Saturday, 25 December 2010

Baby Zac

These are some of the photo’s that I have of my first nephew Zac. We are sad to be missing his first Christmas, but I do hope that he enjoys his togs and Kenny the Kiwi.

Thursday, 23 December 2010

NZ Christmas


Getting ready for Xmas. It is very low key here. Christmas tree is a bit droopy due to the heat. I think that 1 card company has done well out of us, we have got the same card 4 times, it must be the only NZ card out there! It's been good to hear from quite a number of people, think I will miss the full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and of course family and friends.

Private Beach




We took a drive out with the Hirst's to Diamond Harbour and headed to a Beach called Camp Bay. We had the beach to ourselves and were sheltered out of the wind which made it really hot. To get to the beach we had to drive down a gravel road and then walk across a farmers field and not a shop in sight, how Kiwi!

Akaroa Dolphin Cruise











We took the Hirst's over to Akaroa and we were blessed with a great day. We managed to get on the Crusie for free as we were 'locals' bringing the 'tourists', how funny! It was great being out on the water and to make it even better we did mange to see some little hector dolphins for a little while.

Antarctic Center







Wet day so we decided to go to the Antarctic Center, had a good day! Had to laugh as they had a big fridge which you could go into to experience Antarctic conditions. The temperature was -8 degrees, but when we spoke to Danni's parents they said it had been -12 degrees over night in the UK. Still have the shorts on!

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

The Hirst's our First UK visitors






Garry, Sharon and Britanyy Hirst were our first UK visitors to ChCh. It was good to hear a Yorkshire accent. Weather had the potential to spoil their time in ChCh but the sun poked it's head out and we had a great time (the Norwester did try to blow us off our feet at times). We did loads with them, from walking on the Port Hills,  visiting Sumner beach, Lyttleton Markets, Camp Bay, The Antarctic center, Halswell Quarry, Dolphin trip at Akaroa and all finished off with a visit to Lone Star!

Schools out for Summer







Yippee schools out for the summer!!! As a start of holiday celebration we treated ourselves to a little break to Kiakoura, the on the down side was that I dislocated my shoulder again. Due to the shoulder there was no swimming for me but I did enjoy eating all the food that a mate of mine Jono 'Hunter Gatherer' Hay went diving for. On the menu was Cray fish, Paua, Butter fish and Red cod (Caught by Garry). I loved the camo wet suit, I'm going to have to get me one of those! Danni made a good effort at catching some food, but I think in the end the closest she got was some seaweed! We also met up with Garry, Sharon and Brittany Hirst our first UK visitors (more about them later). A good start to the summer hols

Xmas in the Park





Another freebie on Christchurch council. Really big event 140,000 people were there. Kiwi style night out take along our own food and drinks and just chill out while the free entertainment goes on (+Santa came on a flat bed truck). It was a little cheesy but started to help us get into the Xmas mood. It doesn't feel right as its hot!

Xmas Cards



Trying to take photo's for xmas cards hung over was a bad idea. Even worse was the fact that we look a right pair in our hats. More to the point that these were taken in November where no Kiwi would be even thinking about xmas. We looked crazy...