We are enjoying our long summer holidays (school doesn't go back until the 7th February) so I have time to catch up with lots of things including this blog site!
Last October, Tom's Aunt Mary from Edinburgh paid us a visit. She was on a cruise with the Holland America Line which started in Auckland, cruised around NZ then over to Tasmania, Melsbourne and finally Sydney. The ship was docking in Picton for a day which is about 2 hours drive from here but what Aunt Mary decided to do was leave the ship in Wellington the day before it was due in Picton, and fly over here to Nelson, stay the night with us, then we would take her back to the ship the next day.
Tom and I had both arranged to take the day off work and the boys stayed off school. We had a lovely time although the weather was a bit chilly. We took Aunt Mary to the Gardens of the World near Richmond then headed back to Picton on the scenic route via the Nelson Lakes.
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It was lovely having some time with Aunt Mary and catching up with some of the family news.
Friday, 26 October 2007
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
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Having travelled all the way down to Dunedin for the soccer tournament we decided to stay on a few days after it finished and have a bit of a holiday. While the weather for the football was awful the weather at the end of the week was great and we had a lovely break. We visited the Cadbury's chocolate factory and climbed the steepest street in the Southern Hemisphere. It doesn't look very steep in the photograph but it is really! And no its not called Findlays Road - that was on the way home!
Having travelled all the way down to Dunedin for the soccer tournament we decided to stay on a few days after it finished and have a bit of a holiday. While the weather for the football was awful the weather at the end of the week was great and we had a lovely break. We visited the Cadbury's chocolate factory and climbed the steepest street in the Southern Hemisphere. It doesn't look very steep in the photograph but it is really! And no its not called Findlays Road - that was on the way home!
Monday, 1 October 2007
More soccer!
Even before the winter Saturday soccer season ended, training started for national soccer championships. The trials to select the top 15 players in each age grade for the Nelson area had taken place in June and Niall was selected to play as one of the top 15. The 14th Grade, South Island tournament this year was in Dunedin and Nelson were defending the title they had won last season (13th Grade) in Queenstown. As the boys are getting older the competition is getting tougher. There were less teams in the competition this year than in previous years but this meant that the real elite players were concentrated in fewer teams. This also meant the standard of football was higher and great to watch. Unfortunately the pressure of defending their title proved too much for the Nelson team and although they won 5 (out of 6) of their games, they were beaten by the team from Christchurch so came runners-up this year. The weather was very mixed from sunny warm days to sleet and snow on the final day. We had a good time though and stayed on in Dundedin for a few more days. Dunedin is 2 days driving from here so it was good to have a bit of a holiday too.
BubbleShare: Share photos - Print Christmas Coloring Pages.
BubbleShare: Share photos - Print Christmas Coloring Pages.
Sunday, 30 September 2007
Richmond Athletic
Another season over and Saturday soccer has come to an end. Niall's team had a bit of a mixed season, eventually finishing 8th in their league. This didn't really reflect their effort and ability as they had a few unlucky loses at the end of the season but they weren't too dissapointed. It was a good group of lads. Niall and his friend Eric were the youngest with some of the team off to University at the end of the year. At last we will be able to have a lie in on a Saturday - no more 7.30am rises! Yahoo!
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Lunar Eclipse
Last night we watched the most amazing lunar eclipse in the skies above Nelson. This was the first total lunar eclipse or "blood moon" since July 2000. A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the Moon passes through some portion of the Earth's shadow. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, the Moon is always full during a lunar eclipse.
Sunday, 29 July 2007
Soccer Champs!
On Saturday 21st July Findlay's soccer team took part in a 7th Grade soccer festival in Nelson. They had a great time. It was a pretty exhausting morning - 5 games of 15 minutes, some without a rest between so they were all pretty tired by the end. Their results were a bit mixed - won 2, drew 2 and lost the last one which was a shame. If they had drawn the last game they would have got into the semi- finals but by that time they were all exhausted so it was maybe as well that they didn't. Their coach - Shannon, is only 16 but is pretty committed to the team and does his best to control eight 7 year olds. All the boys got a certificate and even Tom won the Spectator of the Day certificate and a voucher for a free cheese burger at MacDonalds!
Monday, 16 July 2007
Sunday, 15 July 2007
Le Tour de Rabbit Island
It's the last day of the school winter break and we have another brilliantly clear winters day. Since returning from our week at Raumati Beach the weather has been beautiful - cold in the morning and night (with temperatures down to -2c. degrees) but beautiful sunny and bright during the day. There is heaps of snow on the high mountains in Kahurangi National Park, to the west of Nelson and a dusting on the tops of Mt Starveall and Rintoul, (below), about 10km behind our house.
We watched the first real mountain stage of the Tour de France all morning, (for 4 hours) then after lunch and inspired by the Tour, we loaded up the van and headed out to Rabbit Island. With our bikes unloaded we headed for the safe and relatively quiet gravel roads to the west of the island. We have all had a bit of a cold / cough over the past few weeks, so some good fresh air and exercise was well received. Findlay loves getting out on his bike and is becoming a good confident rider. Tom recorded the afternoon with a new camera his work had bought, so he used the trip to familiarise himself with it. However it was simply "just point and shoot"!
Back to school for Fiona, Niall and Findlay tomorrow.
Saturday, 2 June 2007
On the 15th May Tom and I headed to Wellington for my Postgraduate Graduation from Victoria University. We had a great day which started off with a parade down Lampton Quay ( the main street in Wellington) to the the town hall where we released our balloons before entering the town hall for the ceremony. It had all been a bit of a palaver but all worked out OK in the end.
When I was given the date of the graduation I wasn't told what time it would be - I assumed it would be an afternoon ceremony as had been the case in previous years so went ahead and booked flights etc and Tom and I got quite excited at the thought of a day in the city without the kids. Two weeks before the ceremony the tickets arrived only for us to discover that the ceremony was to be at 7pm at night! I phoned Air New Zealand to try to change the flights but the last flight to Nelson left at 7.20pm in the evening! So it looked like a graduation ceremony was out the window but Tom and I decided to have a day in the city and make the most of it anyway. Then 2 days before the 'big day out' arrived I got a phone call from the university asking if I would like to graduate at 2pm with the engineers, computer scientists and architects. So that was how it was - right at the end of the science faulty graduations....Fiona Young - Post Graduate Diploma in Professional Studies (Education)! A very memorable day in all and another NZ experience to remember.
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When I was given the date of the graduation I wasn't told what time it would be - I assumed it would be an afternoon ceremony as had been the case in previous years so went ahead and booked flights etc and Tom and I got quite excited at the thought of a day in the city without the kids. Two weeks before the ceremony the tickets arrived only for us to discover that the ceremony was to be at 7pm at night! I phoned Air New Zealand to try to change the flights but the last flight to Nelson left at 7.20pm in the evening! So it looked like a graduation ceremony was out the window but Tom and I decided to have a day in the city and make the most of it anyway. Then 2 days before the 'big day out' arrived I got a phone call from the university asking if I would like to graduate at 2pm with the engineers, computer scientists and architects. So that was how it was - right at the end of the science faulty graduations....Fiona Young - Post Graduate Diploma in Professional Studies (Education)! A very memorable day in all and another NZ experience to remember.
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Friday, 25 May 2007
Autumn in Richmond
These pictures were taken from the lookout on the hill just behind our house. You can see our house just at the bottom of the picture to the right of the seat. If you click the picture you will be taken to a new window with some more pictures on it.
Sunday, 13 May 2007
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Here are some photos of our weekend in Collingwood. We stayed at the DOC bach on the beach front. (Kiwi holiday houses are called baches which is a shortened form of bachelor pad!) The location of the bach is just great - right on the beach and you can hear the tide coming and going as you sleep. Its pretty basic but just ideal for a weekend break. We were in Golden Bay to help Scott (Claire's husband) celebrate is 40th birthday. Unfortunately the weather was a bit mixed on the Saturday but Sunday was glorious. We had a lovely time - even the boys enjoyed themselves and didn't really complain about missing their Saturday football games.
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