We're leaving on a jet plane!

The girls and I are smilingly counting the days until our departure to fairer climes while poor Dugald is practically moping. I keep telling him it's not too late to purchase a ticket, but I do suspect he feels the need to earn an income to pay for our great adventure. We are so grateful!!

Speaking of grateful - a few weeks ago Delaney and a friend took the girls to a professional netball game. They watched the Wellington Pulse play and had such a great time as you can see from these pictures. THANK YOU sweet Delaney!!

We also recently attended the Homeschool Science Fair for the Wellington region. While we didn't enter a project this year we did enjoy seeing all the others and Ellie especially loved the "hands-on" activities for the younger set. Next year we will definitely be putting together a project, you can hold me to it. I've written it here so I will have to follow through!!

Katie holding a seed she planted and a homemade bird feeder.

We also celebrated another birthday!! Beautiful Katie is now nine-years-old! She and Meggie had a combined birthday party earlier in the year when the weather was nicer so her actual birthday was fairly low-key but still quite special as she got lots of gifts and love and she got to pick the food and activities for the day.

She chose a trip to the mall so she could spend some of this gift from Grandma and Grandpa!

The same day as Katie's birthday our Monday Morning Ladies swim group had a little get together after our swim to celebrate the birth of our coach Steve's baby daughter Scarlett. The baby was delightful and slept through the entire event. We decided to start a baby library for her as our gift so it was fun to see all the books everyone chose - it was a great morning.
I'm so proud of my four girls, we've pulled together and managed to finish out our school year with everything completed. Now it's laundry, cleaning and packing for the next few days and then we head out. Have a fabulous week!!

It's Video Time!

Tonight after dinner Ellie came to cuddle in my lap as she often does, however this time she just would not stop kissing me! She kept it up for so long that Dugald had time to dig out the camera and video her doing it - and this is what he saw. You may want to watch this here as sometimes my blog cuts off the edges.

I so love this clip that I saw on Kelle's blog "Enjoying the Small Things"(if you haven't read her blog I would highly recommend it, link on the right). Click here if the blog is cutting off the edges. I should also add that I know nothing about this movie except what I googled after watching the video and that didn't tell me much.

Today we saw the sun - it's been rather scarce around here lately so we took full advantage of it and headed to Eastbourne to walk out to the lighthouse there. Sadly as soon as we arrived it started raining, but since it was lunchtime anyway we ducked into a cafe and ate. After lunch we got to stroll along the shore for about an hour before the sky looked ominous again and we called it a day. I have more pictures to share from my phone so I'l have another post up soon. Lots of love to all y'all!

The Oil Spill

The girls and I are eagerly counting the days until our trip to the U.S., but as we long for the beautiful beaches of Clearwater I can't help but be saddened by the tragedy that is the oil spill. My heart breaks for the families of the men killed, for the people who have lost their livelihood, for the wildlife suffering and dying, and for the beauty that is being destroyed. There are some incredible pictures here. Memories of my childhood are completely wrapped up in the beautiful packaging of the Florida Gulf Coast and I'm distraught to see what is happening to my little piece of heaven here on earth.

Mother-Daughter Night

The girls and I hosted a Mother-Daughter movie and game night last Friday. We invited our friends over for pizza followed by a movie for the girls and some wine, games and chit-chat for the mom's.

We prepared for the evening with a fun-filled trip to the video store and left with four choices for the girls to choose from. Next we cooked up some snacks for the evening - a popcorn cake, chocolate covered pretzel rods and some spicy peanuts. After that we did a quick tidy-up around the house and then literally counted the minutes until the guests arrived!

We've been so blessed in our friendships here and it was fun to have an evening to just celebrate that fact. The girls had their own "champagne" of sparkling grape juice to toast the evening with while the adults stuck to the real stuff. I'm not sure what was said when this first picture was taken but I love how they are all laughing it up.

Last weekend was actually a holiday weekend to celebrate the Queen's birthday so some of our friends couldn't make it as they were out of town - but that's just a great reason to do it all again when we are back from our big holiday overseas. I am feeling very glad of our planned escape from winter as the weather has been dreadful -rain, rain and more rain and we continue to get colder as well. This was the last holiday weekend here until Labour Day in October which makes for a LOOOONNNNGGG stretch of winter without a break. Personally I think North America has the better deal with Christmas and Thanksgiving to break up the winter months a bit.

I will say we've gotten more hardy - last year I drove just about every time I had to go anywhere if it was both cold and rainy but today the girls and I actually got hailed on as we walked to the pool, so I'm adapting.

Enjoy the beginning of your summer our northern hemisphere friends. xx