.: January 2009

We've been having a really nice summer holiday. School ended for the year on the 19th of December and we went almost immediately up to Tutukaka for a few days at the beach house (not ours sadly, but at least it belongs to a family member). After a few days of hiking. kayaking and beaching, we came home for 24 hours to have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our new house. Then back to Tutukaka for a few more days. After that, Richard convinced me to take up windsurfing so I've been taking lessons from this really funny guy. Who knew that you actually CAN teach an old dog new tricks. I'm living proof! After Christmas, we had a large family gathering at our house. Richard's maternal cousins have boys as well. Our house was filled with boys! We've filled the days with more hikes and visits to the beach as well as more computer and WII time than we'd like, but the boys have been happy. Kip went away to camp for a week, but didn't take a camera so we haven't any documentation of the blast that he says he had. This past weekend, we spent four days with our friends, Gary and Jude, at their lake house at Lake Tarawera, which is near Rotorua. Gary and Jude were good mates of ours in Scottsdale who moved back to New Zealand about a year and a half ago. We hadn't seen them since. We spent our days hiking, swimming and zooming around the lake on Gary's fizz boat. Kip, Reid and Quinn all had turns on the ski biscuit (as did I). You should have seen the smiles. Wish we'd caught it on camera. Just one more week until school starts again. I think we are all a bit ready for that to happen. New classes, new teachers, new school uniform. Hmmmm. I haven't decided what I think about uniforms yet.

Exploring the beach in Tutukaka