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.

Friday, January 11, 2008

2008 already!

This entry has been a long time in coming. Sorry for the delay. 2008 hasn't been a good one for us so far.
Christmas day was great, we had such a lovely time at Sue's house. She did the table up so beautifully. We'll definately be there again!! We had a fun, relaxing time with lots of laughs (not at the lame jokes in the crackers though - they were pretty bad!), great food - really excellent turkey (thanks to Kev) and lots of other yummy traditional Christmas fare. Not to forget the brandy snaps! There were great gifts and just a really nice time. I missed my family though, Mum & Dad and Mel and Shane in Aussie, Deanna told us she and Jess were off to Kaikoura only to turn up in Aussie at Mum and Dad's!! Surprises for everyone. But Terry's family are my family and they more than made up for mine being absent.
I can't actually remember what we did in the evening, sounds good doesn't it! But there is a very good reason for that which I will get to shortly. No - there was no alcohol involved!!

New Year's Eve we went next door, we have lovely neighbors - Alex & Aaron with Megan who is 6yrs and Josh who is 12yrs. They're from England but we forgive them for that :-). We had a lovely time and had a few drinks, played some pool (very badly I must say) and ate nachos. The girls just watched DVD's together and it was great. Saw in the new year then tootled back home bout 1am.

Unfortunately here is where it goes bad. I ended up having 3 seizures on the 1st day of the year. Alex called the ambulance after the third one and they took me in to hospital, I had a big one in there as well so they kept me overnight. I have flashes of memory for that day but that's about it, I haven't been right since really. Been having trouble remembering the last few weeks really and have been getting a bit dizzy here and there, not sleeping well. I've been sick with a stomach bug the last two days which has been utterly horrible. I think I'm run down a bit. I'm a bit concerned about having another seizure with having this bug as I haven't held anything down including my medication. But the girls have been keeping an eye on me and Emily knows what to do if I have a seizure. Everytime they here a thud they come looking, I've gotten into the habit of yelling out that I'm fine if I drop something. The neighbors are great and Alex has looked after the girls a few times already. They stayed the night there when I went in to hospital. It's such a blessing to have good neighbors.

So that's my big moan and groan. I'm really angry and upset because I only had until March and I could drive again. I probably shouldn't have had a few drinks and late night but I didn't have that much alcohol and surely I can celebrate along with everyone else? I hate having Epilepsy. I hate it so much. The girls miss out heaps because I can't drive them to places. I can't take them to QE2 pool or the city gardens etc. It's hard for them. I would get so frustrated if I were them. Once I'm over this stupid tummy flu I'll be taking them to the local pool. The weather has been fantastic.

Tank is growing and growing and growing. I'll put a couple of photos on and hopefully the size is easy to tell. We have a beautiful healthy garden growing. We're loving the fact that we are saving money and also know there are no sprays on the food etc. Well I'm going to sign off and upload the photo's, I have to go get some veges out from the garden ready for tea and I'm fast losing energy and focus to keep going. Hopefully I won't take so long to do another entry soon.


Terry looks rather cute in this photo I thought and it gives a sort of comparison to size.

This is Sarah-Jane singing with the school choir at Northlands Mall and this is Aimee dressed for her production of Goldilocks and the three Bears.




Tank has got attached to my watering can and plays with it all the time, growling with it and now has also fallen in love with my green hand shovel!

For those of you who don't live here, this is a sunset down at Kairaki Beach at the height of Whitebaiting season - see what you are missing out on! The next one is Emily and Sarah-Jane, Emily loves using the camera and comes up with some pretty cool photo's. And then there is our Princess Genevieve aka Sarah-Jane with her trusty steed Tank.


This is Em, SJ and our next door neighbor Megan. Look how grown up Emily is looking now. My baby turns 10 this year.

This is Aimee at her athletics day, an athlete in the making! She did really well and had a ball - no pun intended!
Well better go as the girls are starting to get at each other and I have to get the spuds out of the garden. Not that I'll be eating any as it just goes straight through. Yuk!!