It’s been a while since I wrote in here. Sorry about that! Life has been full and busy with comings and goings and parties and celebrations. 🙂 It’s such a joy having all my children home for the holidays!!! The whole family! Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate finishing the house (long overdue!!). We went to Cafe Mozart and Kate joked that it was funny that they were playing Beethoven in a Mozart cafe. 🙂 The waitress asked if she was a musician – it led to us singing around the piano … they often have music nights in this cafe so there was a guitar there as well. What fun to be able to sing O Holy Night, Silent Night and His Eye is on the Sparrow to the diners. 🙂 We did still have to pay for our dinner by the way! Worth every cent though.:)
We’ve had a lovely time together setting up the Christmas tree; bringing out our pottery Nativity set and laughing again at Jake’s weird little wiseman that he made when he was four; making and icing the Christmas cake, and of course going shopping together.… and Kate and Jake made an awesome gingerbread house!
The big news is that Chris and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last month, and decided to buy a spa in honour of the occasion! Chris has set up the Marshall heater that we got from Jonny and Donna’s place; made a shed beside the pool shed for it, and stacked a whole lot of fire wood in there. The plan is to heat the pool and spa with it… on the night we got the spa home, it took just one and a half hours to fill the spa from the pool water and heat it to 44 degrees! Chris had to keep putting in extra cold water so we didn’t wreck the spa! Certainly very efficient. We’ll see how the Marshall handles the chlorinated water over time…
So we have had lots of fun in the anniversary spa each night – on Friday night we came home from seeing the Hobbit and sat in the spa watching all the shooting stars – spectacular! One went from one side of the heavens to the other with such a long tail… And then the lions decided to put on a special show and had a real roaring match. It was so loud! What a cool night.
Below is a photo of my hollyhocks. They have taken over centre stage from my sweet peas and are beautiful to look at through the lounge window.
My vegie garden is finally all fenced in- Chris helped me build the gate last weekend. The ducks were getting into the garden and attacking my lettuces so something had to be done! I am loving my garden – a first for me! (vegie garden, I mean.) We have corn and taties, chillies, bok choy, herbs, strawberries, etc etc Fun!
On Saturday Jake and I had fun making Mr McGregor the scarecrow. Hopefully he’ll help chase away the naughty birds that would like to steal all my strawberries. They have been otherwise foiled though – Chris and I made a netting cover for them – a necessity, otherwise we would have lost all the fruit.
Last week we had our Christian homeschool group break-up out here – about 120 people. It was such a neat afternoon and evening. Lots of action and a wonderful feast. I felt very blessed to look around at all the lovely friends I now have up here.
A few weeks ago Milly did a handstand and flip off some high rocks at the Hikurangi lakes, over rotated and slammed her ear on the water. The specialist confirmed that she’d ruptured her eardrum…she’s been fitted for ear plugs and he told her she had to wear a cap at the surf school that she’s attending this week. (Dumb!! said Milly). However, this morning I took her in for another check-up and he said the infection is all gone and the hole has closed up. Her hearing is also back to normal. 🙂 But she still has to wear the plugs and cap! However on the first day the surfing instructor told us that blue tack will work way better at keeping the water out of her ears than her fancy (expensive) earplugs! There’s a tip for all you surfers. 🙂 So now she’s out there at Matapouri having fun with blue tack in her ear.
Jake, Sam and I spent the day there yesterday. Both the boys went out for their first ever surf and both did so well – up first time. So I decided it was time to test my pinned and plated leg and have a go again. (Haven’t surfed for forty years!) I did get up no problem but styaing up proved to be a bit more of a challenge. Lots of fun though!!
Jake was easy to keep tags on – he was the only one out there bare chested without a yellow rash shirt on. 🙂
On Friday afternoon I lined the three younger children up and dismissed school for the summer!! Yippee!! I am so looking forward to the holidays. Lots to look forward to. As well as our usual camping holiday we are going to canoe down the Wanganui river with Jonny and Donna and family in January. That’ll be fun. The whole family is going – even Joe is taking time off work to come.
Right time to go and do some stuff around the house. I pray you’ll have a blessed time as you celebrate together and rejoice in the wonderful gift of God’s Son. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” We were just at a special celebration at church last night – a shared meal and a concert…Ellie performed with a group of about five others…they sang O Holy Night, which was just beautiful.
“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, as yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…”
Have a blessed Christmas!!!