Still in Christchurch

Monday 10th September

Photo below is of my work mates from Air NZ - Jacky Korndorffer, CJ, Loraine Ainsworth - thanks girls for making the effort to come over and
catch up.

Today was again school for Rory and work for Yasmine and Adam, which left Brian and I to do whatever. It was arranged with a couple of my old Air NZ mates that as they had RDO they would come out to Hornby Mall and meet up for a coffee and bite to eat. It was great catching up and having a chat with them - thanks Jacky & Loraine. School over and Rory and mum arrived home, Monday's are swimming lesson day for Rory and he loves it I along with Yasmine and Rory went to see how he has been doing, we left grandad at home to get the fire going.As you can see by the photo below of Rory sound asleep he did not want to wake up this morning he had  - had such a busy weekend.

Orana Park

Sunday 9th September

Yesterday was a day for doing chores etc, Yasmine went off to have her hair done while I minded Rory and Grandad well we don't know where or what he did/went hahahaha -
Today we went off to Orana Park - which is a wildlife park in Christchurch and we had not been in years so thought it would be good to do. Rory went as a baby so never remembered it at all for him it was AMAZING. It was a nice fine day and all except Rory and I had a jacket!!! it was a cold wind when we arrived so we sent grandad off to the shop to buy a couple of those plastic rain jackets, which Rory and I put on straight away, we looked like we had been wrapped in glad wrap but they did keep the wind out. Brian stayed until midday and he went back home to Yasmines and came and picked us up at 4.00pm, by that time we had seen all the park with thanks to the little shuttle cart that ferries you around, the park without having to walk for kms and kms. We ended the day by going out for dinner with Yasmine, Adam,Rory my sister Angela, hubby Martin and younger nephew Ian who was back from church camp. We had a nice meal at Robbies in Riccarton a great way to end a great day, we were not late as Rory had school on Monday and everyone other than Brian and I had work.

Enjoy the Photos:

I am such a cool dude.

 Please note the plastic rain jackets Rory and I have on!!!! Yasmine scored one of Brian's sweaters

 Feeding time literally -  at the zoo.

 Meerkat Manor

 Monster at Orana Park

 Otters

 The beautiful Tiger

 Yasmine and Rory - luv you guys xxx

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.