James turns 21

Friday 7th September

With Rory at school and Yasmine and Adam at work, Brian and I had a bit of time to ourselves. We would either have Yasmine's car and if not we would just walk to the local shopping mall - Hornby Hub.
All my family were working while Brian and I were there - no one thinks to take a day off to meet up and or go for a coffee,drive etc so we do what we can when there. There are always family to go and see as we both have our families there and trying to keep everyone happy is not easy and somehow we always seem to not spend enough time with someone. This time when we were there my sister and both nephews had had birthdays and we had decided to celebrate James 21st with a families get together however as happens this did NOT happen so Brian and I and Yasmine and Rory decided along with my sister we would go over for tea on the Friday night to catch up with them and the boys. James was home however Ian went off to a church youth camp - just shows no matter how hard one makes every effort to catch up it kind of goes haywire - oh well we feel we had a great night and took some lovely photos of the family and boys.

Younger nephew Ian he is 18yr
Ian and his mum, my sister Angela.

Uncle Brian, James 21, Aunty Chris, and Ian 18

Dad - Martin, James and mum Angela

Ian, Aunty Chris, the joke was how short I was!!!!  James

And this is MY cake James 21yr

James and his mum - a lovely photo of them.

I have been asking for months for some up to date photos of my nephews and thought this would be the only way I would get any - I think they are great photos and I am so happy to have them.

Christchurch here we come!!!!

Wednesday 5th September


The had finally arrived for us to head south to Christchurch for 7nights
to see the families - wahoo is a girl excited hell yeah and so were Yasmine and Rory. We left Turangi on a cold and wet morning to head north again toward Taupo and onto Rotorua for our flight to Christchurch. We left Turangi at 1000am and arrived at Rotorua Airport at 1210pm after a nice relaxing drive - I drove this time to allow Brian to relax and take photos. Our flight to Christchurch was not until 1.55pm so we checked our luggage in first before heading to the cafe and ordering coffee and a bite to eat as we had a bit of a wait before we departed south. We found a nice sunny spot by the window with nice comfy lounge seats - we took over the area first in first served, when we arrived there the terminal was empty anyway. There is a departure tax payable of $5 per person before you are allowed to board any aircraft - we used to have this in Christchurch also however it casued so many problems they did away with it. Our flight was duely called and we boarded, sat back for the pleasant flight south to Christchruch and awaiting family, we arrived in Christchurch to a loely warm day and an excited little boy and his mum. Once the cuddles were over we went and collected the luggage and headed to Yasmine's car for the drive home where we would stay for the 7 nights, Yasmine is only 15mins from the airport so we were home in no time.

And guess who was there to meet us - Yasmine and Rory, Grandad cut Yasmine's head of :-(

 This photo below is of the capital of NZ - Wellington

 Photo below is part of the Mighty Southern Alps

 Guess who!!!

 I will take the bags Nana......

On route to Christchurch 2012

The next section of our trip will be our Christchurch visit, so watch this space for some photos of our beautiful city, it is slowly rebuilding although there is still alot of demolition work continuing in the CBD which is still fenced off so you are unable to get into the actual City of Christchurch.
More to follow folks - thanks for taking the time to look and read.

Last days Turangi

Tuesday September 4th - Last day in Turangi

Once again we woke to rain and a very cold wind so we stayed in bed until around 0930. Had breakfast, showers etc - Brian went down to say goodbye to them at the Hatchery and to see his friends at the Tongariro Motels. While he was away I did all the washing and had to put it into the drier to ensure it was properly dry before we packed to head to Christchurch tomorrow.. Later in the day we vacumed through out and that meant all we had to do the following morning was clean the bathroom and loo. We went for our last dip down to the hot pools and as there was hardly anyone there we managed to get longer in the pool which was great, it was so wet. We arrived back at the house and made a cuppa and stayed in for the rest of the night.



Monday September 3rd

Monday dawned with rain and I was going to go to the river with Brian however as I had no wet weather gear I decided to day home. It started to rain much heavier and we spent most of the day inside in the warm and dry watching TV and I did some of my digital scrapping tutorials and re organised some folders for my digital downloads. The photos below of the daffs were being grown in a garden next door to where we were staying -  luv the white one as I have never seen a white daff before

Turangi

Sunday September 2nd - Father's Day

Last night we had decided to go for a bit of a tourist drive through to Waiouru, down to Brian's old Navy communications base and back via the National Park - Ohakune and onto the Chateau Tongariro. It started out very overcast and showery however the further on we went round behind the mountain the clearer the weather became which was great as we had a great view of the mountains. We then went to the Lakehouse Restaurant for a beautiful Father's Day dinner - it was simply devine.

Turangi 2012

Saturday September 1st

Today was sleep in day it was just lovely as it was real chilly and foggy with a white frost. Had breakfast and watched a bit of TV for a while. Brian decided to go down to the river while I did some chores washing etc. Brian rang to say he would be back around lunchtime - he did and with NO fish. The remainder of the day we just stayed around the house and went down to do a bit of shopping then off to the hot pools later for a soak, that was just heaven.

NZ Trip 2012

 Friday 31st August

Took a day trip to Taupo as Brian needed to go and see Telecom re our NZ mobile ph - appears it won't work any more as they have changed their network - good on ya Telecom. Had a bit of a walk around Taupo and a coffee and bit of lunch before headed off to see the mighty Huka Falls - what an amazing volume of water that is so much force and power. We drove back to Turangi it was nice and sunny however the wind was right off the snow real chilly. And that was about our day we stayed in for the remainder of the day/night - no hot pools tonight.