Dear Family and Friends,
We hope that this letter finds you all well; as we are. Once again, we’ve tried losing weight, Jenny with more success than Adrian – it remains an ongoing battle! We started doing some more home renovations and painted all the deck and other wood areas as well as the second spare bedroom. There is still more to be done but we’ll get to it eventually.
We spent a week in Rotorua in October and had a wonderful time. We did lots of touristy things like a mud bath at Hell’s Gate (the smell of which is still in our clothes!!). We also found a wonderful mini golf course that had real steam coming out of various holes around the course. We also went to Mt Tarawera where the world famous pink-and-white terraces were before they were covered by the volcanic explosion in 1886. Of course we had to go to our favourite Wakite Pools which have had an extra pool added. We think it is Rotorua’s best kept secret! On the way back, we stopped just off the Desert Road as there had been a lot of snow and all three boys had great fun throwing snow balls.
Our cul-de-sac is once again a hive of activity as we have Christmas “tourists” coming round. The lights outside get better and better every year and we struggle to keep up with the "Joneses".
Adrian once again has had another successful year at xxx - he really enjoys what he does and is making a difference in the work place. Adrian still enjoys his walks on the beach front at lunchtime when the weather is fine. xxxx sent him to Teched in Auckland this year (Microsoft’s annual technical conference) that is a first for him and from which he learned much. He is still a member at xxx Lions and is the secretary of the club for the current year. Adrian had a fantastic trip to Brisbane in May at a Lions leadership seminar and came home full of enthusiasm. Next year he will be on the District Governor’s cabinet as the PR person.
Jenny has had an up and down year at xxx College and next year will not be making quite as much effort to ensure that homework is done! She continues to really enjoy scrapping, has started teaching a night class at the Adult Education centre, and continues to run a very popular and successful annual Scrap Camp at Forest Lakes, a resort about an hours drive north of Wellington. Jenny was lucky enough to get a cheetah encounter at Wellington Zoo for her birthday and Christmas present – what a wonderful experience that was! Two beautiful cheetah who were born at De Wildt and who now reside at Wellington Zoo. They both love the human interaction and start purring as soon as they have their harnesses on.
In mid-October, Jenny’s credit card was stolen by a criminal well-known for impersonating a woman. He managed to spend nearly $2,000 in four days before we discovered this and put a stop on the card. He was arrested by the police shortly afterwards and appeared in court on 21st December. There are over 60 charges against him including impersonating a nurse in Christchurch and stealing a car which he drove to Wellington. He then sat in the xxx College staff room looking official and when he had the opportunity, went through Jenny’s bag and purse selecting her credit card. The police will now take a victim statement from Jenny which will be read out in court at the sentencing.
The boys get bigger and bigger: Ross is now twelve and Colin has just turned eleven. Both of them will be at Intermediate (two years of schooling between Primary and High school) next year before Ross heads off to College in 2007.
Ross again had a successful year at Gymnastics: he was invited to trial for the Competition squad and even though he was really sick (he spent two weeks in bed), he gave it his very best effort and was selected. This means training twice a week and for longer hours, but he is enjoying it. He again won the Male Incentive trophy presented to the gymnast who has the best scores in Badge work. His coach told me that his scores were up amongst the girls’ scores so we are very proud of him. He has had a wonderful first year at Intermediate and has improved his Maths particularly in the areas of problem solving. Ross was one of only two pupils in the school to receive a Mental Computation merit (amongst others) and brought home an excellent report. He has been selected to go on a Year 8 trip to Ruapehu in March next year.
Colin finishes his final year at Primary school and had a good year. He said as we were walking from xxx School that he was glad he went there. (Some of you may recall that we changed his primary school four years ago.) Colin has matured over the year and managed to get his Basic facts from 51% to 92% much of it with help from Adrian who relentlessly every morning during the car trip to school, practised with him. Colin again took part in the school swimming competition relay team which they won and then went on to the Wellington regional finals. Colin had a collage art work on display at Capital E this year – the only boy’s piece of art work amongst a number of girls’ pieces.
Both boys played winter soccer, this time in the same team which made it very easy for us not having to go in two different directions on a Saturday morning. They have also just finished a very successful Twilight Soccer (summer soccer) season where their team came first.
In July, Jenny put Mom and Dad Woods’ house on TradeMe (a New Zealand based online auction site) and within three weeks the house was sold saving thousands in agent’s commission. Then followed a very stressful period as they had nowhere to go to; but came to our house for a week. The day they moved out of the sold house, we found them a wonderful little rental property fairly close and within walking distance of the Intermediate. The agent chose them over forty applicants and within a week they were able to move. They are now well settled as is their cat. Ross will often walk there instead of walking home – just to pop in for a snack!
We still have our family blog where we try to regularly update with our news – go and visit and leave us a comment our two!
http://engel4nz.blogspot.com/We’d love to have you visit us as we have the space; this year we had Wayne (Jenny’s neighbour in South Africa) who now lives in Australia, come to visit us. He was even lucky enough to help with the painting. While he was here we went to see King Kong which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
So just enough time to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year
Love from,
Adrian, Jenny, Ross and Colin
Yesterday we went on the Kawarau Jet – a jet boat ride up the Frankton arm of Wakaitpu, into the Kawarau River and then into the Shotover River. This is run by the same people as the famous Shotover Jet, but is longer and doesn’t go through the Gorge. Well, the boys (all three) loved it!!! I, however, thought it was dreadful and really felt sick by about a quarter of the way into the ride. Ross and Colin were shouting with glee along with everyone else. I thought that Colin in particular would be a bit scared but he was sitting on the outside loving every minute. Adrian was taking photos almost all the time and every time the driver did a 360˚ turn he had to quickly put his camera away! I couldn’t wait to stagger off the boat like an old lady and sit down to have a seasick tablet.
The boys got out to feed the various animals and at one point Ross also became an alpaca herder as one would not get out of the way of other cars. 
The views from the Eastern Summit were spectacular – up and down two sides of Lake Wakitipu.
Previously there were two pools, last week they opened the third one which is a very natural pool - they were originally the changing rooms!
It was a lovely day and Ross and I even got burnt! The water comes from a boiling spring a short distance away which is pumped out of the river and then cooled before draining into one of the three pools. 
