The Smith's Journey

Follow us on our journey through family life. No matter where we live you will be able to keep up on our happenings. Have fun and remember to leave comments.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

New puppy! New windows!

Wev'e been wanting a puppy for a while now. We have finally found our new member of the family. He's a Golden Retriever and his name is Tank. The owners of his mum nicknamed him Tank and it was kind of cool and totally suits him. He's only 10wks old and has grown like mad! He's going to be a big boy! Tank is such a good dog. He's been no trouble. We gave him a sheepskin rug and he loves it. Although I am a bit grossed out when he tries to you know what to it. I didn't think he would do that being so young - I'm wrong! And he is a boy after all.

Here is photo's of him when we first got him.

Isn't he gorgeous!

Here are photo's of him now. We have only had him two weeks.





I'm not sure how easy it is to tell how much he has grown. Believe me when I say he has grown heaps! We had to take him to the vet when he was 9wks old and he weighed 7.8kg.

Right now he is lying beside the couch looking up at me saying 'please play with me'. Hard to resist but I want to show you photo's of our new double glazed windows. You may have to visit an older blog entry to remind yourself of how the old ones looked.


Well I better go. Emily's returning from her first school camp today and I want to meet her at school. We have the light party this evening as well.

Take care people.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The First Day in Wellington (5th Oct)

Well we are in Wellington and have plans for the day.

We started with breakfast at L'a farre cafe - french toast with banana, maple syrup and bacon, not to forget our moccachino with a Sante chocolate bar melting in it.
Walking past shops and onto a bus to the Bee-Hive. We were going to go on a tour and sit in the public gallery to watch the politicians yell and swear at each other. But we just missed the start of a tour and the politicians were on holidays. So we decided to make our way to the Cable Car. We made a couple of stops on the way starting with the Government Bookshop which is on the corner opposite of the Bee-Hive. I was able to purchase a couple of books that will help me in my course and work in the future and also a copy of the Copyright Act 1994 (riveting reading I'm sure). We also stopped in Borders bookshop where we found some books to take back for the girls.
We finally got to the cable car and bought a return ticket. We wanted to go up to the gardens at the top to see the tulips and some of the spring festival. We started to go down a path that we thought the banner signified. We started to realise we were the only ones on that path, thought it was strange as the cable car had been full of other tourists, kids and university students (they weren't there to see the flowers, the uni is up there too), we being southern chicks figured that we were on the wrong path. Back up the hill; thank the good Lord that we hadn't gone very far; we did find the right path; it had spray painted flowers on it (dah!). We followed the path and 20 minutes later found ourselves at the bottom of the hill; no need for that return ticket huh! The tulips were gorgeous and worth seeing. Unfortunately I had left the camera behind at Paula's (Jo's aunty). We bussed back to Cuba Mall and did the shopping thing. I was on the lookout for a nice sweater/jersey and a pair of 3/4 trousers. No shops had my size at a reasonable price (I didn't buy the skirt for $950, thought it might be a tad too expensive), I started to feel a bit depressed as this was one of those horrible moments of reality with my need to lose weight.
The agenda for the evening was to see a movie. We chose 'Evan Almighty'. Paula ended up lending us her car which was very nice as the theatre was right in the middle of Wellington and at that time of night was a bit scarey.
Both Jo and I were not aware of the unexpected experience of the Regent on Manners cinema. As most females we went to the loo before the movie started. The toilets were not a pretty sight. We went loo to loo to find a decent looking cubicle. I opened one of the doors to find a large amount of blood in and around the loo. I basically freaked out a bit. Jo was adament about not having a look. A good choice. We did find a loo that wasn't trashed. Jo pointed out the ceiling that was crumbling above the wash basins. When I looked down to wash my hands I found another lot of blood; another freak out. We let the two young male staff know about the loo, funnily enough they were rather alarmed! Not sure if it was due to the blood or the fact that it was in the ladies loo and they were the only two there. They informed us that their cleaning lady had not turned up for work. Wonder why?!
After all that the movie was well worth watching. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie for a while. In fact tears were streaming down my face and I exited looking like a racoon due to my mascara running.
A full day and once in bed I don't think I moved till the morning!
Mmmm, blissful sleep!

6th October - 2nd day of Wellington

Another day of holiday! Another great day of weather. Another day of shopping! Actually it was only half of a day shopping. We slept in and had a leisurely morning of breakfast, shower and reading. Today we caught a bus into the city and then a train to Tawa where we thought we would find a market in the carpark of DressMart where we wanted to go as well. But there was only a vegetable stand at the market. No crafts or nic-nacs as we were led to believe in the brochure. So on to DressMart. I found some nice clothes for the girls in JK's but limited myself and only got a hat for Aimee and a singlet top for Sarah-Jane. After all it was a weekend for me!
I made my way to EziBuy and found a lovely blue top, pink tee-shirt, white linen trousers (only $5 down from $40!). I got some jewellery from some other shops and some other bits and pieces. I was very impressed to find a pen and key tag with my name on it; that's not often I find that; so I couldn't resist buying it.
We caught the train and bus back to Paula's to take stock of our 'goodies' and relax before going out for dinner.
We went to a chinese restaurant (according to Paula one of the best chinese restaurants in Wellington), I hadn't been to an authentic chinese restaurant before. It was a fun new experience for me and I eventually got the hang of using chopsticks (I have to confess to using a knife and fork sometimes). Jo introduced me to Bejing Dumplings, Bejing Duck and Lamb with vegetables and some rice on the side. Very yummy! For dessert I had toffeed apples. It was delicious and I love toffee a lot! Which caused me to have a bad moment. I was wearing the blue top that I'd bought that afternoon. I was attempting to get some of the toffee that had set hard on the bottom of the plate. Unfortunately I spilt some of the toffee on my top. I was devastated and hoping it wouldn't stain. Back at Paula's I soaked it in napisan and washed it. The next day the stain was still there so I tried the baking soda, but again the stain stayed. Our intentions for Sunday was to attend the Central City Baptist Church. And to visit the Katherine Mansfield House, maybe some lunch and more shopping.

I forgot to add that I did get the stain out, when I got home to CHCH I sprayed some Sard stain remover and washed it again. Yay, it got out

The last day in Wellington (7:10:07)

I had a bad nights sleep last night. Stupid dreams and noisy dreams. Makes sense considering it's nick name is 'Windy Wellington'! I woke up quite early and dozed for a wee bit -a luxury- Jo and I got up to watch the 1/4 final of the Rugby World Cup between the All Blacks and France. A sad day for New Zealand, it was such a close game and considering I'm not into sports I was gutted that they lost. I ended up very close to the t.v. and shouting at the ref!
We decided that it was too late to go to church as we had to catch a bus at 9:20am and at that time we were still in our pj's. Couldn't leave a game like that! We were reluctant to ring our hubby's not being sure of how deep their grief was. Steve took it pretty hard, Terry was a bit more philosopholic, saying that it was only a game after all and in four yrs they will have their chance at it again.
We got ready to go to Ezibuy to look for the clothes we had wanted to find, we were successful and I ended up getting one or two other things besides. We had a quick bite at the Borders bookshop cafe to figure out what bus to catch to go to the Katherine Mansfield house.
We both thoroughly enjoyed the house. It was done in the way it would have been in her time (late 1880's). It had so much information on our (NZ's) most famous author. It saddened me to find out that she died in 1923 at just 34yrs old. Such talent and creativity as a young female writer in a time that didn't have a lot of female authors. I bought a book of her journals and letters published by her husband and Jo bought a book of all her short stories. We are going to do a swap.
On the way home we had to stop at the Haitaitai Chocolate shop. We had arranged for a gift for Jo's Aunty as a thankyou. And of course we had to have a taste of some as well. I also bought a few for Terry which didn't last long when He received it. We grabbed a Mocchacino at the cafe next door who used the same cocoa beans as the chocolate shop. Yummy!
We got home just in time for Jo to catch a taxi to the airport. She had to be back in Kaiapoi in time for the Fuller St Cafe night that she organises. After She left there was a lightening and thunder storm with very heavy rain. I was a bit anxious about Jo's flight and hoping that mine didn't get delayed!
For the rest of the evening I read my book with a glass of wine and my chocolates until I had to taxi to the airport. A nice wind down to finish our most excellent holiday. And my flight was not delayed!
I do thank the Lord for the lovely weather (except for Sunday), and the chance to have a break away which both Jo and I needed. I have come back ready to face the new term (I think!).