyed my job as much after the ANZ dropped the National Bank Brand, but I was good at my job, and I felt that their unwillingness to offer me another position was very sad. I also had the perfect working hours and couldn’t imagine finding another job with part time work available. Little did I know that God was in control, and He had a plan for me that He knew I would be really happy with. I believe that we can ‘cast our cares on God, because He cares for us’ but as I cast my work cares upon Him, praying for Him to work out the details, I didn’t really think he was answering when the ANZ job ended.

But on my post on the 22nd of May, I told you about my new job and how it was an amazing answer to prayer. I have now worked about 10 days and I love it! I am really happy! I am meeting lots of really interesting people. I am helping people that are sick and hurting. I am using a computer daily and doing all the reception duties mainly on my own…and it’s great!

So way back in April I couldn’t see the future and I was wondering what was going to happen. Now I can see that God had it all in hand. He helped me let go of my old job and He opened the door to my new job. He took away the sadness and frustration that I had at work and replaced them with contentment and satisfaction with a job I enjoy.

Praise God!

During the stage from unemployment to employment again, I have had 2 more trips to Sydney and have also planned a trip to Italy with my sister Judy and niece Teresa, for 2 weeks in August and following that 2 weeks travelling with C2 and D2. I will leave NZ on the 1st of August and return to New Zealand on the 31st of August. I am so excited.

I have also been able to do some more house renovations. I have stripped wallpaper, prepared walls for painting and then painted three rooms! And they look great. Robin finished our bedroom walls for me while I was away in Sydney. I took some photos to show C1 and D1 the changes. I love them…what do you think?

No updating here but look at the clean fresh dining area!

Didn't update this, but it is clean and tidy — Didn’t update this, but it is clean and tidy

This area used to be dark blue and it didn't have the big storage cupboard...which I am loving! — This area used to be dark blue and it didn’t have the big storage cupboard…which I am loving!

This are is the fireplace lounge looking into the big lounge. This was the last area I painted before starting again recently.

My new bedroom colour with a new Duvet cover and pillows.

Joanna's room. This room used to be dark green! What was I thinking? — C5’s room. This room used to be dark green! What was I thinking?

This is Jessica's room. It used to be blue. I painted this room quite awhile ago. — This is C6’s room. It used to be blue. I painted this room quite awhile ago.

July 23, 2013September 21, 2018

Way behind in my posts!

I don’t know why but I am way behind in updating my blog. I’ve been back from Sydney since the 17th of June and I haven’t managed to do any more Scrapbooking! How sad is that! I did manage to do a few more pages while I was there though so I will add those photos for you to look at.

Christians 4th Birthday party — G4’s 4th Birthday party

The boys had fun at the free pools for children at Fitzroy Beach, New Plymouth, New Zealand

Joanna getting ready for her Graduation ceremony — C5 getting ready for her Graduation ceremony

My beautiful girl happy with bike riding

Casey was pulling off an annoying tag...she got it! — G3 was pulling off an annoying tag…she got it!

That hill was so hard to bike up! Jo made it, Judy didn't! — That hill was so hard to bike up! C5 made it, Judy didn’t!

June 9, 2013September 21, 2018

One week in Sydney

This week has gone so fast. C1 and D1 left for Fiji last Sunday to go to Rob and Libs wedding. I stayed home and played ‘Mum’. And…I loved it! Although I must admit I am feeling tired. Actually, I wake up tired! But that’s not unusual for me. I’ve been like that for years. My Mum gets sick of hearing me say ‘I’m so tired’. She is 84 and I am sure she has more energy than me!

Every morning G3 and I walked Rosie to school and once G3 was safely in class, I walked Rosie around the BIG block back home. At least I was getting some exercise along with Rosie. I cooked the meals, did the groceries, washed the clothes, did baking and even had time to do some gardening. I had fun! I love filling up the green waste bin so when it is collected it is full!

G3 had swimming on Tuesday, Jazz on Friday and Dance practice on Saturday. G1 had work 3 times during the week so that meant a few trips to the train station as well. But every evening once G3 was in bed I got time to do Scrapbooking. I aim to get a page completed every evening. As I only have 4 collections of papers, I have to be pretty creative so that the pages don’t all look the same. I also have limited supplies over here in Sydney, so try to just use the products that I brought over with me.

I still have 8 days left so who knows how many more pages I will achieve. C1 and D1 arrive home in the late afternoon. I plan to have a lovely welcome home lamb roast for dinner with roast potato kumera and pumpkin! Yum!

Attached are some photos from the week 🙂

One of the photos is about grief. This week has also been a very sad week for me, although also a celebration of life as well. How??? I had a grandchild die while only 4 months in her Mummy’s womb. We were told a week earlier that there was something wrong and her little heart just stopped beating.

Lillianna had a rare chromosone disorder called triploidy. Her life expectancy would have been short and possibly may not have even survived out of the womb. We were all very excited to know that her Mummy was pregnant and couldn’t wait to meet our new little grand daughter…and we still will, but it will be in heaven.
If you want to read more about Lilliannas condition, click on the link below.

http://www.rarechromo.org/information/other/triploidy%20ftnw.pdf

We will always remember our little Lillianna xoxoxo

May 4, 2013September 21, 2018

Still in Sydney

Today is Saturday…only one more full day left in Sydney. I fly home very early Monday morning! And….I have had a fabulous time here with my two grand daughters. D2 came back from Singapore last Monday and we have had a lovely week together as well, although she developed a very sore leg, with the pain radiating from her heel. After a late night trip to the emergency department of the hospital and a scan of her legs, Deep Vein Thrombosis was not the cause but Rebecca is now on anti-biotics and seems to be getting better.

I have still managed to do scrapbooking every evening and have a few more pages to add. I am loving having time to scrapbook and not feel that I should be doing other home maintenance jobs with my time. I hope that I have spent enough quality time with the girls as well, and they don’t feel that I have neglected them while I am busy scrapping 🙂

Here’s the pages…

April 27, 2013September 21, 2018

Sydney April 2013

So…. as the previous post said.. I am now unemployed! That door closed but it opened up other opportunities! I can now come over to Sydney and look after/see/visit the family over in Sydney without all the drama of trying to get holiday days approved by work. There is always an upside to downers! God has everything in control!

I had arrived back to NZ on the 4th of April, after spending 10 days of Easter with the Sydney family, worked 2 days, that was the last 2 days of my work career with the ANZ, then on the 18th I flew back to Sydney. And this time I am here for 18 days….yes!!! C1 and D1 are over in Singapore, D1 coming back on Monday the 29th of April and Matthew going on to Thailand. Then I am here with D1 and the girls until Monday the 6th of May.

It is the school holidays but G1 has been at work nearly every day. I have been taking her to the Gordon Train station and picking her up from there after work. G3 usually goes to a holiday program but because I am here she has the luxury of being able to stay home and relax. She has been amazing. Every day she has been colouring in, playing with her dolls (monster high….I find yucky!) which she loves, and just hanging!!! She is still in her onesie and it is 2pm….as she was yesterday as well. She has made the most amazing little book filled with words and pictures of love for her Mummy (hope you don’t read this D1 or the secret will be out). We have done lots of baking together, taken Rosie (the dog for walks and visited friends. Last Sunday C4 came and picked us up and we both went in to Sydney city to go to C4 and D3’s church (G1 was at work). They go to C3 City Campus….and I love it. I went with them when I was over at Easter as well. Their church had a conference this week. I was tempted to book G1, G3 and myself in to go to it, but then felt a little selfish, they probably didn’t care too much to go, it was me who wanted to go. A friend told me that the service was live streamed and you could watch it from home. So every night I got the pleasure of listening to the main speaker…as if I was there 🙂

Every night I have been scrapbooking once G3 is either in bed or ready for bed. I am so spoilt….and I know it! I have created 11 pages so far! I will attach photos to show you my creations. Think I may need another trip to the scrapbook shop in Hornsby for more supplies!

January 11, 2013September 21, 2018

It’s January 2013!!!

I can’t believe how fast the last year went! Who would believe that we are now heading towards the middle of January 2013 already!

Well….life is great! I had a fabulous Christmas and even managed a week in Sydney with C1, D1, G1 and G3 (and had a night out with C4 and D3). Robin and the girls were also in Sydney for Christmas day so we had a lovely family time. C6 and I had to fly back home on Boxing Day because I had to work the next 2 days and C6 had booked to go to ‘Rhythm and Vines’ music festival.

Since being back home I have had Simon and the 2 boys staying plus C4 and D3 came to stay for about 5 nights as well. We tried to do as much as possible together for those 5 days. C3 left and went up to Hamilton where he is going to be best man for his friends wedding, and C4 and D3 flew back to Sydney. I still have my 2 grandsons staying and have been having so much fun with them.

Robin and C5 got back home on the 6th of January and both have been working again this week. Life is slowly getting back to normal and that means routine!

C5 turns 21 on the 15th so the next big event will be her birthday dinner. Luckily for me, she has booked her party at a local venue so I won’t have to be preparing food.

My crafting life has had to be put on hold during the Christmas season, but I have plenty of photos printed out ready for when time once again becomes available. I can’t wait! One thing that I have managed to fit in though is shifting a heap of my very old photos from their old unsafe photo albums, to new albums that are acid free. I purchased lots of photo life pages from ‘Simon Says’ and have found them a very quick way of getting the photos into albums and yet making them slightly more interesting than just plain photo albums. I have a long way to go before finishing them, but I am very happy with the progress so far.

I also made a few crafty things for gifts and also for selling in my sisters craft shop. I will attach some photos!

I will also add some photos of my fabulous family and of our time together celebrating our Saviours birthday 🙂

July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

Day 3 in San Francisco

Today was a relaxed morning. Robin has been suffering bad toothache for 3 days now so it was time to sort out a dentist to see him and sort it out. Appointment was made for 12.30 so we decided to go and try out a San Francisco tram. We only had to walk 2 blocks to get to it and it was $6 for the trip. Not too bad as it was one experience we really wanted to do, especially as you see them going up and down the steep streets on movies, and wonder what it would be like to ride on one personally. It was great. Only two people are allowed to travel outside on the back and Judy and I were the two people. I videoed nearly the whole trip. We got off at Chinatown so we could wander through but stopped at Starbucks for a coffee first. Robin then left us for his dentist appointment. Judy Len and I had fun exploring as many of the shops as possible and also had a lovely lunch at a chinese restaurant. We even walked all the way back to the Hotel as it was a lovely sunny day and actually really relaxing just wandering along.

Judy and I left Len about 3 blocks from the Hotel to do a bit of shopping before we leave San Francisco. The first real time of shopping with no time limits. And did we have fun. I only spent about $125 but loved every minute of the spend!

We decided to have tea at the Rainforest Cafe again as it is only down the road and serves fabulous meals. Another nice dinner to add to our growing list!

Home to pack our bags to 1. see if everything fits in and 2. see if there is room for any more shopping! We have until 5.20 tomorrow to fill in. At 5.20 the courtisy van takes us to the airport for our trip home! I can’t believe that that time has come so quickly. And yet….I find it hard to recall everything that we have done in the 6 weeks. It has been a very full trip with lots of happy moments and memories made. I have loved every single bit of the holiday and would do it all again if I could!

July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

Day 2 in San Francisco

A nice early start this morning. We were being picked up for our tour to Monterey and Carmel by 8.30 and we had to have breakfast first. Ihop was the choice again as we really enjoyed our breakfast there yesterday.

The tour bus picked us up and took us to the depot ready for the tour. And there we waited for the next hour. The bus was held up in a traffic jam caused by Barak Obama. He was visiting the town and was going by in his car. All the roads were stopped to make way for him. Finally we got on our way over one hour later than we should have. Monterey is a three hour drive south and we were stopping there for 2 hours, driving on to Carmel and staying there for one hour.

The trip was really scenic and thankfully the bus driver stopped a few times for us to get out and take some photos. We travelled along the coast line and the road changed from being sea level to very high…looking down the cliffs to the land and sea below. Monterey was a lovely town built for the cannery industry. Many of the large cannery sheds are now converted to shops especially for the tourists. There is also a big Aquarium there and many restaurants. We chose to have our lunch at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Restaurant. Now that is a great experience including trivia questions about the movie during the lunch time.

We travelled past some very rich properties to Carmel including a private 17 mile road (which we had to pay to go on). The road had 2 big golf courses, one we stopped at to take photos. Clint Eastwood, Nicholas Cage and a few other ‘stars’ own the golf course and it reaked of money! I needed to go to the toilet while we were there exploring and taking photos…so I just used the toilet at the club rooms. They were just like a first class hotel with special cloth towels to dry your hands and extremely tidy and clean. I found out later that we were suppose to use the public toilets! Oops…no one said anything to me so hopefully no one noticed.

As we left so much later in the morning we didn’t get back to San Francisco until 10.30pm, and we still had to wait until all the people were dropped off at their hotels. We were one of the last drop offs. It was a fabulous day! I hadn’t realised that we were going so far, but it is now great to be able to say that not only did we go to San Francisco, we also went down to Monterey and Carmel. Very nice indeed 🙂

July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

San Francisco Day 1

Well…after staying up til as late as possible, and trying to get into the time zone as quickly as possible, I woke up at 11.30pm…ready for the new day! I got up in the dark and checked the time on my cell phone. I couldn’t believe it was only 11.30 so fumbled for my watch to check. In the dark I read 11.30 as 6am. I thought the others are still asleep so I will try to sleep in a bit longer and wake again when they did. I thought 6am was pretty good and I will cope with the day fine! Feeling rather good about getting into the time zone rather well. Next time I woke I checked the time again as everyone was still asleep…I stirred to look as Len asked me if I was awake. And no!!! I do not share a bed with Len! We are in a room with 2 double beds! Len asked me if I knew what time it was and I said it must be around 8am. When he said it was 2.30 I couldn’t believe it. I felt ready for the day again and it was like torture to just lay in bed. I finally managed to sleep again and woke up with everyone else at 5am. It was time to get up…we couldn’t wait any longer.

We had booked a city tour which started at 9.40am so our next step was to find a place for breakfast. Blow me down….next door is an Ihop! Ihop is an amazing place for a breakfast menu specialising in pancakes and crepes…along with the usual bacon eggs etc! Off we went and joined the queue for breakfast. Tomorrow we will come down earlier and miss the crowd! Well worth the wait though as it is so yummy!

Our tour of the city sights was great. First stop was the Golden Gate Bridge, second the view from the Twin Sisters. Lots of photos taken at both places folks! We also went to Ocean Beach and viewed heaps of other places from the bus. A great tour!

Our Tour finished at about 1.30 so we went to Fishermans wharf again and experienced lunch at Rainforest Cafe. What a neat place to eat! The whole place is done up like a forest with animals everywhere. Everynow and then the animals move and make sounds and then about every hour there is a thunder storm. The whole room darkens, thunder sounds and then it lights up with flashes of lightening. Of course this disturbs the animals so they move and make sounds as well. Oh by the way the food is great too!

We wandered the shops and found our way back to the hotel. All of us could hardly keep our eyes open and it was only 9pm. I think I was the first asleep again! What a great day though 🙂