So, Water polo Junior Sportsman of the Year! Not bad. here he is on stage with the other prize winners in his group. My batteries died and this was taken on Adrian's cell phone

At home with his medal on and holding his certificate - very proud of himself!

My Dad is declining. The doctor said we have probably got a matter of months with him. He sometimes doesn't get dressed and just stays in his pyjamas and dressing gown all day. He was such a strong man .... so sad.

I managed to lose hundreds of photos last night backing them up to the external hard drive. I was deleting some folders and deleted the photos by mistake. The pop-up window said there was no space in the recycle bin and did I want to delete them permanently? Of course, I clicked YES. Oh well, most are printed and or scrapped so it's just too bad

Supermarkets here give discount voucher for the petrol stations. When that happens, my Mom and I always try to get as many vouchers as we can. The checkout operator knows what we do and today she was just laughing at us because we had to run quickly to find another $20 worth of groceries. She probably sees us coming and thinks, "Oh no, not those two nutty women again!" Actually, she doesn't mind us because we are not grumpy - can't be when we're laughing so much about our groceries!

Good and Bad

Bad first: my Dad is not so great - up one day and down the next. He had a blood transfusion last Friday and that appears to have helped his breathing. However, his foot is not great and it seems that the other one is on the same path. If he has an amputation at nearly 87 it will kill him, however the gangrene is also likely to kill him. Such a hard place to be in! The renal specialist said we'd made the right choice about keeping his foot

Good: We got a letter from College inviting us to attend Sports Prizegiving next week as Colin is getting an award! We don't know what it is but we're very proud of him!

Earthquake Crop

Along with ladies in Christchurch at Scrappin' Patch and in Invercargill at Scrapbook Outlet, we had a charity crop yesterday at Craft House. Although it was poorly supported by the Wellington community we still had a wonderful day.

Mandy Blake supplied some prizes as did Beverly Warwick who also created a great BYO mini-class: people brought their own supplies and Bev provided stamps, CuttleBug folders etc

Making Memories sent a Slice that we raffled across NZ as well; Up2Scrap sent a great prize pack that we used for our layout prize. Trina McClune did a great sketch that was used around the country; however, I'm hoping she will accept my sketch l/o on her blog because I didn't enter mine at the Wellington crop because I didn't want to win my own prize! Mandy Blake won the prize for our sketch.

The entries for Trina's sketch

My take on Trina's sketch

Mandy who won the sketch prize receiving her prize from Beverly


Carmel who won the Slice receiving her prize from me

The mini class l/os

One of the other three l/os that I did that I'll enter at Scrapbook Dreams

It was a great day and any one who'll be in Wellington on 6th November, I would encourage you to buy a ticket for Trina's Creative Experience day at the Newlands Community Centre (info on Trina's blog)

Holiday part 2

We checked into our hotel at 5.30am after our dreadful flight. We had a shower and a cup of tea and then went to bed. I can't remember when last I went to bed at 6am in the morning! I woke up around 9.30am and we had coffee and checked our emails. I woke the boys up around 11am - they wanted breakfast! We met my friend Tracy Palmer for lunch. Then she and I and her lovely children walked around. I took this photo of the Sky Tower (standing at the base looking up) that I've wanted to take for a long time.

Friday morning we got up and headed for Devonport on the ferry to have brunch

The first building walking up from the ferry

After breakfast, the boys went to the library to use the free internet and I walked up and down and looked in all the shops. What a wonderful morning I had! This photo is looking down from the top of the street

On the ferry on the way back

On the waterfront is the count down to the Rugby World Cup 2011
Then we went to MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology)

Trains ..... of course

The tram that travelled from Motat to the Aviation building

At the Aviation building

On the way back from the Aviation building, the tram was really full. At the Zoo, a mom and two young children got in. Straight away Ross stood up so that she could sit. I was so proud of him!

Holiday report part 1 Samoa

We stayed at Aggie Grey's hotel in Apia. Flowers on the bed when we arrived ... also on the dressing table and in the bathroom. Love tropical flowers!
We ordered a plate of hot chips one day and the tomato sauce arrived in a shell!

More flowers - these were very different

Wednesday night is FiaFia dancing

Adrian on the veranda of our Fale. We had our morning coffee out there every morning

Cocktails at the pool with the boys in the pool

Me against a tree at the marine reserve

The boys at the same tree

The beach at the marine reserve

Adrian and Colin in the water at the marine reserve - they had a wonderful time and saw lots. They went back another day and spent hours there. On the way back, Adrian stopped and bought a beer for himself and Colin ... Colin was quite surprised

The younger Aggie Grey and me

The boys in the pool. We spent most of our time at the pool relaxing and moving with the shade - in 30°C temperatures we had to follow the shade! When we got too hot, we got in the pool

The front of the hotel

Waiting at the airport after we were bumped off our AirNZ flight back to Auckland

Talofa lava

Yes - I'm having a GREAT time!! be back later in the week with more updates