Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2009

December

Merry Christmas it was and looked like this....................

Our Christmas tree Christmas morning.























Breakfast at our house. The traditional Croissants and berries and cream! Yummy.

















Christmas roast lunch at our house with Nana.

















Dessert! Katie made the trifle and it was Yummy. Just like Aunty Lines, seeing as how she taught Katie to make it, it's not surprising!

Monday, November 30, 2009

November

November looked something like this.......

Jane, Al's big sister, turned 50 on November 5th. We went to dinner at his Mum's place along with Jane, her husband Pete and son Brad. Happy Birthday Jane!



































Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me!

School holidays, and what better place to celebrate my Birthday than Nelson!

We went out to the Grape Escape restaurant for brunch with Line. That more or less did us in the way of food for the day.

Al and the kids drove back to Christchurch that afternoon. I went out for dinner with Line, Ged and Nath and then flew back home the next day.

A few days away from normality is just what you need sometimes!

Checking out the rabbits on the lawn at the "Grape Escape"
















Eggs Benedict which was bigger than Al's Full Breakfast!
















Toby and Aunty Line with their pancake stacks.
















Katie, Thomas and Toby
















Me and Al


Saturday, September 26, 2009

Jane's 50th Birthday Party - 70's Theme

Tonight we went to Al's sister's 50th Birthday party............. and yes.......... we dressed up! AGAIN. I know, but I think this is the last time for a while. I guess 5 times in as many weeks is a bit much, but you know the saying 'it never rains but it pours' well I probably won't be dressing up again for a long time. Besides, I enjoy it.
Jane






















It was a 70's theme so it was a lot of fun gathering things to wear.

Thomas borrowed a suit from Jann's boy Josh, he had spray painted it with gold metallic paint for something once and it looked great on Thomas along with the black Beatles wig.

Toby borrowed a vest our friend Guy that he got in the 70's and we hired an afro wig.

Katie hired a top and the week pink vinyl beret.














Guy also loaned us the outfit Al wore. A jacket, shirt and tie that the officials wore at the 1974 Commonwealth Games that were held in Christchurch. Guy's dad was an athletics official.






















I managed to borrow a top from Jann that she only recently bought for herself. It is funny how fashion does a circle.






















I took a photo of this photo on a montage, of Al taken in December 1966 when he was 5. How cute!

Friday, May 29, 2009

Flying Solo



















Tonight Al went out to fly a Boeing 737, well actually in a simulator.

We gave him a voucher for his birthday to do it and he finally got around to it.

He sat in the pilot seat and he had an instructor as his co-pilot.

The boys sat in 2 seats behind them.

He "flew" the plane to Queenstown, following the actual course that planes take and landed on a simulation of the actual runway.

They all really enjoyed the experience.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Happy Birthday Chrissy!
















Today is my eldest sister Christine's birthday. I met her for lunch along with her daughter (my neice) Tenelle, her daughter Abbie and our Mother Eileen. Here she is with her grand daughter Abbie.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Happy Birthday Nana!

Today was my Mother's 78th Birthday.
















We took her out for a lovely breakfast to a cafe called Terra Viva which is attached to a beautiful garden centre where you can browse and buy lots of lovely plants and everything and anything for the garden! She had scrambled eggs and salmon on a bagel and I had my favourite - Eggs Benedict with Bacon! Yum!

We gave her a year's subscription to a magazine called "NZ Gardener" which will be delivered to her letterbox every month for a year.





Toby, Thomas, Nana, Katie









Just 2 more years and she will be 80! Wow! I told her Katie and I would take her to Sydney for that big birthday, as she went on a flying visit there on a tour once and didn't get enough time to see what she wanted, so we said we would take her for a more leisurely holiday.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Top of the morning to ya!














Today is St Patrick's Day and seeing as how I have a bit of Green Blood in me, thought it fitting to wish you all the luck of the Irish! And especially to the rellies in Ireland who are avid readers of my blog! A little leprechaun tells me your national rugby team is doing rather well at the moment, I wish I could say that about the team I support, (the Crusaders) but the less said about that the better!

Katie had a trip east to Wainui for the day with her friend Katya last weekend. They have a bach over there and needed to mow the lawns. She had a great time snapping the great scenery on a beautiful day and having Katya's wee dog "Max" along for the ride.
Looking over towards Akaroa from Wainui














Looking to Akaroa settlement from Wainui














Max















At the end of February we had a meal to celebrate Al's nephew Brad's 18th Birthday. In his family Al has one sister Jane and brother-in-law Peter. They have a daughter Natarsha who is nearly 21, and Brad. His Mum is Helen and his Dad was Tom, he passed away when I was pregnant with the boys so that has been 14 years now. He has no living Grandparents, his Grandad Toby died also while I was pregnant with the boys - he was 96, and his Grandma Edith died a few years before that. (Hence you see why our twins took the names Tom and Toby)
Katie, Natarsha, Helen, Toby, Brad & Thomas - Helen with all her grandchildren.














Katie and Natarsha














Toby, Brad and Thomas















On Saturday night we went out to a local restaurant for dinner and then went to see "Slumdog Millionaire" at the movies. It was awesome, and we all enjoyed it very much. I read the book Q & A earlier last year and thoroughly enjoyed that so was great to see the movie based on that book.

Today I am home with Al, he slipped a disc in his back at the weekend preparing for the new lawn to go down out the front of the house, so he is off work for 2 days. Not ideal when you are self employed! The physio is doing a great job with him though, thus allowing him to return to work so soon, as opposed to the week off the doctor advised. So the roles have reversed once again in our home, me the carer now and him the patient. That doesn't happen very often at all!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I'm Baaaaaaaaack!

Well at long last I am back.

5 Weeks ago I had major surgery and so have been laying very low since. Today I almost feel normal, but on the other hand far from it. A few hours up out of bed and I am looking to return there. Give me another few weeks and I will be back to my 100 mile an hour self maybe, or return at half speed realising that going that fast is not really necessary or important to get through your day!.

We have beeen very lucky to have had the help and support of some wonderful friends and family over the past few weeks who have brought meals, hung washing, ironed and visited. The meals were a godsend, and for the first few weeks Al didn't have to cook one meal! Thank you all!

My sister Caroline came down from Nelson for my 2nd week home from hosptial when the kids were all back at school and ran the house. We all loved having her here running the show! My eldest sister Christine continues to drop round with lunch for me and fruit and veges she picks up from her organic grocer for us all, and in the early days, lots of organic dried fruit to help things move at the other end! My sister Catherine calls in for a cuppa and a visit and my Mother brings me sushi for lunch once a week and an evening meal for the family.

Next to all this, I have some very wonderful friends who have been bringing meals over and transporting me to appointments, along with catching up on the ironing and other household tasks that means Al has a bit less to do. I've also had a lot of support from friends from afar that continually check in to see how I am progressing, thank goodness for text messaging!

The kids have taken on extra tasks round the place to lessen the load on Al and are so good at getting their own lunches each morning that I will not take that task back on when I am back to normal! They even bake!

But most of all, Al has been an absolutely wonderful caregiver to me and been excellent at running the household as well as our business. He hasn't complained about sharing the bed with 12 pillows so that I can get comfortable, or ironing, or grocery shopping or making lunches, or serving me meals on a tray in bed every night since my return home. He is just wonderful!

Anyway here are some of the happenings in our life over the past month or more in pictures! Enjoy.

We had a holiday at my Sister's in Nelson the week before my operation so I was nice and rested to aid with my recovery. Thank goodness, because I would hate to think what the recovery would have been like had I been tired and stressed! LOL





The boys mowing the hay.














Thomas cooking on the new BBQ.














BBQ dinner on a Summer evening.













Out for dinner for our wedding anniversary at El Taverna. It was a VERY hot night!











Line and me on that HOT night! We had to go outside to try and cool off.















Al and Me on our 21st Wedding Anniversary.













Toby trying his skateboard tricks after a lesson from Matt.












Sunset over Nelson.















Toby and his Mazda Rotor Sandcastle! Hmmmm, his father's son!












My friend Chrissy and Me.













The boys first day at High School. Burnside High School, population 2600! They are loving it.


















Hamish who works for us and Krystal got married, a very hot 33 degree day.











Abbie came to visit, she is my great-neice. Here she is with Katie, and Katie's friends Hannah and Katya.











Al hired a digger to level the area at the front of the house that he is going to put lawn down on.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

A trip out Country, where boys will be boys!

Today we went out to visit our friends, Judith & Neil, and their children Sophie and Todd at Coalgate. (about a 40 minute drive East of Christchurch)









Neil and Millie.












Sophie and Judith








We had a great day catching up and enjoyed a lovely BBQ lunch and then on to enjoy tea as well!







Lunch















Lunch












Thomas, Toby and Todd enjoying the sunshine and their lunch.







The boys then had a game of cricket on the lawn while we watched on with a glass of wine, it was very relaxing.




















Katie relaxing at the table.










Then the boys went out and had a blat on the motorbikes round the paddock.
















Once they finished that they disappeared into the sandpit. They were gone for quite a while, and when they returned were covered in mud!
















It seems they had been playing in the water race at the back of the property and had a great old time in the water and mud!






Ready, set.......












jump!











At least they had the sense to take those good Super 14 rugby tops off and hang them on the fence!