Finally

I finally did what ive been meaning to do for quite a few years now and took a photography class!! I have another next week. Its one of those things where ive always had a little bit of a passion for it but with no mentor's (BTW thanks Robin for getting me going ;) and not being very good at self-teaching its taken me awhile to get going with it. Darryl's training and the kids have kind of dominated the priorities in my life for the last 5 years anyway. Well now there is some time for me!!
As you could probably tell, by some of my pic's, we've invested in a really nice camera. And what better place to pick up my hobby then here in God's country.

The last time I did a class in photography it was on a film SLR and that was sooo much harder. I love that with digitals you can actually practice what you are learning and then experiment with the settings etc. seeing the product imediately. So much better for someone like me who learns by being shown or doing.



Looking forward to getting more great shots on here in the next few months :)

Ella turns 5

 

 

 

Tomorrow, Ella will be 5. Well, actually because she was born in Canada that kind of makes her birthday a day early here but anyway she is/will be 5! 5 is a big number. I find myself a little emotional over her turning 5. My baby years are gone and I already see her maturing so much, almost overnight. I am so proud of the beautiful, sensitive and caring little girl she has become.
I was afraid this birthday might be a little hard this year, being away from home and not having her FAVE little buddies around, so I did my best to make it as big and special as I could.
We celebrated today by having a Day of Ella. She wanted a rainbow theme so we tried to decorate as much as possible with rainbow colors. And there even just happened to be a theme park here in Auckland called Rainbow's End, which was fitting. We started off the day with rainbow oatmeal, went to rainbow's End for lot's of fun rides, then proceeded to MC Donalds play land for lunch and then back to the house to get ready for the party. Ella has two good little friends here, and they are both named Ben, both from the UK and both have mom's named Rachel :) Funny. Both Ben's came to her party with a few siblings in tow and we had a wonderful evening of Taco's (as requested by the birthday girl) candy and cake, mmmmm. We had face painting and a game of Pin the nose on the clown. Overall I knew it was a huge success because as I was putting Elle to bed tonight she kept saying over and over "this was the best birthday ever mommy!"
Mission Accomplished!

I will have more pic's posted on facebook.
Cheers!!

Ella celebrates her birthday at Kindy

 
 
 
 

Ella celebrated with her birthday today with her friends at Kindy because she won't be there tomorrow. We have a special day planned for her tomorrow instead of Saturday b/c D has to work and I'm doing a class all day.
They really do a great job at her kindy for making them feel special on their big day.
She was given special privileges all morning and got to decorate her own birthday crown with friends and had special messages from her teachers written on the inside. She had a play dough birthday cake, got to pick her favorite book to read at matt time and sit on the special birthday chair while her friends sang happy birthday to her and looked at her portfolio of all the things she's done with her time while at Kindy.

Here in NZ, the kids start primary school as they turn 5, although not legally expected to until they are 6 years old. So usually the kids leave the kindy at the time of their birthday. Ella will be finishing the next two weeks but not attending primary school here. In order for her to attend I would have to apply for a different visa, and she would attend school all day every day and I'm not ready for that yet:) She'll be in school full time soon enough and long enough.

I look forward to posting tomorrows blog with pic's and tales from our Day of Ella.

Shopping adventures

Arriving here with only two suitcases each to do us 6 months really is only a step above backpacking so now that the season is changing I am in need of a few items.

However, you definitely don't come to NZ for the fashion and shopping. You will be highly disappointed in NZ if that is something you need in a place.
I have spent weeks trying to discover where the good shopping is but up until now have stuck out every trip. Even if I did find something I liked I was always put off by the crazy expensive prices. Well today, I bit the bullet out of pure desperation for fall/winter clothes and took the afternoon to go by myself. Its been way too long since I've done that, gone by myself, and well... it worked out! I don't know if I hit a good day or if it was b/c I am desensitized to the prices now so I didn't stress about it as much. The other thing that puts you off for shopping here is the sizing. Its all a size or two smaller so you end up buying numbers you don't want to see sitting on that little tag.
what they lack in fashion they make up for in outdoor clothing, kids clothes, and well pretty much everything else I've blogged about.
One really neat thing about NZ is that they really promote home grown. They have a lot of their own brands from clothes to surf boards to all ranges of food.

Hopefully Darryl will be as successful this evening as he attempts to find dress pants for work. He arrived here for "work" with 4 pairs of board shorts but only two pairs of dress pants, both a light color. We can all see where his priority's were when he was packing :)

Raglan

 
 
 
 

We had an awesome weekend at a place called Raglan, a surfing Mecca. Darryl was in heaven. Surfer's come from all over the world to surf here and it is known for having the longest left hand break. For those of you who are in to surfing. Tracy and I had our turn attempting to surf Raglan, we're getting better :)
Such a beach town with cute little cafes and surf stores lining the streets and a laid back mentality.
We also headed to waitomo to see the glow worm caves, as I mentioned in my previous post. So AMAZING! We went on two different caves tours, one that included a dark boat tour down a river under a canopy of glowworms that were lighting the roof of the cave like stars. One of the caves was 13 kilometers deep! Truly one of the most amazing natural wonders I've experienced. The caves were full of Stalagmites and stalagtites (the spikes and pillars formed over thousands of years from the dripping water over the limestone). Featured in the planet earth video CAVES. It was so neat to have watched this DVD last year and to now be able to actually experience it for ourselves.
Among other neat things we were able to see was bridal veil fall's and a natural bridge formed out of rock and two holes in the wall of a cave. See picture.

Before bed tonight I asked the girls if they had a good weekend and they said "yes" so I asked Elle, as I always do, what her favorite thing we did was and in true 5 year old fashion she said "the trampoline!" Their were two trampolines in front of the motel where we stayed and out of all the amazing experiences that we had this was her favorite thing. So typical.

Its a wonderful life

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day. Not that anything special happened it just ended up being one of those days that I know I will miss when we return back to Canada.
I started out by going for a run on the beach as the sun was coming up over the volcano, the colors were amazing. That energized me for the day. After dropping Elle off at kindy, Zaiah and I got grocery's before heading to the beach again for a tots playtime with our friends. The city organizes these play groups for tot's where they travel around to different beaches and set up all kinds of ride on toy's. We picked up big sis for lunch and after Zaiah had her nap and mommy got a few chores done we headed to the library for some new books and dvd's. The library just happens to be right next to...you got it, the beach. Everything here is near a beach. We took our books down by the water and read them and played in the sand untill it was time for dinner. And as if that wasn't enough, when daddy got home he wanted to go down to the beach too and since i'd had my fill he took the girls who were more than eager for another trip to the water. There is something so healthy about seeing the ocean everyday.

So needless to say the girls slept very well last night :)

Today was a little more low key. Im supposed to be packing for the weekend because we are going to Raglan, an amazing surf beach. And to the near by waitomo caves to see the glow worms. Should have some great new photo's to post!!

Field Trip

I went with Elle's class on a field trip this past friday to Kelly Tarlton's under water world. I love being able to go on these trips with her and getting to know her little friends.
We also went to a couple of festivals this weekend and one of them was the country show. The girls enjoyed a traditional country fair with lot's of animals, fair rides and trading booths. We left the country show and headed to the beach for D to catch a few waves and enjoy the hot sunny day that is quickly turning colder as we begin fall.