Wednesday 19 January 2011

Random Act of Kindness

Today a very small thing that someone else (a total stranger in fact) did had a big impact on me.  It made my day.

I was walking along with Tilly in the pushchair when a man walking in front of us pulled something out of his pocket and a five pound note fell out without him noticing.  Another mum and I noticed and both went to get it to give it back to him, but since she was walking the opposite direction I said I'd catch up with him and give it back.  So I caught up to him and handed it back, the wind caught it and it fluttered off again.  We chased it down and he picked it up and turned to me and said "here, you keep it for your kid".  What a lovely thing to do!  And I bet he didn't realise how much of a difference that small selfless spur of the moment decision made to my day.  Well of course I went off to finish my shopping with a smile on my face.  And then Tilly and I got a happy meal each with the fiver.  And she ate the lot (she doesn't eat well) so even more of a bonus!

If you get a fleeting moment to do a random act of kindness for a stranger, grab the opportunity and do it without thinking.  Wouldn't it be lovely if we all came across someone doing that each day?

Saturday 15 January 2011

Excitement vs Stress & Worry

So back to the normal routine, except it's far from normal now that we're trying to arrange moving to the other side of the world.  Leilani's back at school and has excitedly told her friends and teacher's we're leaving.  Everyone is very excited for us and surprised at the huge sudden move.  Although we've wanted to do it for a long time, it has been an opportunity that's come up very suddenly that we've had to move quickly on.

Now major worries - Adam should be starting work a week on Monday.  His passport is still with the New Zealand Immigration office in London waiting to be assessed for the work visa.  It's in a managed queue and they're aware of the urgency, will try to help but can't make any promises.  His flight is booked for Tuesday evening, but we'll lose the ticket if he hasn't got his visa through by then.

We're also trying to sell up as much as we can.  Shipping costs a fortune, so we're trying to keep it to the bare essentials.

Then I have to figure things out on my own for a bit when Adam goes ahead to start work asap.

Tomorrow we have our goodbye party.  We have a few people coming from further afield which will be really good to see again.  I'm looking forward to seeing those we haven't seen in a while and getting the chance to catch up before we go.  It's a shame we can't have everyone there that we want though.

I'm very excited about the move, just have a rather stressful period to overcome first!

Monday 3 January 2011

Happy New Year

So our last New Year's Eve as UK residents...

We spent it at the Elliot's with lots of friends.  Had food, played just dance on the Wii and watched the 10min long fireworks in London on BBC one.  Very typical British New Year's Eve.  It was lovely :)



And now on to a brand new year in a new place.  We will be very sad to be moving away from our loved ones here, both friends and family, but are also excited to be reunited with those on the other side of the globe.

We're having some rather big stresses put on us to try to make it happen - Adam's visa is the biggest at the moment, we're praying for a miracle to have it sorted in time for his flight on 18th Jan...  Meanwhile we are selling almost all our worldly possessions to pay our way out there.  I also need to update Leilani's passport with a new picture and get a passport for Tilly.  We have to arrange shipping of a limited amount of stuff that's important/precious i.e. can't/don't want to sell, or personal memory type stuff.  And that's just off the top of my head.  I have a big list pinned up on the kitchen wall which I'm sure will be having more things added to it before any are crossed off...

Saturday 1 January 2011

Christmas 2010


This year we are at my Mom and Dad's for Christmas.  We arrived the day before Christmas Eve and are staying for 6 days to make sure we catch Amy on the Wednesday when she comes down.  It's been lovely. The kids have been super excited.  The proper festivities started on Christmas Eve - we went to "Christmas in the Barn", which was a nativity and carol service held on a farm in their barn with the animals around.  It was done really well and the kids loved seeing the animals.  Just a shame we only found out about it this year, would have been a good tradition to start up, but we won't be in the country anymore!



That night we put the kids to bed with their stockings.  Lani was a bit sneaky - she smuggled a bell from the tree up to bed with her and left it on top of her stocking as a booby trap to wake her up when Santa came.  Luckily she's a very heavy sleeper!

They woke up at 5am on Christmas morning, but luckily for us Grandma and Grandpa were closest so they didn't wake us up :)  They were very excited to see all the presents under the tree and had a little root through them looking for parcels with their name on.  Once everyone was up, had breakfast and dressed (apart from Jess!) we started opening them and it was lovely to get lots of nice things, but also to see others open our presents.


We had the traditional Christmas dinner with 14 people (Me and Cait with our families, Jess, Mom and Dad and two guests - Audrey from Mom's work who's plane had been grounded because of snow so she couldn't get back to Canada and Willhelm from Tanzania).  In the conversation we found out that Willhelm had 21 brothers and sisters - his father was king! So when he became king he had to take 3 additional wives (he already had one).

Nanny Henry opening the picture book we all put together for her
On Boxing day we had the meal all over again, this time with two missionaries and Henry, a student in the ward.  And we had a MASSIVE ham instead of the Turkey of the previous day.  And then the next day we did it again with the left over meats and with Nanny Henry and Berol :)

The kids have really loved it all, and have had fun with Ethan being here too, although we've had to break up a lot of fights between Zach and Ethan...

And it's been really nice for Ad and I to come away after our big news and let it sink in, whist being somewhere we can't do anything to start on the preparations - so we can just enjoy these few days of niceness together before the big headaches begin!