Made me laugh!

We've been to the Zoo!

Well, today was my day off so we all went to the Auckland zoo, which is just a couple of minutes by car from our house... we had a great fun day...

Matilda met a giant elephant!

We saw some penguins

And some giraffes

And our firm favorite - the Seals; they just swim around and around in circles - it's so coo. Video below!

And of course Gracie was there - the cutest mamal of the lot!

Gracie Talking!

This evening Gracie was sitting with Rosie, and she just started babbling in a way that she hasn't done before - it was utterly gorgeous; we managed to get some of it on film - hope you enjoy!

What we've been up to

Hi - sorry it's been a long time again... we seem to have been on overdrive the last couple of weeks, have been very busy. So what have we been up to?

Well of course we've got Rosie, Pete, Harry & Matilda staying with us at the moment, although they have been away for the week with Rich, Kath & Amelie to the Coromandel which is the sticky out bit of the North Island, east of Auckland - it's stunning there.

We had a fantastic weekend on our own, mainly watching the conclusion of 24 series 5 which was really good. On Saturday we went down to the city center at the crack of dawn to join thousands of other Aucklanders to welcome the Queen Mary 2 - it is a beautiful and impressive 'Ocean Liner' and there was definitely a sense of grandeur as it sailed past.

Last night we had a cluster surf / BBQ night out at the Life Saving Club at North Piha, which is out on the West Coast - we had great fun surfing, eating, and chatting and we watched a stunning sunset - the sky was literally bright pink; my photo doesn't do it much justice I'm afraid, but it's not a bad one!


Gracie is absolutely thriving - she is now over 10 weeks old, and is an absolute Angel; in the last week she has really taken to sleeping through the night which is a fantastic - On Saturday night Laura had 7 hours of continuous sleep for the 1st time in ages. While sleeping through the night isn't everything, it is nice to know that when we put her down at night she'll sleep until the morning.

She's getting bigger every day it seems - she really is putting on heaps of weight which is fantastic; we have absolutely no idea what she weighs, but our Plunket Nurse will be coming Monday so we'll find out then. Here's a cute photo from yesterday - Laura spent most of the day with Nicole & Hugh who is very cute; Gracie seemed to enjoy the hammock at their house.


I'm pretty busy at work at the moment - I'm speaking on Sunday night, so beavering away this week writing a talk on 'A life of worship'... any suggestions?!!! I think it will be fine! Anyhow, enough of the babble! Will get back into the swing of blogging once life fully returns back to normal.

Funny

Beatbox Fame Game
Uploaded by loranger

Sensational Guitar Playing

I came across this guy Andy Mckee this week - he has to be one of the most incredible guitar players i've ever heard. I thought i'd share put his video up here, have a watch!

and...

A day at the beach

Rosie, Pete, Matilda & Harry have now been here for one fantastic week - we started off in seperate houses, but we're now all living under one roof in Point Chev, and we're having a blast!
Today we went up to Orewa which is just outside Auckland - it was a stunning day so we all hit the sea, and surf. The children absolutely loved it.... photo's to prove it below.

I'm excited today because...

Rosie, Pete, Matilda & Harry arrive here in little over 3 hours. Pete has got himself a job as a GP over here, so they are moving over for a couple of years. For those of you who have no idea who these people are, it's my sister and her family - we can't wait!!! They are staying in our house for the next 2 weeks while they look for somewhere to live permanently - we'll be staying with our good friends Anna, Brent & Noah.

In other news... Gracie had her first set of jabs yesterday - 3 injections in total which I don't think she was particularly imressed with; In true Gracie style she handled the injections well with only minimal cries, but spent the rest of the day feeling & looking very sorry for herself. She seems to be back to normal this morning, so we'll start getting some more photos soon - it didn't seem fair to photo her while she was ill!