Knitting in Napier

Wow what an awesome weekend, Knit August nights retreat, organised by Maree and James.

A weekend long knitting retreat, with classes, meal, tour round Design Spun Wool Mill, yarn market - ohh I spent lots!!! Even the weather was awesome. We stayed in the lovely Harbour view motel - highly recommended location in Ahuriri, right by the beach and boardwalk. There are some lovely cafes very close by: Boardwalk and Milk and Honey are to name a few that I can personally recommend.



It was a great weekend for learning new skills, making new friends and getting to know old ones even better. There are some lovely pics on Maree's website for you to view. I did buy some very yummy yarn....... More cotton from YarnZ, Morag's lovely Vintage Purls sock yarn, some Skeins wool possum merino too.

There is even a ravelry forum, so go and sign up ready for next year!

A Decade Old Today......

Happy Birthday Mate. A Decade old today.

Wow for a boy we can not get out of bed he was up at 5.30am wanting to go downstairs.

He was very proud of his new steel string Ashton guitar, cut out with in-built tuner! He is off playing it already.

He also got a New Orleans Hornets basketball, basket ball hoop, Oasis guitar tab book, bakugauns and lots of cards.

Ouch

Saffron's trapped finger she did Saturday night!

Winter Sun

A gorgeous sunny winter day - time to blow away the cobwebs and jet lag and head for the beach. We headed up the Kapiti coast again with Molly and enjoyed the sunshine chasing sea gulls, getting wet and thinking its summer! yes they wanted ice creams too... brghhhhh....




Saffron's photo taking was not bad, I am finally in front of the lens not behind!!! But I did get a gorgeous pic of a spiral shell.... and 3 monkeys we found! Hopefully we will all sleep well tonight.

Sunshine through the freezing fog....

after a few mornings of -2.3 and -2.7 degrees it was slightly warmer today, the sun soon burned through the heavy fog. We had plenty of visitors in the garden, as well as some locals!

School production

India and Saffron both finished the second school term with 3 showings of the junior school production. Saffron had a staring role in the opening act and led her class out to do their song. India was one of the dancers for her class. They were both real stars.

We are now into the school holidays and typically they are wet! They are all booked into holiday club one day a week and Catherine 2 days and one day each with both mum and dad! plenty of scrap paper from work and paper airplane making! baking and TV!!!

3 year Anniversary

Today marks the official 3 year anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand! Its gone really fast and we have achieved loads! The kids are settled well in school and have grown loads. Our jobs are going great, we have a new collection of pets - 1 dog, cats, 2 rabbits and 1 guniea pig. We have purchased a lovely house ad got permanent residency!