Helloooo!

Well - it's been busy, busy as usual and today w

e have given ourselves a break to do washing and school work - yawn.....  I know!

The weather is absolutely GORGEOUS now and we are well into summer - which is annoying when you have to go back to work!

Last night, we trekked into Auckland to watch the Anniversary Day fireworks which were totally awesome!

Below is a little taster for you!  It went on for aaages.  We all just oohed and aaaahed the whole way through - the atmosphere around the harbour was really wonderful - families and friends just gathered together to enjoy the sights and sounds.  There were fantastic tall ships, a navy boat, coastguard boats and a myriad of private boats on the harbour all ready to partake of the spectacle!

The orange lights in the distance indicate the road leading up to the Harbour Bridge - hopefully they all concentrated on their driving as they went over it!

The finale was spectacular and deafening too!  The sky just became full of gold sparkles - beautiful.

We have been out and about on our boat - yesterday we travelled to Motuihe Island and anchored there for a few hours - such a pretty place and we should have taken our fishing net! Kev threw some bread into the water and two huge blue cod swam around us (in about 1.5m of water)!  It would have been soooo easy just to scoop them out.  They were well above the allowed size for catching (30cm).  Shucks!

A few days ago, came our chance to try out a gift given to Kev by his previous workmates - a harbour yacht trip including lunch.  I wasn't really sure what to expect having never been on a yacht before - but it was FAB!  The boat was soooo quiet as compared to our noisy little one! Wind power!  The weather was a bit dodgy at first, with a sudden deluge as we made our entrance into the harbour - but it made it all the more fun.  We shared the journey with Ozzies, Americans, Kiwis and Pommies!   And a great time was had by all.

Tara fer now!  x Sue

Beached as......

Hi all

Just a quickie for you!

A friend showed me this on you tube - it's how Kiwis talk - lol.

Take a look.

x Sue

www.youtube.com/watch?ZdVHZwl8pcA

Happy New Year for 2009!

Hi all - hope this year is a great one for you all!

We brought the new year in with family and friends.....

Began with a rather nice Mexican meal and drinkies.  This was then followed by cocktails made by our children - they used their newfound 42 Below University training (as a Christmas pressie from us to them, we sent them to lessons at the Vodka Uni in the city) - glad to see and taste that all this learning is now paying off!  

We then moved on to watching The Sound of Music, followed by bashing a pinata, followed by watching the Sky Tower burst into firework explosions at midnight, followed by our own display, tv, then bed/collapse!

Here is the happy pinata - little does he know.......

Grim determination here....

'Just whack' technique!

Treading carefully.....

Go girl!

Where is it?

Swinging hard.

Woohooo!

Behiiiind you!

And the winner is........!

The funniest moments where when one of us headed the wrong way - ie into the wall, door or towards one of us - brandishing the branch!  Therefore, in order to help, directions were helpfully shouted out.....

"To your right!"

I love this one!  Kev was stuck in this corner for aaages....!

Previous to all this chaos and carnage, during the day of New Year's Eve, we visited the Waitakere Ranges and Piha - it was sooo hot and we really regretted not taking our swimmies and boogie boards!  Never mind.  The fush and chups were good and we had a luverly walk, collecting the little purple sea shells that litter the black sand as we strolled along.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

x Sue