cottleston news

Monday, September 22, 2008

In Sickness and Not Health.




Yup, We're still here. If Karen can just hold out for another day or two, she will be the only one of us not to suffer from terrible gastric episodes. Lily was first. She vomited for nearly two days, poor wee thing, then it was my turn (Dad) only I had reverse flow, and then yesterday was Ali's turn. She had been feeling a little left out with all the attention Lily and Dad had been getting so when she had her first chunder, she was almost pleased with herself. Almost. Until she realised that she could not stop when she really wanted to and that the kind of attention you get when you vommit is not worth vomiting for! Anyway, she was back to her usual, demanding self by this afternoon and we can now start the big clean-up, washing towels and disinfecting everything and hoping we can all stay healthy for maybe a whole week. That would be good. The sun has started to shine, the flowers are blooming, Karen is planting veges like mad and Dad even managed to mow the grass, so our little farm is looking like a nice place to spend weekends.

Monday, September 15, 2008

M.I.A.

Hola! No we are not in Brazil. We have just been up to our elbows in "stuff". You know, when whole weeks go missing and you turn to your partner and say "Is it still August?". Everything starts to look overgrown (including the children) so you just run the mower over it (not the children) and then you turn around and it looks like it hasn't been mowed and then the cattle are looking at you like they haven't been fed, sort of the same way the children do except you're sure you fed one of them at least, around the same time as you mowed the lawn. Anyway, we're all really great, just a bit tired, and we hope you're all really great too. O.K.?........... Great!.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Birthdays

We received some lovely news while we were away. Big congratulations to Renee and Chris on the birth of baby Gabriel last Tuesday. Please let me know if it's OK with you guys to post the lovely photos you sent on our blog.

It's Lily's birthday today, but since we didn't get home til 9pm last night it was a pretty low key affair although she did score two birthday cakes (one in Ohakune and one at home). Thankyou to all the lovely people who sent cards emails and pressies.

Holiday Photos


Ali and Lily had fun playing on the snow in the second carpark on one of our last days.



Opa Noel took us for a lovely walk to see the neighbour's Alpacas and visit the giant snowman. Big thankyous to Noel and Rosie for having us.

Snow Bunnies


Wow, we had a great holiday. After a big drive we finally arrived in Ohakune to a warm welcome from Opa Noel and Granny Rosie. We managed to get in a few magic days skiing for the grown-ups. Ali had a lesson and mastered the basics of making her skiis like a wedge of pizza to stop or make a turn, but she much preferred french fry skiis to go faster. Lily said she didn't like the snow on the first day so we didn't bother taking her up much. We did make time to see the giant carrot though.

The hot pools at Tokaanu were a nice break on the days we weren't up the hill. We went and saw Jose and Darryl at Turangi. Jose took us to feed the miniature horses on her quad bike (the highlight of Lily's trip) and to throw rocks and pumice in the river.