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Today was very exciting because we got a call from the pet shop to say that they had some guinea pigs in for us. We were able to track the parcel of the hutch and discovered it was on it’s way. So of we went to get the guineas and brought them home before the hutch was made!!!

As you can see from the photo Dave and Kezia made an excellent job of assembling it and the 3 new members of the family now have luxury accommodation. More photos will follow I’m sure.

In other news I mowed the lawn and did the edges with my new machine again and Dave went to work.

i went to work today with the rest of auckland which was  a bit of a shock after there being no one about last week.  but it was nice to hear everyone’s christmas stories.  quite a few people had gone camping during the break and got rather wet.

whilst i was at work the girls did some errands in takapuna, then played wii then played in the pool.  kezia was still in there when i got home and was keen to show off the airbed.

jane’s gone out to a film night with her chums this evening.

and this is that pub they moved up the hill and back down the hill.  it’s now wrapped in plastic.  exciting.

this morning i got to church for 7.15am so i could have an experiment on our new sound desk before everyone else turned up.  unfortunately no one did turn up until just before 8am.  which was a shame as i didn’t have a key.  oh well.

jane was singing and it was a small band and brian (above left) was an expert on the new sound desk so it all went well.  and jane sounded lovely so everyone was happy.  (that’s our pastor with the ball above).

after church we came home for some much needed lunch and then some wii mario cart (i am the absolute worstest)

then we went to see buzz and wendy and their girls who were staying at a bach in nearby stanmore bay on the whagaparoa peninsular.

it was really hot down on the sheltered beach.  esther and kezia went for swim whilst jane and i sat on the beach chatting with buzz and wendy.

then it was home, tea, more wii and bed.

the biggest excitement of the day was not captured in a form you can view i’m afraid.  only our own memories.  and technology to transmit those isn’t available at the time of writing.

we left home at 10am this morning for our paddle board lesson.  when we arrived it was pretty breezy and quite cold.  and by the time our lesson started it was pouring down with rain and too cold to be standing outside in our short sleeved wet suits.   but it was too late to back out!

and as we dragged our boards on to the water, the rain cleared up and the sun even managed to come out and we only saw the rain again as we were driving home

everyone (except jane) fell in a number of times, but we did managed to do some proper paddle boarding. here’s a website on what it is.

after lunch we had some power naps, then i took the girls to buy a wii with some of their christmas money.  they’ve been after one for ages and were so excited.  it’s a great communal thing for when the have friends round too.

and this evening the girls cooked us party tea and then we all played mario carts.  jane and i were the biggest losers!

jane and the girls have spent much of the day shopping i think.  they’ve ordered three guinea pigs, and a hutch so that’s exciting.

kezia had swimming this evening, then we all played some boggle.  or ‘the bog’ as i like to call it.

Jane’s friend Alex came round during the day too which jane enjoyed (alex and her husband had been house sitting our house with her parents whilst we were away)

i went to work.  and it was good.

i was back in the office today.  i was quite tired by mid afternoon, but more to do with the heat and just doing some real work for a change.  i had lunch in my favourite Korean place.  there’s only a few people back as we’re not officially meant to be in until next Monday

the girls woke up a few times in the night, but seem to have slept through until 7-8ish.  they are jet lag free.  jane was proudly telling me she was too until she fell asleep straight after dinner

this morning they went round to janine’s house and this afternoon Debbie came round here.  there was some shopping involved somewhere too.

there’s also much talk of guinea pigs which are now very much on the horizon (not literally)

lots of unpacking and putting away from everyone today interspersed with the odd nap from jane.

the girls both seemed to jet lag free, spending the day swimming, playing computer games and even chipping out plastic toys from pretend fossils with mini mallets.  then this evening we went to Long Bay for a walk and a bit of frisby (until it got stuck in the tree, but we got it down again).  Then it was fish and chips for tea to avoid any cooking. 

post xmas / post holiday diets start tomorrow.

as for me, it was nice to have my first working day of the year writing a report at home.  i’ve felt tireder today than monday or tuesday which is strange.  might be because of the early start to pick up the girls.

by the way, if you ever want your house or car spotlessly clean then i recommend you lend it to a friend for a week or so.  when they give it back it’ll be cleaner than you could ever imagine.  that certainly happened to our house and car anyway!  So, thanks to Alex and Tracey (respectively and respectedly) for their kind returnage.  

Some of the words in that last sentence might not actually exist in the english language.  but the thoughts and thanks are real.

hoorah.  the family is all back together.  they had a good flight and are all in good spirits.

debbie, warren and laura also were at the airport to greet them with a big yellow sign.  i took a photo of them, but they were all eating so i’ve taken the liberty of removing their heads and changing the colours!

and i wore a wig.  which seems to be an airport visiting habit.

i woke up wide awake at 5am, which is a good time to get up (and i need to get up early tomorrow, so it made sense to keep the routine). 

i managed to cross quite a few things off my to do list by 8am.  I skyped my dad just after 6am as he was online and the house was empty so it didn’t matter if i talked loudly.  unfortunately i was really hungry so he had to watch me eating breakfast!

elsewise today i’ve mow(e)n the lawn badly, had a dip in the slightly chilly pool, put all my stuff away, done a bit of clothes washing, did some grocery shopping, attempted, but failed to see a panel beater about the scratch on my car and edited around 200 photos for the other blog (still another 1,000 odd to go)

at the time of writing, the ladies have departed from Los Angeles and are now somewhere over the pacific according to flightaware

As i’ve had a few hours on my own today i’ve managed to get a couple of things sorted on the blog i’ve been meaning to do for ages:

DAILY EMAIL UPDATES: 

• you can now ‘subscribe’ to daily updates.  There’s a link up on the right hand side of the blog which enables you to turn this on for your account.  If not, i think it’s probably this.  Let me know how it goes if you use it as i’m a little unsure what it’ll send you!

RSS FEED NOW WORKING:

• if you regularly read blogs via their RSS feeds, then you’ll be delighted to know i’ve now enabled access to the RSS feed.  That’s linked above and also here.  If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, you can ignore this update!