Birthday Season

In amongst all the chaos of the last few weeks, we had two other very important events to celebrate and it would be very wrong of us not to mention them on our blog.

First, Molly turned six. SIX! Not a tiny little girl anymore. We celebrated on the day with a big family barbeque (it’s not often we have all the grandparents plus an uncle in town!) and she had a disco party last weekend for her schoolfriends too.

Next, Alfie turned four. FOUR! Definitely not a tiny little boy anymore! He too got a family barbeque, but unfortunately we are very bad parents and haven’t yet organised a friends party for him. We are completely partied out! And he hasn’t asked yet....

Next on the list is my birthday in a couple of weeks time. It's a big one this year. I'm going to be 30 (again). Ha ha! 

In the meantime I have resolved not to make any more cakes whatsoever until next February. It's become a little bit ridiculous lately!

The Hughes-Downing Wedding Story

It’s been a whole week now so it’s definitely about time we posted about our wedding. What a day! Actually - what a weekend!

Because we held the wedding at a private beach house which we’d booked for the weekend, it meant everybody could come and go as they pleased and stay as long as they wanted, so the event  ended up more like a 3 day party (rather than just a ceremony).

Exactly the way we wanted it, it was just great!

It would be impossible to write the whole story here, but just a few of our favourite moments and memories were...

Friday night’s big game of touch rugby on the lawn – it was quite a fantastic sight to see all the boys and men running around so much and it realised  Andy D’s dream of playing rugby with his son!

Alfie surfing with all his grandparents – and the looks on their faces the first time he caught a wave! Because he’s so little, his lack of weight made him go at the speed of light. Sheer panic for the grandparents, sheer joy for Alfie! Even more funny when he fell off and came up smiling!!

Jake and I taking a sneaky midnight spa bath with Mark, Sam and Darren on Friday night. Go the spa bath!

Jake getting up at 2.30am when he heard the rain, and heaving all our hired furniture inside from the garden because he was nervous about whether the tables were waterproof or not.

Being able to hang out on the beach and swim in the sea just an hour or two before the ceremony (rather than the traditional chaos of being caught up in the stress of flower arrangements, hairdressers, make-up artists, etc). It meant I went into the ceremony with chipped nail polish and sticking out hair on one side and I’m still not sure if I should have spent a little bit more time on my appearance, but it was worth it for me!

My Mum & Dad’s efforts at holding me up while I attempted to walk out in my killer heels.

Our Wellington friends Dave and Andrew’s Mihi, which began the wedding ceremony.

The poem about “Love” which Molly made up and read out (I noticed there were a few teary eyes at this point!)

The sound advice given in Jenny’s reading (eg “Jake – remember to flush”).

The complete and utter seriousness with which Alfie took his ring bearing duties – including the pretend-lost-ring joke our celebrant had practised with him. Absolutely priceless!

Jake’s decision to replace my beautiful Ash Hilton wedding ring with the battered up shell which he used to propose to me on Sea Lion Island back in 2007. I did assume for a moment that Alfie really had lost the rings, but luckily the correct ring was brought out fairly quickly after Jake’s ‘joke’.

My mum’s amazing wedding cake – and its Pied Piper effect! All of a sudden 17 children appeared at our sides begging for icing flowers, and poof – almost the entire cake disappeared before I could blink!

Walking into the swimming pool room to find 17 kids and several adults all jumping in after eating their wedding cake!

Not so great was when Hayden (aged 6) ran straight through a glass window as dinner was being served and we had to call the ambulance and window-repair man.... but luckily he was ok and hey, all good weddings need a little drama!

Other great stuff included a fun game of croquet on the lawn with my lovely friends and a fun game of table tennis with my little boy.

And dancing with all the kids to the band as the sun went down over Kapiti Island. A stunning sunset, a shared tambourine, and some great tunes.  

I could go on for pages here, but I think you’ve probably all got the picture by now....

Thank you everyone for coming and making the weekend so special for us....and for all those who couldn’t but sent messages and presents – we are stoked, we have a bloody good bunch of friends!!

Watch out, the Hugheses are about!

My family arrived in Wellington a few days ago from the UK – the first time in NZ for my brother and the first real chance to get to know Wellington properly for my parents (they had a brief visit once before but don’t remember much).

Molly and Alfie are super hyped up and have a lot of excitement and energy at the moment. Grandad was exhausted within half an hour of arriving here! They are also mega excited about having Uncle Philip here (“because he’s a little bit naughty Mum”) so he’s not getting much rest time either.

So, in amongst rushing around collecting our rings, nail polish and other last minute bits & pieces for the wedding, we managed to spend the weekend in a fairly leisurely way – we even managed some daytime beers! We showed the family some of our favourite south coast beaches and one of our favourite cafes on Sunday, and we took them to the Waitangi Day celebrations yesterday.

Waitangi Day is a public holiday and a pretty important event in NZ, so there were celebrations going on everywhere. We chose to go down to the waterfront where we watched a ceremonial waka (Maori canoe) and then the kids went wild and scootered around a lot, we had a few beers & lemonades in the sun, and then we watched a few bands, storytellers, cultural performances etc.

Hopefully my family are enjoying their time here, although it’s not been without mishaps so far. Mum and Dad have managed to get lost every time they’ve gone out in their car so far, Dad and Philip have both managed to get sunburnt (despite a complete lack of sun/summer), and one member of the family (who shall not be named here!) had to leave the Waitangi celebrations for a while because the music was too loud for him! 

Year 2

It was a big relief all round today.

Molly went back to school – her first day in Year 2. For the last few days she’s been a complete bag of nerves, not sleeping at night, snapping at everybody like a teenager, telling us she didn't want to go back to school, and occasionally confiding that she had butterflies in her tummy.

But her new teacher was a HUGE hit and when Alfie and I arrived to collect her at 3pm she told us she didn’t want to come home and wanted to stay at school because it was so much fun and the teacher kept smiling and winking at her (?).

Meanwhile, Alfie spent the day doing very odd things around the house like tying all his soft toys to the swing and practising the haka wearing nothing but his sister’s jewellery. His gymnastics classes started back today as well and he has a new coach this term – a man with no hair, who is apparently the coolest coach ever.

So we have a happy boy and a happy girl. 

An Update

It’s the last day of school holidays today. I never knew that six and a half weeks could go so quickly.

Jake and I have been extremely busy over the last few weeks, so it’s been mostly up to Molly and Alfie to show Nana Jenny the sights of Wellington. We did manage to take her to see a live band performing at Aotea Lagoon one evening and we ate fish & chips while we watched an interesting mix of Burmese and American Wellingtonians (!) playing Country & Western. They did manage to get us up dancing a little and the kids hyped up before bedtime.

The kids have spent the last couple of weeks having great adventures with Nana Jenny while I’ve been at work – swimming in the sea, walking up mountains, playing on the beach, going to the park, plus a whole load of bizarre new garden game inventions which include car tyres, ropes, basketballs, much of my Tupperware and caterpillars (?)

We also managed to fit in an awesome weekend away recently, over at Riversdale Beach. Some friends of ours have a family bach there which they invited us to, so we managed to kick back and relax for a bit. The fact that we were 4 adults plus 5 kids all aged under 7 meant it was noisy, but they mostly entertained themselves – meaning us adults could sit in the sun, open a few beers, and actually hold a conversation (most of the time).

Meanwhile, Jake and his running buddy attempted their first official mountain/off-road race last weekend. As they now regularly do 3 hour runs in the mountains around Wellington they’d assumed this one would be a piece of cake.....however they’d completely under-estimated how challenging the terrain would be – I hear they were scrambling up rock faces and had to walk at some points. They eventually completed the 24 kms in 4 hours and 21 minutes. They hobbled back home looking quite a bit worse than usual and Jake is still not fully recovered 4 days later. Still – they are already preparing for the next one!

No gin required after all!

I am pleased to report that I found the solution to all my troubles – a weekend away with the girls is the cure to all problems!

Especially when the weekend is in Hawkes Bay, the home of some of New Zealand’s very best food and wine (what more can 3 girls ask for?). 

Our original plan to hire bikes and cycle around idyllically in the sunshine tasting the wines at all the local vineyards was quickly abandoned after we found a very lovely tapas bar by the quayside on the first night and drunk multiple bottles of very nice wine....

....leading to my first hangover in years and an absolute desire NOT to be riding a bike around. Or to be tasting any more wine.

Instead we got in the spa.

Walked along the beach.

Went for coffees.

Went up a hill to admire the view. 

Wandered around town looking at art deco buildings. 

Watched  beautiful sunsets and sunrises from our deck. 

Ate fresh strawberry ice cream at a farm. 

Watched a live band playing down by the ocean (who were completely brilliant, I must give them a plug here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN2I9VHid60&noredirect=1 ) ) 

And when we felt a bit better we went to some vineyards and tasted some wine!

Will somebody please pass the gin...?

The holiday period is over and it’s back to work – boo! – and things are incredibly chaotic in the Hughes-Downing household at the moment.

I’m the second to admit (Jake’s always the first!) that there’s a long list of things I am no good at. My lack of spatial awareness and poor map reading abilities being amongst the most frequent causes of arguments in our household. But I have long been renowned for my thoroughness and attention to detail.

Not any more!

With life at the moment containing far too much in it for one person to properly manage, things are no longer getting done to our usual standards. Hence the very dirty kitchen floor, the lack of balanced meals for the family, dirty children, late invoicing to my clients, late birthday cards (sorry Dad!), library fines, the grocery shopping not being done until 10.30pm last night (thank goodness for the modern retail environment and long opening hours!), the overflowing laundry basket, and the huge pile of overdue paperwork at the moment (a big sorry to our accountants and to our British bank – although I doubt you are going to accept a formal apology through this blog?).

Not to mention the fact that there are still a rather large number of things to do on the wedding planning front (148 on the To Do List at the last count). 

And to top it all, Molly’s flower girl dress arrived in the post last week a size too big for her due to my poor skills with a tape measure.

AND - there is no gin in the house!

So, if there are any blog followers out there who are expecting phone calls, birthday cards, or anything else from us, please bear with us – we are either just running late with it or we have more likely completely forgotten and we are very very sorry!

Having said all that, Nana Jenny has now arrived to stay for 2 months, so we have childcare for the rest of the school holidays which is a HUGE, massive bonus – so big thanks to Jenny for easing some of the pressure!

The kids are loving all the adventures their Nana takes them on. Meanwhile, I am trying hard not to ask what they are currently doing in our garden with two car tyres (where did they find them??), a piece of rope (again, where did they get that from?), a very large bucket of water and my new luxury handsoap.

Anyway, given the above circumstances, I am temporarily checking out of the blogging world until the Government officially changes the length of each day to 54 hours long....

Camping at Paekakariki

Our third trial at camping with small children took place in the last few days – and we’re pleased to report that now they are both a little older it is starting to work pretty well.

Having seriously considered a range of Dept of Conservation campsites (which are located in stunning places but don’t come equipped with playparks, jumping pillows and ice cream stores), we ended up taking the easy option and drove up the coast to a very lovely holiday park at Paekakariki instead.

Cheating, I know, but it made life much easier!

Paekakariki was a major US Marine base during WWII and I believe there were over 20,000 Americans stationed there for training and recreation purposes. It’s hard to envision now, as these days it’s just a very sleepy, little coastal town (with a population of less than 2,000).

We had an incredibly lazy time, the hardest work being the 15 minutes required to put up the tent. Other than that, we played tag on the beach, had coffee at one of the best cafes in NZ, hung out at the play park, visited Pizza Hut for dinner (aaagggh, yes really, we did), and read lots of books and magazines.

At night the kids were allowed to stay up late and take their scooters out around the holiday park and go on the jumping pillow – oh ,what fun they had! (Oh ok, ok, so did we!)

Beach Bach

Our exceptionally sunny Christmas was followed by a very rainy few days..... starting exactly on the day we left Wellington to go on holiday, and continuing until exactly the day we returned home!

Ah well. We enjoyed ourselves hugely anyway, regardless of the weather.

We spent the week in a little Kiwi bach (beach house) in rural Wairarapa. Please don’t ask us the name of the beach as neither of us could remember/pronounce it most of the time! All we can say is it was about a 3 hour drive north-east of Wellington, in a small settlement of about 20 houses with nothing else in sight except a long coastline, lots of mountains and trees (and a lot of clouds!).

We didn’t let the rain spoil our time though, and managed to get out collecting shells, surfing (Jake in his wetsuit and Alfie in nothing but his undies but he did a great job, better than his dad), paddling and running up and down the sand every day. The sun even came out a couple of times (briefly!).

Thinking about it, this is in fact pretty much what we’ve historically done every single year for our NZ Christmas holidays – ie hired a bach and chilled out in a remote spot for a few days – and it is SO worth it! We have all come back completely refreshed, relaxed, well slept (yes, really!) and very happy.

Christmas 2011

What can we say? That was a completely and utterly fabulous Christmas!

The sun shone for days on end and the temperature climbed up for us (although at 24 degrees centigrade it was still 20 degrees less than last year!). But enough to spend most of the last few days outdoors having the kind of Kiwi Christmas we’ve really missed while we’ve been away over the last few years.

First off, Jake was desperate to re-instate his tradition of surfing at Christmas, so on Xmas Eve we packed the board in the car and drove over to Lyall Bay where, in true tradition, the water was almost flat as a pancake and unsurfable. This follows a pattern – the same thing always happens every year, but at least this year he didn’t make us wake up at 6am to do it. Instead, we spent half a day pottering about in the waves and lazing in the sun – bliss! It was also probably a good thing, since Jake managed to fall under a train a couple of days ago (but that’s another story altogether!) and I’m not sure that surfing would have been a good idea in his current condition.

We followed this up with a potter around Breaker Bay, one of our favourite beaches in Wellington, where we spent a lot of time over the winter – it’s such an absolutely stunning place. Unfortunately this time we were left rather red faced when we discovered that unbeknown to us, it is actually a nudist beach. Over the last 6 months the winter weather has been somewhat cooler, thus preventing much nudism from taking place, so we had never realised before. But this time the crowds were out – which was a little difficult to explain to the kids and a little uncomfortable for us! 

To round off the day we followed one of my family traditions and celebrated Wigilia (a Polish Christmas celebration) with fish and chips on the beach at Seatoun. Wigilia demands that no red meat is eaten, and as a child I grew up on fish every Christmas Eve. This seemed like a pretty good way of adapting the tradition!

For Christmas Day, Jake managed to build our new barbeque (despite train injuries) and our Christmas lunch was a fantastic traditional kiwi concoction of steak, sausages, kebabs and pavlova followed by a lazy afternoon with some new friends - lots of sunshine, more pavlova, beer, wine and water play (depending on your age).

Yesterday we hung out on Raumati Beach where a couple of kids had just been out fishing and brought back a baby tiger shark – yikes! Everyone had a little stroke of its fins, but we got out of the water pretty fast after that!

The whole Christmas period followed this same pattern – lots of beaches were visited, shells and stones collected, crabs and starfish were poked, and in between we hung out in the garden drinking wine, playing music, opening presents, playing with presents, etc etc. And it’s not all over yet so I better get back to it....bye for now!

Summertime...

So it’s summer and it’s the school holidays and it’s nearly Christmas, and this is what our lives are looking like these days...

The kids are loving lots of bike trips and I am loving the fact that we frequently end up at the local cafe!

Molly walked straight in today and placed my order at the counter without even checking with me what I wanted. She got it right of course. Oops, perhaps we have been going a little bit too often....? 

The Pohutakawa trees are starting to bloom (New Zealand's Christmas tree), the agapanthus are starting to bloom, the garden is blooming, Wellington is blooming, and despite our children's best efforts to strip all flower beds bare and fill up all our vases, cups and jars with their pickings, there's still plenty of colour everywhere.

The evenings are long and sunny, and the kids are allowed to stay up later than usual chasing bubbles on the deck, chalk drawing Christmas tree pictures all over the driveway, eating chocolate and watching Christmas movies.

We’re making use of all the beautiful walking tracks near our house...(and it's incredibly handy that the cafe is nearby afterwards!) 

And we've been swimming as much as we can. At the last count I think as a family we've been in five different swimming pools in the last week. We've even visited the outdoor swimming pool a few times (it’s not quite the same as Alice Springs though – brrr!)... 

The End of the School Year

Following two or three weeks of sheer excitement and plenty of fun, Molly’s school finished for the year today. It feels like a big milestone....

(For those in the UK: the NZ school year runs from January to December, with the long summer holidays running from Christmas until February).

What a year! She began 2011 with her first day at Primary School back in Alice Springs, and is finishing up her first full year in Wellington. It’s amazing to see how far she’s come.

Things she does now which she couldn’t do at the beginning of the year: she can read books, write stories & letters, make up poetry and do simple maths.

She often goes for playdates at her friends’ houses (without a parent); she’s performed in concerts (very many of them!); she knows all about the local and world news, and all about the environment & planet Earth.

She can sew/embroider, she can sing along to many pop songs word-perfect, she follows the every move of Dan Carter, understands what advertising is and has a firm grip on New Zealand politics.

Way to go, little Molly!

Christmas is here already

We have to admit it. This year we have completely abandoned our usual principle of “Christmas does not start until the 3^rd week of December”.

It’s just impossible not to get into the spirit now we have a 5 and 3 year old.

Christmas cookies have been baked. 

Letters to Santa have already been written and left by the fireplace.

The kids have both already had their school Xmas concerts.

There's no longer much school work going on - the last couple of weeks are all about trips to the park, fun swimming sessions, Christmas movies, school picnics etc. Even better - no more homework! (oops, I shouldn't really say that, but it's a huge bonus not to have to fit in a reader, spelling, news preparation etc etc every night at the moment).

Presents have been purchased (well, not all - sorry Jake!).

All our cards have been written & posted, and lots of cards and presents have started to arrive from all over the world (thanks everyone!).

The Christmas CD has been retrieved from storage and has already been played too many times.

Alfie has sat on Santa’s knee and advised him of the importance of having a Bey Blade in his stocking this year. 

And the tree went up yesterday.

(The alien was Molly's prize in a dancing competition at the local village fair this weekend, and is now an important member of the family). 

Happy Christmas everyone!

The Weekend

We all got a bit of a fright this weekend when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Wellington. We’ve been in a few mag 3 and 4’s over the years but never anything as big as this one. According to official reports it was the biggest one to hit Wellington in 45 years. Never mind the timeline - it was seriously scarey.

Once we’d climbed out from underneath the beds and got the kids back to sleep, the wedding wine came out – sorry guys, but we needed to open a bottle to steady our still-shaking hands. Will replace it before the big day we promise!

Meanwhile, Jake continues with his torturous 3 hour runs up the mountains each weekend, always returning to the house begging for food and massages. While he was out yesterday there was a very special moment when I discovered Molly and Alfie had gone upstairs to sit quietly together by the window while Molly taught Alfie how to sew. So cute.

Other excitement this weekend included Molly’s ballet concert. She was simply awesome in her role as “Molly” from the movie Annie – well done Molly! (And well done to Alfie for sitting up the front so nicely with the other kids and giving your sister the biggest clapping in the world).