January

We're playing 'The Block' at our house at the moment.  With two lounge suites, a dining room table etc squashed into one room, and the kitchen benches covered in plastic, and one bathroom emptied while it gets it's makeover.  Not sure which day room reveal is yet :-)  And we definitely aren't Dan and Danni....

Still I can squeeze past the furniture and get into my scrappy room (you know, just while the paints drying...) and this is my layout for this week.  I'm loving doing layouts again, it's hard to find the time to do layouts and Project Life, and I so admire people like Vicki who can get both done

This is my Mum when she was a wee poppet, reaching out to play with her doll.  I've hidden the journaling on the little tag under the photo, but it's going in an album with journaling overload, so in years to come, no one will be wondering who it is in that photo, and how they might be related to them!

We are off to the Museum in a couple of weeks, for a kindergarten trip.  One of the exhibitions on at the moment is called Rise, it's all about street art.  While we will be doing the hands on Discovery centre in the museum, we want to take the older children through this exhibition, so one of my fellow teachers, Sarah, and I, met there this morning and did a bit of a wander around (and it got me out of a bit of painting!)

Here are a few snapshots of the exhibition...

There sure are some talented souls around.  I wonder how and if it will inspire our kids?

Well I've got a couple of things cooking in the oven, so I'd better not linger on here!

Have a great week everyone...and happy Auckland Anniversary day to my Northern friends - hope you get a good sleep in tomorrow :-)

Back to work

Don't you always start the year with the best of intentions?  Well I'm pleased to say that a few weeks into it, I'm still sticking with those intentions.  And what were they you ask?  (And even if you don't ask, well I'm telling you anyway LOL)...is to use those older photos that are hard to scrap, and use a ton of my stash before I go off and buy more. 

This layout is one of those said photos, and I'm also well on the way to getting through some of the old black and white ones of my Mum and her family, which will finish off an album I've done of them.  Got to love it when you finally accomplish something like that.

Here's my girl Tui, and you can see a couple of the patches where the vet had to shave her to sew her back up.  They don't know if it's a dog bite or a cat fight.  I'm going for the later one, simply because most dogs would maul a cat, not just bite, and she's had very similar types of wounds from other fights.  I guess that's the trouble when you hand rear a kitten, is that still at nearly nine years old she hasn't quite learnt how to read 'cat language'.  She has scuffed her back nails as well because she's a runner not a fighter.  The good thing about running is that she never injures her face, only her body!

She's a good wee soul at taking her tablets and having to be locked inside.  Lucky for us, that that's the case.

Well it's back to work for me tomorrow.  Love the start of term as the kids are full of energy, happy to be back, happy to see each other (quite the opposite to the end of term when they're exhausted).  Same with the teachers really ;-)

Here's wishing you all a fabulous week, and thanks for stopping by, reading and leaving me a comment.  It's always much appreciated.

This week

I just love it when I manage to get heaps done during the holiday break.  Of course I star with the best of intention but some days you just don't have the get up and go to do whats on your 'list', or plans rapidly change.

My plans for tomorrow have changed as I've found an injury on the cat, not bad enough to rush off to the emergency vet, but certainly needs to be checked out, and I suspect that they'll knock her out as she can be a bit of a madam lol...especially if she's in pain.  Glad we have pet insurance for her.

I've been busy doing lots of journalling, which is taking me longer than I anticipated, but it'll be worth it when it's all done.  I also have a half done layout on the desk...and this one to shoe you.  I did it a couple of weeks ago, in one of those ' I never use my stamps' moment :-)

I've also finished Project Life for 2013, good to get that done and dusted.

In other news I've had to cancel my place at the Scrapin Patch retreat in May, because my nephew is getting married, and I wouldn't miss that for the world!

Well here's wishing you a great week...last week of the holidays for me.

Off to Greymouth

We're all going on a summer holiday....

Except the summer weather looked like this....

This is my sister in law Maureen, at Arthurs Pass.

We'd decided to head over to Greymouth and Punakaiki for a day or two.  We left sunny, but windy Christchurch and as we crossed the divide, the weather changed and it was wet and wild.

 

However, as we headed into Shantytown, the sun came out and we spent a lovely four or so hours wandering around, taking photos, watching the cute wekas etc.

 

 Aren't those brothers alike?  And yep, it was ice cream weather (well actually I don't think Lyall needs an excuse for it to be ice cream weather!)

Not having bush around us here, I had to have a wee play when we were walking through the bush to the Pancake Rocks.

 

So after a couple of lovely days on the West Coast, we were lucky enough to spot this guy on the way home...

 

 

Always nice to get away, meet new people, see new things...and take two hundred and eighty four photos :-)

 

Happy New Year

We usually do something quiet on New Years Eve and had been reminiscing during the day about how over the last few years we've spent with my brother in law (Garth) and my sister in law (Maureen), have been spent in such places as Omarama, Hanmer, and here with other friends.  So last night we decided to head into the gathering at Hagley Park.

It was a beautiful evening and so well organized (except for the bit where all the cars in the carpark wanted to leave at the same time...).

We didn't get there till about eight ish, and the kids part of the evening was just starting to wind down.  They'd had lots of children's entertainment and this was finished with a countdown and ticker tape at eight thirty.  They called this the children's New Year.  We came prepared with our picnic dinner, even though there were heaps of food stalls that we could have accessed (if you wanted hot dogs, chips etc, followed by candy floss and churros!)

This was followed by the NZ Army band who were just fantastic and a band called the Easy Hearts who were also really good.  The Wizard of Christchurch gave a bit of  speech about good luck and then wandered through the crowd, more than happy to pose for photographs, using his 'this is the good luck look' apparently lol.

 After the traditional countdown the fireworks and that was wonderful.  We were in just the perfect spot, and of course the crowd then sung Auld Lang Syne.

So what did you get up to for your New Years Eve?  And have you made any resolutions?

Have a great week.