What a year it's been

It's New Year's Eve today and it makes you think back over what's happened in the past year.  It's been a pretty eventful one for us!

It started with a crazy mad frenzy of selling up in England to move to NZ, being left to do it by myself because Adam had to go 5 and a half weeks before we could finish up and follow after. It was a highly stressful experience I don't ever wish to repeat.  On the other hand, I was so very grateful that I was surrounded by friends and family who came out in force to help me in all sorts of ways - cooking dinners, taking the kids for me so I could organise things, helping with the garage sale, buying our stuff and a major big clean up on the house to ensure we got our deposit back.  I am so grateful to have such good people in my life.

We have been so blessed to be able to make this big move for our little family and start to settle in the place we feel should be our permanent home.  The kids have made the transition really well, although we all miss our family in England a lot.  Leilani (turned 7 in Aug) settled in really well at school and coped brilliantly with 15 months of school without a summer holiday!  She has really thrived being amongst Kiwi kids who just get on with things in the most part and aren't too self conscious.  She has become much more daring and willing to give things a try.  Zach (turned 4 in Oct) has enjoyed being at Kindy, although I've had to step up with teaching him some basic things at home because they just play at Kindy.  He's done really well with learning his phonetic alphabet and counting.  Leilani has even taught him to do some basic adding and subtracting :) Tilly (turned 2 in March) has had a year of terrible twos.  She's really putting us through our paces and can be a stroppy little madam.  The most stubborn of all our children (and believe me, we're a pretty stubborn family!).  On the plus side she is incredibly cute.  The humidity here has turned her mad hair into lovely ringlets, although I have a constant battle with her to keep anything in her hair to stop it going wild.  She is very affectionate and moulds herself into you when she gives you a cuddle.  If we lay down on the floor or sofa whilst watching tv she'll often come and lie on top of us, fitting herself into our shape.

March 2011 - a mad hair day

We had a long and expensive process to get our residency - 8 months, which actually isn't too bad in terms of what's "normal" and about $3500.  Could have been a lot more if I hadn't done all the paperwork myself and shopped around for good deals on medicals.  We finally got that all finished at the end of October and are now New Zealand residents.  We're free to come and go as we want, and once we've lived here for 2 years the residency will be permanent.  All it means in the meantime is we have to spend more time here than anywhere else in these 2 years, and must be in the country at the time that the 2 years ends.

In July we had a lovely weekend away with Sam in Hahei and got to see the beautiful part of the country called the Coromandel.  Just wish we could go more often.

Cousins in Hahei

Adam and I had our 10 year anniversary on 1st Sep and took an overnight trip to Wellington.  It was lovely to get away, just the two of us and spend that time together.  And I really liked the city itself.  We had great fun walking around in the evening, finding some geocaches and looking at sculptures.  It was like being back in the days before kids :)

Waiting for our flight to Wellington in the Kuru Lounge

Then we had a difficult thing to deal with relating to some close friends of ours.  The details of it are certainly not for me to put in a public post.  It took some prayer and relying on feelings from the spirit to know the right thing to do, but in doing so we also knew there would be some difficult consequences for our friends.  I am grateful that we were able to be put to use to help a friend in his extreme time of need.  I am so proud of the way he has handled himself and the progress he has made.  He is a great person who deserves so much good in his life.  I know that we did the right thing and that it was necessary, but it has resulted in one friend distancing herself.  I hope she knows we are here for her at anytime - you are worth so much more than you are allowing yourself at the moment.  You have friends here waiting to help and be there for you when you are ready - the door will always be open.

And of course I can't forget about the Rugby World Cup.  It really was amazing to be in amongst the atmosphere as New Zealand hosted and then went on to win it.  Although England's performance was pretty terrible!  It was great to be here for the ceremonies, fireworks and general excitement.

Outside the giant rugby ball - unfortunately we were a little too late to go in

We've enjoyed the run up to Christmas, as the weather has warmed up (although it doesn't get very cold in winter like we're used to, the Kiwi's are in denial that they need heating and insulation built into their homes!) there have been some events put on in the area.  We had the Kiwi Day Out in the Auckland domain and various Santa parades in the North Shore.

So we've been here nearly a year now and have loved it.  We're really looking forward to settling in properly, and building up our life here.  We feel very blessed to have had such a good year overall.