It's been a lovely summer with the kids finishing school on the 15th of december giving us heaps of time to go to the pools and the beach before Christmas.
For the first time in eight years of living here we attended the local Christmas Parade and handed out 250 candy canes. It was loads of fun seeing all the imaginative floats and various friends and local identities all dressed up.
Our first christmas was at our house with Chris and Renee coming over with the kids and Oma Ali and Opa John joining us for the day. We had second christmas a few days later with Opa Noel and Granny Rosie joining us from Auckland. The kids had heaps of fun playing with their presents and getting more....
New Years Eve was pretty quiet and we all fell asleep just before midnight. But he next day we went camping at the caves with our friends. We took the kids for a good half hour explore slightly off the beaten track through the caves which was a good challenge for them and we got to do some more serious caving ourselves. Phil emerged from a especially squeezy bit saying he never wanted to do it again but i think wse moight get him to have another go one day.
At the last minute we decided to join the extras for the Grand Pageant. The Pageant told the story of the migration of the original settlers to this area. It was exciting to be a part of it, with cowsw, horses, vintage cars,and a cast of thousands... not to mention all the pipe bands and fireworks at the end. The Clydesdaes were a little scary becouse their hooves were so big. Ali thought the heartrending wails were quite humourous!
Mum and the girls went on their first overnight tramping adventure with friends Cindy, Tanya, and Patrece plus their assorted children. We walked up and over the hill to the hut (840 steps down the hill) and spent two night there. We walked through the tunnel magnificent and over the bridge of beauty as named by Ali. next to the nut was a giant rock with a huge pohutukawa growing on top which we all climbed up. It was very high and a little scary to stand on but once you go t used to it it was really fun to explore. On the first day we made a raft and launched it to much hilarity in the afternoon. Ali got to have her first snorkel with Cindy and saw some fish. We spotted an octopus and a fluorescent nudibranch in the rock pools. The kids made pet octopus out of seaweed and we found shark eggs and loads of kina.
We came back for one day which we spent at Playcentre with all our old friends and then we packed up and went camping with Tanya, Mal, Cindy and Ian. We had a lovely grassy spot in the bush not far from a gorgeous beach. We went exploring in the bush and swimming in the creek. The beach was the perfect spot to snorkel on the first day and later on the kids learned to boogie board and body surf in the waves. We enjoyed ice creams at the shop and exploring around a bit.
Now we are home and have just about unpacked and got everything back in order at last.
Hopefully photos and a fix up of the spelling is coming soon!
