.Our NZ holiday - PART 3.

The next week of our holiday was spent travelling around and visiting relatives - many of whom the kids and I had never met and Jaron hadn't seen for 15+ years!  

First stop was Hamilton, where we stayed in the old Church College dorms (where my mother-in-law went to school when she was a teenager!) - was lots of fun to relive her memories and tour around the now closed down school.  We even had a swim in the old pool - felt like we were living in an old 1960's movie!

Church College is situated right next door to the Hamilton, New Zealand temple.  Such a lovely temple - and lots of special memories held there as the place that my parents and grandparents and many aunties and uncles traveled to to be married.

 

 Hamilton is also home to Jaron's grandmother, whom Lil had an absolute fascination with and wouldn't leave her side.  Great-Grandma isn't in the best of health as she suffers from dementia so it was sad to see her and not have her remember as much as she would have liked to.  She still kept us in stitches though, with her blunt comments and witty humour!  We were also lucky to meet up with Aunties, Uncles and cousins in Hamilton (and naughty me didn't take many photos!)

 In the evening we visited the temple again - this time to see the beautiful temple lights.  We were totally enthralled!

Our next stop was New Plymouth, the old family stomping grounds.  Here we visited with Great Uncle Harvey and Great Aunty Jill and enjoyed torrential rain for the two days we were there!

 We also spent some time with Jaron's grandfather and Uncle Grant and Aunty Leigh at their home.

 On our way home, we stopped into the cemetery and visited graves of Grandad Dorman and other family members no longer with us.

On the way home from our roadtrip we had to stop at the famous Pokeno for an ice cream.  This place has been around forever, the town has pretty much nothing in it except for a petrol station and two famous ice cream shops!  Jaron had been dreaming talking about our visit way before our holiday and planned to get the biggest ice cream he could there - 12 scoops later...here he is!  It was disgusting!  But a total bargain - 12 scoops for $12!!! 

.Our NZ holiday - PART 2.

Feels a bit silly to be blogging about Christmas in the beginning of February...I think I've lost my blogging legs :)

This was the first Christmas that the kids had spent away from home, but after reassuring them that, yes Santa WOULD know where they were, they were as excited as ever!  

Christmas Eve was spent doing last minute shopping, some swimming at the beach and lots and lots of cooking.  We had a delicious gourmet BBQ for dinner, followed by the traditional Christmas pav - laden with fruit and ferrero rocher chocolates...YUM! 

Nana and Lil shared a special Christmas message for us, complete with one beautiful little angel.

And as always, the reindeer food was a hit with the kids.  First Tommy and Lil scattered it around, then Oscar came by later on and divided it into 9 little piles - one for each of the reindeer.

Christmas morning came (and not quickly enough for these excited kiddos!)  We opened presents from Santa before church, then went to church for an hour and listened to some very uplifting and inspiring messages.

The rest of the day was spent opening presents, eating way too much delicious food and hanging out together.

We enjoyed a family walk along the beach in the evening, a perfect way to finish a lovely day.

.How does one say goodbye?.

How does one say goodbye to their best friend, soul mate and lover?

That, I do not know.

Yesterday was a special and sacred day.  One in which I had the honour and privilege to stand amongst hundreds of sorrowful people, shed tears together, and remember Aaron King. 

I'm going to miss that funny guy.  The one who married my cousin 16 years ago.  I remember going to their wedding reception as a 14 year old girl, excited to see my beautiful "big" cousin all dressed up as a bride.  He was a quiet, shy guy back then.  It didn't take long for the real Aaron to emerge and I since have fond memories of him cracking joke after joke, always the funny guy...many of them at my expense.  As much as I used to hate being called "Aunty Ann" I'd give anything to hear it one last time.

I don't know why Aaron was taken from this earth at such a young age of 39.  I don't know why Lisa has to re-map her life as a single mother of 3 energetic boys, only months after losing her 10 year old son.  But I do know that what doesn't make sense and seem fair now, will make perfect sense in the eternities.  And while that certainly doesn't make life any easier, it gives some hope that all will be okay in the end.

I do know that we need to hug those we love a little tighter.  Don't be afraid to say "I love you" and tell someone what they really mean to you.  Life really is short, in some cases much to short.  Our time here on earth must not be wasted, make the most of every day and live it as if it was your last.    

 

How does one say goodbye to their best friend, soul mate and lover?

I still don't know.  I do know it is the most incredibly difficult, heart-wrenching and emotional roller-coaster of one's life.  And while I know the ride will not be over for a long, long time, I am so proud of Lisa and her boys and know that they will get through this.  One day at a time, as each tear is slowly replaced with faint smiles and memories of a husband and son, a father and brother that will forever be by their side.

(A fund has been set up for Lisa and her boys to raise money to help them get through the next months as they work through the pain they are feeling now.  Although no amount of money will erase the pain they are feeling, I know that not having any financial pressures over the coming months will help them immensely.  If you would like to do something to help, please go here to donate.  I am in awe every time I check the page and read the sweet messages from friends and strangers all over the world.  Thankyou x 100 for your kindness and generosity.  We DO live in a good world!)

.Pray for the Kings.

(King family motto...by Leanne)

Yesterday my sweet cousin, Lisa lost her soul mate and best friend.

You may remember in October Lisa also lost her son, Noah.  We are all in shock and disbelief that something so tragic could happen to such a beautiful, healing family.  I know a lot of you follow Lisa's blog and know that she truly is a Super-Mum.  She is going to need all of the love and support that we can give her right now as she carries on through the next weeks and months.

Naomi, of Seven Cherubs has thoughtfully set up a bank account to take donations for Lisa and the boys.  If you feel inclined to do something to help, please help ease the burden and donate some money.  Every little bit will help.

Lisa, we love you and have such fun and fond memories of Aaron as a husband, father and friend. 

xxx

.Our NZ holiday - PART 1.

I'm mustering up the courage to attempt blogging about our trip to New Zealand.  It's taken forever to sort through thousands of photos and create some sort of order!  There's just too much to write about for one post, so I'll break it up a bit to give us all a breather!!!

We were  blessed with 4 weeks of utter blissful, relaxing and fun-filled days.  Now that we are home, we are all pining to go back.  It's always nice to be back amongst your own things, but we could easily have stayed for another couple of weeks!  The best part - Jaron and I had a bedroom downstairs away from the main living areas of the house and the kids were upstairs with my in-laws and sister-in-law...most mornings we would roll out of bed after 9am to find the kids fed, dressed, beds made and happily playing and we didn't even have to do a thing :)  Simple things like that make for a perfect holiday for parents, right?!

So, the holiday started with leaving sunny, blue skies in Tasmania. 

The kids were sooooo excited to get going and were amazing little travellers.  There was a lot of waiting at the airport in Melbourne and then a 4 hour flight to NZ, but they did a great job and were still chirpy when we arrived at midnight!!  We flew a combination of Jetstar and Air New Zealand and if we did it again, would definitley fly Air New Zealand (or Qantas) for the longer flights.  We arrived to rain, rain and more rain - in fact, it rained pretty much our whole trip!  But that didn't stop us from having lots of fun!!
 
There was no messing around when we first arrived, the next day we headed out to our very first Polkadots concert!  These guys are great - if you haven't heard of them, I guess they could be likened to a Kiwi version of The Wiggles.  

Our little sister, Ashleigh is a Polkadots girl - she is a pro dancer and started out back-up dancing for the Polkadots and now is there fill-in when one of the main girls have babies or other business to take care of.  Three cool things about the Polkadots...  1. They are all young Mums so know exactly what kids want, 2. Their messages are all about keeping healthy, and 3. They are all members of our Church and have great values, in fact, you can watch a cool video about pink Polkadot Dionne here.

We were especially lucky that Aunty Ash is filling in for one of the Polkadots at the moment and could see her in full action - she was great and the kids are massive fans now!

We managed to squeeze in our traditional Christmas family activity, making gingerbread houses from biscuits - but this time we mixed it up a bit with lots of NZ-style biscuits and lollies...yum!  Jaron was taken back to his childhood indulging on Griffins biscuits galore!

 

 

Jaron's parents live about a 10 minute drive from the city centre of Auckland, so this was the view from the highway each day - the city is sooo beautiful. 

We did LOTS of driving on this trip - we tried to do an activity every day and also took a few overnight trips to other parts of the country.  Of course, lots of driving means lots of taking photos of ourselves in the car ;)

One of our first day trips was to Kelly Tarltons Antarctic Encounter.  This place was pretty cool - like an aquarium with focus on the antarctic.  There were the most adorable penguins there and even a really fun ride that we took through their enclosure.  Lots of interactive things for the kids to do and it was really well set out.

 

 

We took the ferry into the city this day and had a wander along the waterfront later on.  Soooo beautiful.  Auckland is such a clean and quiet city.  Quiet enough for Tommy to have a nap during our walk...

 

And continue napping while we feasted upon some of the most delicious gelato I have ever tried - yum!

 

There were certain things that we had to do while away, things that Jaron loved doing as a kid growing up in NZ - and one of them was to go to Rainbow's End...this theme park has been around since 1982 and parts of it had real "vintage" character!  The kids could go on most rides - some of them seriously didn't feel safe but we took them anyway!  All three of our kids have really weak stomachs and were pale-faced and crying after the first ride.  We had to continually bribe them with fairy floss and extra turns on the more tame rides to make sure they got the complete Rainbow's End experience!!  There was a cute kiddies ride section that they were happy to go back to again and again...

This ride was my favourite by far - I pulled out the "Nan scream" and had to apologise to the man sitting next to me for the saliva I felt dribbling across my cheek...hmmm - maybe that is why he is leaning so far away from me!!

 

Right, that's all for tonight!  I'll be back soon with PART 2 of our trip (promise this won't go on forever...the quantity of photos we took decreased as the trip went on!) 
xxx

.2011 - a crafty review.

Happy New Year everyone!!  We are half way through our holiday and having such a fun time.  I've really fallen into "holiday mode" with lots of extra hands to help look after the kids and waaaay too much yummy/bad food to eat!  Will be back soon with lots to share from our trip, but for now...here's a crafty review of some of my makes from 2011.

xxx