Hi guys - well its about time I hear you all saying, dissapeared from Facebook and pretty terrible at keeping in touch! Sorry we have been really busy since arriving in NZ nearly a year ago. We have renovated and moved into the house that we bought many years ago.....(it would have been easier, cheaper and less stressful to build one from scratch i think), we have bought and are running a business (Brent is doing all the hard work and I'm doing the bookwork) Josh has doubled in size and has turned into a propper little boy. We have met some really lovely people and Josh and I have made great friends - you can see some of them in our pictures.
We enjoyed our first Christmas is the summer - wierd but enjoyable. Mum and Eddie came out and spent Christmas with us, we had a great time. Eddie played Father Christmas at three different parties the kids (and the mums) loved him! Good Job Ed!!
While you guys in the UK have been (and continue) to freeze hehehe we have been enjoying a great summer temperatures up to 38* some days. Don't worry when its your summer we will be cold and remember we don't have any central heating!
It has been the summer holidays and so all the kids have been off school/kindy etc - we have been doing sme very exciting stuff with our friends, we've been to the beach, to the zoo, to willowbank, on the trams and the gondola, on the steam boat in Lyttleton harbour, over to Quail Island and Diamond harbour and up to Spencer Park. We try to fill our days as much as possible. Josh is very keen to keep on the go, he is very energetic, has dropped his afternoon sleep (unless its in the car) and talks constantly.
We are now in the process of sorting out the garden - having just purchased a new spa pool, we are looking at decking around it, putting in raised beds and relaying the paving at the back of the house. When you all come out to visit you will be able to relax after a hard days sight seeing. The veggie patch is coming on well, we have been enjoying home grown veggies all summer and have just put in our winter crops. I've become quite green fingered! What with that and cutting our own firewood (our only source of heating) I feel a bit like a country bumpkin.
Any hoo enough for this post I will aim to post messages more often and i hope that you enjoy reading them.
Love Lou, Brent and Josh xxxxxxxxxx
Hi guys - I thought that you would all be pleased to know that it looks like our summer has come to an end (although I remain hopeful that it hasn't) the days are getting shorter and cooler and the evenings are positively freezing. We have taked certain measures so as not to freeze this winter, Brent has put thoses nasty brush type bars on the bottoms on the external doors and some of that 1970 sticky foam stuff round the door frames and windows! Can you believe that we have to go to such measures. Its funny actually, i saw an advert on the TV the other day for the new weapon against the cold weather - a radiator!!!!! Imagine putting some of those into your home! amazing. It is true what they say some things about NZ are truly 30 years behind.
Aside from the inevitable onslaught of the autumn and winter (we will no doubt see more sunshine than you guys thought) we are doing well. We have eaten all the veggies out of the garden including the winter crop that i mentioned last time and we are just starting to think about what we can grow next. My last batch of broccolli was eaten by (now very fat) caterpillers, so I am thinking that organic gardening is NOT the way to go. Josh loves them - he thinks that they are facinating, he spends ages looking for them. The raised beds haven't quite gone in, we have bought the timber but have lacked the time and strength to move it. The spa pol is also in and is lovely! 2 recliners and lots of jets much better than the portable one that we had. We often sit in there of an evening reading, drinking wine and gazing at the stars - we can even see the milky way some nights. The (soon to be) courtyard has been paved, this has made a huge difference to the outside area as you can walk out there in bear feet without the fear of standing on glass or nails! We have inherited the Wedlake family swing that has been in the family for over 30 years - Josh and his friends are loving it.
Brent and I have been to some great concerts over the last couple of months, things that we probably wouldn't have seen in London, Bill Bailey, Billy Connolly and Iron Maiden, all very very good. We were supposed to see the Killers too but they cancelled the NZ leg of their tour (we are just not important enought down here) which is a real shame coz I was looking forward to that! The tickets were my birthday pressie from Brent so instead we have bought each other ski passes for Porters Pass and plan to do a lot of skiing in the upcoming season. i think i might need a few refresher lessons.
Speaking of lessons - we were at Auntie Helen and Uncle Steves house and Josh jumped on an old bike - and started to try and ride it, it was far too big for him but Raymond helped him to lower the seat and ride around the yard, he thought that it was just the best thing - until he saw the Chev that Steve is re-building (see pictures). Steve and Helen tragically lost their youngest son Jamie in a road accident on the 21st Feb, he was 18, him and his dad were members of the hot rod club and the chev was to be Jamies project. Steve is rebuilding it for Jamie. Josh has volunteered to be Steves apprentice, he was climbing all over the Chev the other dayasking why the doors weren't on it and if he could use his screw driver to put them back on. It made Steve laugh so thats all good.
