short term solution

our money worries are resolved in the short term anyway. toby has been offered a job (his pal kelvin's job in fact) at tommy mores - his old school. doing the whole of term 3, starting on 30 april. so the week we get back will be a busy week indeed as we hunt down accommodation, a car, nursery, a job for me..... obviously he would rather not teach but it's simply too good to turn down. so it will be very strange indeed, a return to his old school and colleagues. the weeks continue to fly by as per usual and soon we will be giving notice to utilities, sky tv, internet etc etc. still haven't sorted out our accommodation for bangkok and dubai on the journey home but not too worried about that. half our furniture is sold, the garage looks quite bare now apart from the 9 teachests. we are making great progress and are very glad we got organised so early. farewell for now. xxxx

go away dad

mia running away from the hosepipe.

baby shower

baby shower number 2 (baby shower 1 below!). toby hosing mia down. she loved it last week but didn't like it last night! tis hot hot hot here. nice evening out last night, dinner with michelle and friends for her birthday. enjoyed south island salmon and some nz sauvignon blanc. didn't enjoy mia's early wake up at 6am today though! busy day as per usual. tidying, packing, selling, shopping, cleaning..... mia had her 15 month jabs on monday, she wasn't too bad after them but apparently they can get sick 5-12 days after the MMR jabs so we shall see how she goes over the next few days. i had food poisoning on monday night so we were all off on tuesday.

not bad eh?

few work pix as a reminder for me more than anything else. step out of my office, walk for 30 seconds, look at the view. beautiful. i am going to miss my boss, my job, my colleagues and the location.

place of work

north shore city council offices, my office just out of the picture on the right. you really couldn't ask for a much better setting for work.

beautiful big bettina!

my wonderful friend bettina, 37 weeks pregnant. and boy does she look fab. we went out to local japanese restaurant for her baby shower. she has benefitted quite a bit from mia's cast-offs and is also buying our cot, high chair and tumble dryer the day before we fly. i really hope to keep in touch with bettina and her family and see them in europe sometime perhaps.....

march arrives

me at work on friday!

katherine at north harbour pre-school

this is katherine, the lovely lady who has looked after mia since she first started in daycare. they will really miss each other. i trust her totally with mia and we will be hard pushed to find another like her.

wildfire

had to get a pic of this kid, whizzing down the slope, fire coming from his backside...!!

welcome to my house

get off MY slide

mia surpassed herself in cheekiness on thursday evening by trying to push a 2 year old down the slide. well, she was in the way!

miss black and white

mia's playground

mairangi bay once again, thursday evening.

sunday 25 february

another week gone by. they are rushing by at the moment. next weekend we will be in march and will be able to say, we are going home next month! love to all, see you soon.

toe dipping

last night. drove back to auckland after this but we are glad we did. we've got loads done already today. it is too hot to go out again. mia and i went to the supermarket and playground first thing and she has had a huge sleep this morning. during her nap we got heaps done, housework, washing and packing. just enjoyed lunch together and toby playing with her whilst i blog. i'll take her off to cool shopping mall next, need to buy a small gift for bettina's baby shower. i will miss bettina and wayne and miss out on their baby daughter growing up.

tired lass

mia is actually fast asleep in this one, bless her cotton socks. she woke a few minutes later, probably due to a large dog barking.

hot water beach

7pm saturday. my god, it is actually quite chilly! 19 deg..... managed to dip my toes in the hot springs. had to be quite careful actually, some of them were very hot - bubbling away. we dipped mia's toes in too, just so we can tell her in the future. lots of people around, pools full of folk sinking bottles of beer. all very nice indeed and glad we hung around long enough to do it. might bring mum and dad here in april, during our last few days in nz.

me and my girl

late yesterday evening, on the deck of carolyn's pals bach in hahei. after this we headed off to hot water beach.

me and carol

trying to explain to toby that a photo from below is not particularly flattering, especially with our 10 chins!

mia moo

our nickname for bubs.

carolyn

lovely carolyn, we are going to miss her heaps!

daddy and me

on the deck

i doubt carol will forgive me for this one, but what doesn't know won't harm her. carol is one of my pals, i work with her at the council. in fact, fingers crossed, she will get my job.

beautiful hahei beach

a mere 5 minute stroll from the bach we were going to stay in. i walked down here whilst toby and mia had a nap. although they didn't manage to nap at all!! we were supposed to be going down for the whole weekend but this would have meant a busy dark drive, arriving late friday with a very fed up baby and stressed parents. instead we opted to go down saturday but mia was sick - possibly from eating sand .... so we ended up just going down for the day. a very nice day it was too.

big day out

mad weather week, this one. 3 earthquakes on thursday evening (not that we felt any of them!!) and a tornedo yesterday. continues to be hot and sticky and we are getting very tired of it! not long left of the hot weather and in 2 months time, we will be back in uk anyway and moaning about how cold we are probably.... hope you can make out the mini tornedo in the background, this was on our way to hahei on the coromandel peninsular yesterday.