It's been a year.... Anyone still out there?????

Hello Strangers!!
Yup it has been pretty much a year since I updated this cursed thing I bet you all have vanished into the cyber ether in frustration with me.


It was a busy year, I spent most of it Nannaing with my mates Liz and Chele as we spun and knitted, crotched and quilted 2008 away - I even occasionally scrapped.


My babies had a great year at school, Aislinn just turned 6, Quinny is now an annoying 7 yo and we have brought our first house. I have broken my camera so am lacking in pics of late will try and post some on here, finally have broadband so uploading isn't as much of a pain.

Wot have I been up to? Have just finished my return to nursing course and am waiting for the paperwork from the nursing council to tell me i am allowed to practice as an RN. I have a job 2 afternoons a fortnight at Palliser in Greytown, and will pick up more shifts at Glenwood in Masterton until I decide what nursing I want to do.
I am keen on doing some palliative papers in the near future, I enjoy that side of it, that and wounds really.

Peter is still working for the lovely Ray (note dripping sarcasm!) he is dying to get outta dairy farming. He has sat his HT liscences but nobody wants to hire an inexperienced driver especially in a recession so god knows when he will get his wish and give up 4am starts.

Quinny has moved up a class this year, he is slowly adapting being in the bigger kids class. He is into hockey this year in a huge way, good to see him finally enjoying an extracurricular activity. He has packed in Keas,was bored with just doing crafts, this kids needs to burn off steam!!

Beany had a good first year at school, despite breaking her arm again a year to the day since the last one!! Luckily it was just a minor break and no hospital stays. She has packed in Ballet and Pippins and wants to do swimming, am yet to get around to booking her in must get onto that tomorrow.


But the greatest thing to happen to us this year has been buying our first house. All these years of living in cruddy farm workers houses we have a place of our own! We decided we couldn't hack another winter in the old place and Ray has been trying to force Peter out of his job so with the help of Peter's wonderful mum we started looking at buying a house. We found this one on the first day. We went to a place around the corner and had time to kill before the next open home, saw this place had an open home on and decided to check it out. Fell in love with it, it is 3 bedrooms, has a conservatory, a freestanding lod fire so we will be warm for once!, an avairy and the kids fave.... a pool!!! It is low maintenence and has lots of storage so we made an offer and a month later we moved in!! And we still love it, the kids had a blast in the pool over summer and I am loving having my own house no-one can tell me what to do in. Even Peter seems more relaxed living off the farm.

Well I am off to watch Dancing with the stars and finish bean's sock. I will endeavour to update this again soon.

Balloon Fiesta

Well now you all have to put up with lotsa hot air ballon pics LOL! I have taken about 500 pics of hot air balloons this week and still have the night glow tomorrow night. I have gotten a few good shots so had to share them with you all.

It started on Tuesday morning when I looked out my lounge window to see 18 hot air balloons heading towards me...


Got some good pics as they got closer and closer...

This is across the road from our place...

This is the star attraction of the fiesta the Nightmare House, the guy has brought it out all the way from Brazil, tiz huge and a big hit with all the kids.

Took this one on the way to school, this is candyfloss which is Aislinn's second fave balloon. No idea why!! LOL

This is also on the way to school, loved how the cows were all milling round the basket being nosey.

Love this shot of the balloon flying over the maize...

Wednesday night we went to the 2nd annual Baskets and Burners parade down the main street of Carterton, got some primo flame shots...

and this....

Yesterday morning we got up at the crack of dawn and headed to CLareville for the mass take off, 24 balloons hitting the skies - awesome sights....



and inflating the haunted house - we were right under it when it took off...


Love the light in this shot, these balloons are carterton based...


and this one....


Mummy looking out the window of haunted house...

Off she goes....


All of them in the air...


Then we decided to race home before school and put out a bog paper cross in the paddock after being told they will land on them...



Dropped the kids off to school and as I came over the bridge I saw this over my house that is our barn and house in the bottom of the pic.


Do you know it takes forever to get in the drive, turn off the car, undo the seatbelt and sprint across the paddock, it was already down by the time I got there...


I was so stoked that they landed in our paddock, it was the last balloon we had seen take off before we left, I knew a couple of the passengers on board too so that was cool.


As I headed into the paddock ,Liz and Anita on their way to kindy saw it and pulled over, so they climbed the fence ot check it out, here it is going down.



Got some primo shots of it being pulled down...

and this is looking through the top as the nice warm air was coming out...

and closer, you can see everyone pushing the air out...

Looking back at our house, last window on left is my scraproom...

Then they squish it into a small bag...

We put Anita in the basket, she was too short to see out so....

This was her solution...


Lunchtime yesterday a balloon pilot went to school to talk to the kids about ballooning, we got Brian Bollard who is American, lives half the year here in Hamilton and half in Vermont, he makes his own balloons (in a library book at school he is called the king of the homemade balloon) fascinating to listen to.


The kids got to help lay out his balloon...


It was a one man balloon, here he is heading over the school...



Well that's it (thank god you all say!!) stay tuned for night glow pics after Saturday....

Airshows, hot air balloons and easter...

Have been rather busy lately. Time just flies when you are having fun! Last weekend I took the kids over to Ohakea for the airshow, was great fun.

Took me back to my childhood, it has been a long time since I have been on base, amazing how much it has changed inside the hangars - Tracey you wouldn't recognise it! The kids loved it, Quinn's fave was the Huey (Iriquois helicopter) dropping a car from the sky and resulting big boom,


he also loved the RAAF F1-11 and its big fuel dump resulting in a 30ft flame out the rear.

I love the old planes, the Vampire,Corsair, Harvard. Was disappointed that the Skyhawk and Strikemaster weren't flying, they are the planes I grew up around. I also love the Hueys,
when we were in Singapore Dad worked on them. I have a pic of Shaun when he was Aislinn's age cleaning one. I have always loved the whump whump of a huey and the way they take off ( like the Charlie Sheen movie which title escapes me)

any way I got some awesome shots of the planes, never saw why Dad had to take so many pics of planes, mind you I was going for a photography perspective rather than a plane lovers. LOL.

Easter feels weird being earlier than usual, kids of course got overloaded with Chocolate. The Easter bunny brought them these candy coated choc eggs that they could paint which dragged out the eating for a bit longer. Easter bunny forgot to bring me the glod Lindt bunny I requested *sob*. Saturday Peter and I left the kids with Gran and had a morning to ourselves wandering Masterton, stopped at 10CC for a coffee and I got to try the best Hot x Bun in NZ - truly is the nicest I have ever had so if you are in Masterton over easter in future stop in and get you some, they are expenny but if you only have 1pkt over easter totally worth it. Makes the supermarket jobs look like sh*t.

Sunday we headed over to Dad's so I could tutu with some photos for him in Photoshop, got to take some cool pics of the kids and spend some time with my nephews and neices.

My little step nephew Jatin is a shy wee man and he seems to be warming up to me this past weekend, he is a dear little boy (I sound like my nanna) with the most amazing eyelashes. Seems funny to think I have a Stepbrother and Stepsister now, I don't know them very well and only see them occasionally, weird to think now that our parents have married we are related. The kids have all bonded instantly which is really cool.


What else is happening in our world?? Only 4 more weeks till my baby bro comes home from Afghanistan, can't come soon enough for Sharon and the kids I am sure. will be good to seem him again feels like he has been gone forever. While he has been gone we have seen alot of Sharon and the kids and it is great to see the kids playing with their cousins, now that Greer is walking it is taking on another dimension too.

I started Linedancing classes today - don't laff!!! My friend Liz is a linedancing teacher and she is teaching a beginners course so I decided to give it a go. Isn't as easy as it looks on the telly you know!! My legs are killing me. Was fun and burned off some calories. We are getting a bit sick of walking lately so it is good to find another way to get some exercise in. Weight loss is still on the damn plateau. Loving pilates and am gonna miss it while my instructer is away in the UK for 7 weeks. Will have to make sure I get my DVD out and do it.


This is what appears outside my back door every morning, kids love it, have been getting some pics. If you are at a loose end this weekend head to Carterton for the annual Hot Air Balloon Festival tis fab.


Have been scrapping, stash is shrinking. Have been using alot of old product up. Have some LOs to share.


This is my fave from this weekend, I got the flowers from the Warehouse and they triggered the whole LO, love this pic of Aislinn and Greer too cute.

This is an old all tiem fave pic of Quinny, love how this page turned out.


This is a scraplift which I loved the paper combo of. Took the pic of Aislinn yesterday morning while she was sitting in the doorway of the back door. Love the pic, she did the journalling for the page - awww!!


This is an older one from the bottom of my handsewing pile, not in love with this page, had no idea what I was doing. This was one ofthe first pics I took with my camera when i got it.

Another page from the bottom of the handsewing pile! Quinn and his mate Huntah at the playcentre xmas party feeding each other jelly - they were really good, better than the teenagers.

Couldn't be bothered sewing this one!! LOL. A scraplift which I loved the original 81/2 by 11 page this is my fat boy.


Another old one of Aislinn, don't often do handcut titles anymore - oh to have a cricut!!



Well that is about me gotta go do some housework. Cya Lata.