Christmas Day.........

This year we had a real tree. They are not fir trees, they are small pine trees grown to look like Christmas fir trees. In NZ you go to a paddock (no fields here!)and choose your tree, put your name on a tag and fix it to the tree. Then you go back and collect your tree when you're ready. They chop it down and load it into the car. The branches are not as strong as fir tree's so most of our decorations are too heavy, this is our tree!!


Today, Christmas day we went to Ocean Beach. The weather wasn't as good as it has been, it was really windy. The wind was coming straight off the sea!! The lifeguards had their hut set up and their flags out (only swim between the flags!). Louise was the only one to venture into the water!!



We'd had enough!



Relaxing in the dunes!



There's nothing better than relaxing by the sea with an ice cream on a warm, sunny Christmas Day!!

A few days in Wellington!

We spent the weekend in Wellington. The weather on Saturday and Sunday was wet and windy!! On Saturday we shopped (the kids did we did bag carrying!) On Sunday we spent most of the day at the museum...

Wellington from the harbour front.......

Lots of strange things to see .....

Lots of carvings.....


Time for tea and cappuccinos... (rare picture of me!)

Louise as always seems to find a furry friend!

On Monday we drove out of Wellington via the Rimutaka Hills...Very twisty, windy road, nice views at the top and clean fresh air...


We stopped for refreshments at the Tui brewery...


And then onwards to Napier and collect the dogs from the Kennels...

Big Kids on swings!

School holidays down the beach........




My turn!

Classic Open Air Concert...

Saturday night we went to an Open air concert. It was 'Classics at Sunset' with the Hawke's Bay Orchestra held at the Black Barn (vineyard) Amphitheatre. The idea is to take a chair, bean bag, picnic etc and enjoy the music and performances. The theme for the night was Russian composers.




Dances from Nutcracker....



After Sunset........


And huge fireworks at the end of the evening.........

Hotdogs!

The dogs decided to try and cool off while Tony was watering the grass this afternoon!

First Swims of the Season!

Weather is hotting up here.... Today the temperature was up in the high 20's...

The pool had turned a green colour as it had been run down over the winter months. Now that it's getting warmer we've spent the last few weeks getting the pool back in service. That meant adding 6 25kg bags of salt, a few mills of algae buster to the water and a few hoovers of the pool bottom...!! Now it's looking lovely and gleaming so much so that Dan and Tony decided to try the pool out today.....



Wonder if Chester want's a swim...?




Sunday 16th

Louise and her friend spent most of the afternoon in the pool. These pictures were taken around 6pm, just show you how warm it's getting. I'm sure that they would have stayed in the pool longer!!

Going back to the 80's!!!

Tony and I went on a trip back to the 80's lastnight as we went to see Paul Young and Tony Hadley perform on the last night of their tour of New Zealand.

Among the songs Paul Young sang were Wherever I Lay My Hat, Come Back And Stay and Every Time You Go Away...


Some of the songs performed by Tony Hadley were To Cut a Long Story Short, True, Gold, and Through the Barricades.


It was a great show and not only did they perform their own hit's they also joined together to sing a few covers!