Today is ...

En******ht Day! Yes we arrived eleven years ago today and this is home!

On a different note, we were up in National Park this weekend and Ross and I went by train. It was quite fun even though the journey up took seven hours! The weather was glorious and I tried to get a number of photos of The Mountain from the train but the reflection in the window wasn't great.

Anyway, here's the three of us standing on the school field and the snow behind is is Mt Ruapehu but it was covered in cloud.

Colin only has four weeks left there, and he said he was a bit sad today but nowhere near like he was last weekend. The next four weeks will go very quickly and soon he will be home .... and missing The Park I'm sure

What a weekend

On Saturday Adrian and Ross went to football (the first match in eight weeks) and I stayed home to get ready for our visitors. I cooked a pumpkin soup (which wasn't great) and I also made two loaves of bread that I put in the oven when my Mom came. Thank goodness she was watching, as the silicon mat that my bread was on was touching an element and caught fire in the oven! I don't have a fire extinguisher (on the list now) so I switched off the oven at the wall and hoped that the fire would die because of a lack of oxygen. No such luck - it got bigger so I opened the oven door and smothered the flames with my towel. In the meantime, the smoke alarm went off. Anyway, I sorted all that out, and put my bread back into the oven and it came out fine albeit covered in a bit of ash.

The lunch was fine; the party guests arrived and had fun. The pizza dinner was great as was the chocolate mousse. Colin and I spent a fair amount of time chatting about National Park and how he was enjoying being there ... but missing us. All the boys went to sleep downstairs and were asleep by 11pm - not too bad.

I got up this morning and started preparing and cooking the pancakes and at 9.08am, a father phoned and said he was on his way to pick up his son then. I was a bit taken aback as it was news to me that the boy was going that early and said so. "Oh well", said the dad, "I'll be there in fifiteen minutes then"! I got them all breakfasted by then and sent said boy away with two pancakes in a serviette!

Then came time to take Colin back to Levin and he fell apart saying that he did not want to go. I knew it was emotions and tiredness speaking as he had had two late nights and two early mornings and he cannot cope without enough sleep (wonder who he takes after!) He cried all the way to Levin and at one point I told him that I would be failing in my duty as a mother if I allowed him to give up now. Well, he finally got out of the car and they left at 3.20pm. By the time they got to Taihape he had forgiven me and spent the rest of the journey texting me.

I would love to just tell him to stay home, but that is not the best thing for him right now. He must finish what he started - we have always insisted on that, but I know that if he was in any danger whatsoever, I would fetch him home immediately. But he isn't in danger, and he is enjoying himself very much - he just misses us. And I understand - he's only 12 after all.

He only had five weeks to go and he is learning so much and enjoying himself with all the nature surrounding him - he will come home a stronger person

Edited Monday morning: Colin phoned this morning - he slept well, is feeling fine apart from a cold, but "luckily I bought some Vitamin C at New World last night and I'll be mad if I can't ski this week"! So he's fine

Fourteen years ago

Ross at five days old

Party today - four extra boys arriving at 2pm to play PlayStation and watch movies. Then I'll give them home-made pizza and chocolate mousse. Three will sleep-over and they'll get pancakes for breakfast

Sixteen Years ago

And we were going to see Mama Mia and then dinner at Monsoon Poon but Adrian is sick so that's on hold for a while

My baby's coming home on Saturday!!

Just for the night. His lovely "in loco parentis" have decided it's the end of Week Five so they're going to bring him for a quick visit. They will tell him on Friday night - he will be soooo excited (not to mention me!)

They will arrive on around lunch time on Staurday and leave around 2pm on Sunday so it will be a very quick visit but so worth it.

Only three sleeps to go!

Week Four

I didn't realise how tired I would be this term: full-time work; going to a sewing class each week; teaching (and preparing for) a scrapping class each week; travelling up and down to National Park every fortnight; and the normal every day mom/wife stuff. I am tired tonight and Colin was in tears when we left which meant that I was crying as we drove away. He doesn't want to come home though as he is having a wonderful time.

Here are some photos:

Colin with Ngauruhoe in the background (photo taken by his friend Cleveland)

Colin at the Kiwi chick release - he was very lucky to be invited to go and his words were: "Mom, it was AWESOME!"

Playing in the snow at National Park yesterday (Saturday)

Do you like my new jacket? I made it!

At National Park station waiting for the Parliamentary train to celebrate the Centennary of Rail in NZ (wearing ski uniform)

The steam engine

Saturday

My curry as wonderful as was the glass of wine and piece of carrot cake!

Football was cancelled this morning but none of us were too upset. We stayed in bed to watch the recorded Olympic opening ..... except my two boys didn't record half of the athletes coming in and not New Zealand!

I have to go to the shops to buy some bulk foods and the butcher and clean the kitchen floor and then hopefully finish last week's l/o that I started. I also got some ribbon for a challenge at SBO but work and other stuff got in the way and I didn't manage it - maybe this weekend.

At the moment I seem to be living from fortnight to fortnight though!

Colin is going on a kiwi release some time this month and he is really excited about that. He is having so many wonderful experiences and fortunately the homesickness has worn off.

Okay so the highlights of the opening are on TVone now so I'm off to watch it

A small vent

We live in a fairly small suburb so I have always told my boys to be careful what they do as they don't know who is watching them.

Well, the same applies to most of New Zealand .... some one always knows what you are doing and more imprtantly can get hurt by these actions.

So that's where I am - hurt. People who I thought were friends not telling me about an event so I perceive this as a lie of omission.

People who make plans and try to pass it off as something that happened a long time ago.... meantime a discussion has happened and none of that was mentioned

People who break my confidence and "tell tales"

So some of this is work related, but much of it has happened in what should be a fun area of my life and I honestly did not like being treated like a mushroom .... keep me in the dark and feed me sh*t!! I am sick of DRAMAH.

I'm feeling hurt, left out and let down and want to just disappear into the sunset until all these people (and they're all women) realise they're not the only ones with feelings and that I have them too. I know I try very hard to accommodate people and yes, I get it wrong but hopefully I'm able to apologise ... something which is lacking from some of these "friends".

Okay enough - I'm off to buy curry for dinner which I'll share with my husband and have a glass or three of wine and I should feel better then

Skiing!

So this is what he went to do!

On the chairlift going down

First set of instructions

On the tow bar

Learning to stop

Eating lunch

Edited to add that I was scrapping this weekend at National Park using last year's May SBO kits (!) and I looked through the Heidi Grace pack that I won in January from ANZ Fiskars (not opened until now) and it was snow themed paper! Just perfect for these photos

Surprise!!

And yes he was surprised to see us so early! We had a really good trip north despite the over turned trees and broken branches through Levin. hat a time they had on Thursday through that storm, but there was lots of clearing happening when e came through.

We got to National Park just on 2pm, wwent down to the cafe to say hello and then headed to the house. We crept next dood to school and sat chatting with the Principal for a while before going into the hall to see our boy. The kids around him asked if we were his parents - the school is so small all the kids know all the parents and clearly we were unknown therefore we had to be Colin's parents. We followed them back to class, where they were dismissed for the day and then had a chance to see Colin's artwork and other school work and chat to his teacher.

And then Colin asked if he could go to a friend for a while! I was so pleased about that so he went off to his friend, we unpacked and had a cup of tea. When he came home, he was all over us - even after dinner he just had to sit next to us and touch us.

He talked about his being homesick and how he cried every night but by the Thursday he was feeling better. He knows that he will be sad on Sunday but also has expressed how lucky he is and pleased that he has this chance.

Colin is also working hard at school - he has to - he's the only Yr 8 boy so is unable to diasappear into the crowd! Because it is such a small class, there are very few behavioural problems so the kids can just get on and learn - Colin acknowledges this too and that he's enjoying it.

We are doing nothing today - it is wet and miserable out so I made pain au chocolat for breakfast and now we're just relaxing in front of the fire.

We may head up to Piper's Lodge tonight to watch the rugby (don't laugh) and tomorrow, Colin wants us to go to the cafe "Out of the Fog" for breakfast

More about Colin

Well, the Carrot Carnival apparently wasn't too exciting so they headed up to Turoa but were turned back because the blizzard came through. Colin then went to Owhango where they spent the rest of the weekend.

Breakfast on Sunday morning at Cafe in the Fog

Playing pool at Ski Haus

Gloves drying after skiing

Colin phoned me tonight to say they were probably going skiing tomorrow and he was moving up from Happy Valley to Rockgarden flat - so no longer in the beginners area! He is sounding soo much better! And I am so grateful to the people who are trying as hard as they can to make him feel at home. And I am equally grateful to all of you who are sending ME words of encouragement

Roll on Friday!

End of Week 1

Well, Colin went skiing today and is much happier! They spent the entire day at Happy Valley and had a wonderful time and he is as happy as can be this evening, Thank goodness for that.

As for me - one down, nine to go. At least I have Friday off next week. The kids go wild when the wind blows or whenever the weather is bad. The seniors do not seem to be at all worried that they do their Mock Exams in five weekes time. I seem to be the only one worried. Argh!

Homesick

Last night my boy spent ages texting me to tell me he wants to come home. I know he's homesick and of course it breaks my heart. I told him that people can get homesick at any age (I did eleven years ago when we moved here) and beating it will make him a stronger person. I told him that when he starts feeling homesick (at night in bed) he should focus on good things. I also told him to think about the fun things that will happen and in no time it will be next weekend and we will be going up there.

As a mother, I just want to drive up there and hold him and hug him and bring him home but for his sake I know that won't work. Oh but is is hard!

Edited tonight: Thanks for all your compassion. He sounds happier but is still telling me he wants to come home. I said we'd talk about it next week. Much as I'd love to have him back home, I don't want him to come home because then I want him to learn through this and come out stronger at the other end

My boy

Here is Colin in his new school uniform

And relaxing in front of the TV tonight before dinner

Colin phoned me tonight and sounded so happy and had had a really good day. His "Mum" packed him a good lunch and morning tea and he couldn't finish it all! His teacher said he worked really well in class and was well settled too. He loves his new homework book - four pages per week so that's a page a day he tells me! They're hoping to go skiing on Thursday so I'm sure that I'll have lots more to tell then.

Thanks for all the messages of care that many of you have sent me - I really appreciate it.

Home again

Here we are home from a week away. We first went to a farm near Rotorua and it was so wonderful! It is the Apple Tree Farm Cottage and was very cosy and comfortable. The kids loved playing with the farm kids and animals. We went to Waikite pools twice, found Butcher's Pool )tucked away where no one can find them), went up the Gondola and the boys all went on the Luge. We saw a bit of Andy who is my SIL's nephew-in-law whose family are moving to NZ soon to join him.



Then we went to National Park. It poured with rain all weekend but I scrapped on Saturday - all the boys' soccer photos from the last five or six years! I have dragged that pack of photos etc all round NZ so I'm so pleased that they're done! I do need to do some journalling though.

Then it was time to say goodbye to my baby - and I admit I cried in front of him and I didn't want to do that. He is going to have such a wonderful time and his new "mum" is going to spoil him rotten! Then I drove all the way home (310 kms) with just Ross in the car. e did really ell and were home in 4 hours without going over the speed limit. I was really proud of myself when I got home.

And while we were away I won a prize at SBO!

A tribute to .....

This is a tribute to my beautiful siser-in-law, Jenny. Yes, that's right we have the same first name and because we married brothers, we now share the same surname. We also share a love of scrapbooking! We never think of ourselves as sharing the same name but it's always quite funny when other people realise it.

What made me think about this is this post on the Aus/Nz Fiskars blog: Hi this is a happy hello from Jenny xxxxx in sunny Durban South Africa. My sister in law Jenny xxxxx (yes same names !!!)from Wellington New Zealand send this to me.

Jenny and I both have Gmail and Skype so most evenings we have a quick chat to catch up on what's happening in our lives. She's closer to me than any real sister could ever be and I only wish we lived closer!

Aus/NZ Fiskars

Please go to this site: http://fiskarscraft.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/07/around-the-worl.html?cid=121751388 leave your name and where you're from and my name and from NZ and maybe we'll both win a prize!

This and That

Yay for wonderful school holidays! I didn't really sleep well the first few night of the hols because I'm stressing about school, but I've put it behind me as I've made some decisions about my future there.

Then I haven't been sleeping well because I caught a cold (but not the "man -cold" that has also been here).

The boys have been quite good so far - minimum bickering and lots of playing. They are both out at the moment so I managed to get a lot done at the shops earlier. Now I'm just enjoying the peace and quiet! And surfing and visiting blogs that I haven't seen for awhile. (By the way, Tracy - I am unable to leave comments on your blog). I should have been sewing some trousers for myself but I can do that tomorrow.

It has been soooo cold here and a lot of the roads around National Park have been closed - as long as they're not closed when I go up there! I have been getting things ready for Colin to take with him including having to go to the inefficient Postie+ to buy school pants for him. We got them in the end!

Snapfish had a photo collage promotion and I ordered one for Colin to take with him. I was going to do a little mini-album but decided that a collage would be nicer. I also got one for myself. Then I got some nice frames at Briscoes and yes they were on sale - 40% off!













"Pieces of Me" is for Colin and "These I Love" is for me.


I also got a bargain at Spotlight - a trolley bag for my sewing machine. I take it with me every Monday night and it is heavy and Spotlight had a 50% off today so I got a nice tapestry one for $50! I can just see A's face - he'll say "not another one"! At least I don't have to carry my sewing machine now.

Also, I got a new disc from Esselte for my WishBlade - only one cutting program was working and when I asked for the third disc in February they told me I didn't need it. Anyway, in the last few weeks I emailed and emailed and emailed. Finally they admitted that it may well be because I had version 4.0 and maybe I should have had version 3.1. The disc was couried to me, I unistalled and reinstalled and voila - my WB now cuts in both programs!

I must say that as the time gets closer to taking Colin to school I am getting sadder, but it's such a wonderful opportunity for him and I'll see hime every two weeks.

PS I sold one of my tea cosies on Felt! Yay!

The Big Read

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed

01. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
02. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
05. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06. The Bible - Much of it
07. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - some and a number of stage productions
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwel
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker7
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks9
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet- William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I have highlighted those I've read and italisized those that I have seen a movie or stage production. Hmmm ......... at least I've read more than six!

More cupcakes!

More cupcakes! I have in my Felt shop