An eventful week...

This week I (Paul) went away with the staff from St Paul's to a beautiful place called Tarawharanui; It's a national park an hour or so North East of Auckland. I thought I'd write about it because I had a couple of experiences that I've not had before.

Firstly, on Wednesday afternoon we took a rowing boat out to a place in the bay, where we dived for scallops - this was great fun, although diving down to 5 or so meters and then trying to find scallops proved to be exhausting. We took 34 scallops back to our bach once done and they were cooked up and served as a nice mid afternoon snack!

Yesterday (Thursday) was even better. The team were sat on the deck having breakfast at about 8:30 when one of the team members spotted dolphins in the bay. We wondered down to the beach and watched them for a while, until I was able to persuade Mike & Rachel to go out in the rowing boat with me to get a closer look.

We got out in to the bay and they seemed quite happy to have us around, so we decided to jump in and swim with them - we swam with them for about 30 minutes or so, which was utterly exhilarating! 

Given that we weren't in wetsuits, we decided to head in to avoid hypothermia, but returned 30 minutes or so later with wetsuits, flippers, snorkels & masks, and spent a further half an hour swimming, diving, and playing with the dolphins - it was certainly the best experience of New Zealand that I've had, and one that I'll never forget.

Our Holiday in Oz!

Two weeks ago we went on holiday to Australia with our friend Alana for her birthday which was so much fun. We spent the week in Caloundra on the Sunshine coast soaking up the sun and playing in water. The weather was just beautiful and we all enjoyed a bit of sun and relaxation. Gracie had her first real experience of sand and sea-she wasn't overly keen on the sand but jumping in the waves was a big hit!

We also visited Australia zoo which was amazing. We were able to walk, sit and stroke kangaroos, stroke koala's as well as seeing loads of other animals. The highlight of the holiday was going to underwater world and watching the seal show. Although the actual place wasn't amazing the show was such good fun that we went back for the second showing later that day. Here are some photos for you to enjoy!

Gracie thinks her outfit is hysterical!

Jumping in the waves

Hanging out by the surf club (for all you Home and Away fans!)

Cooling down in the very cold water!

Hanging out on the beach at Maroochydore

Laura and Gracie by the beach

Gracie meets a Kangaroo

We meet a kangaroo too!

Shots of the beach at Caloundra

Paul & Gracie at their favourite Juice Bar

Paul doing the BBQ!

Gracie loving her spoon!

Tired at the end of a busy week!

Holiday with the K-S's

For the past month Paul's parents have been in New Zealand. Its been lots of fun showing them our lives and introducing Gracie to Granny and Pops. Here are just a few of many photos taken during their time with us; there will be some more posts giving some more detail over the coming days!

Gracie in the hot tub!

Gracie and Matilda

Gracie with Granny & Pops

The whole family

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.

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.

A perfect Saturday...

Laura is feeling a bit better today, so this morning we headed out to our friends Dizz & James in Oratia - they have a fantastic house on a huge section in the middle of the bush; it really is perfect. At this point I should mention James' new shed - he built it himself from scratch over the christmas break, and I can honestly say it the best shed I've ever seen!!! Photo's to prove it! (from Dizz's blog)

We had a sensational brunch with them before piling into their newly aquired 17 year old minibus type people mover thing. We loaded a couple of longboards, and headed off to Piha, which is a very rugged west coach beach, made famouse for having 'The Piano' filmed on it.



The weather was absolutely perfect and there was some great surf, so James & I went out into the waves for some fun. Surprisingly, I found out that I can actually surf, and caught a few nice wives and rode a couple into the shore.


After the beach, we headed back to theirs for a beautiful roast lamb on their deck. This evening we've got our good friends Greg & Yona and Aaron coming for a BBQ. Clearly Gracie will be too tired to make it!!!

Gracie's first night away...

This weekend we went to stay with our good friends Bex & Si, and Sarah and Phil; They have a family bach in Leigh, which is about an hour outside of Auckland. We had a fantastic time, and Gracie loved the change of scenery, and we of course loved the company. We had a lot of fun learning some new games, eating lots of fine food, and I even got out for a little surf with Si & Phil. Here's a little piccie of Si & Gracie.

Gracie & Si, originally uploaded by thekingsleysmiths.

A restful weekend

This weekend has been gorgeous, Paul and I have had such a lovely time together watching DVD's and catching up on lost sleep. We even got to the beach yesterday - my first trip of the season - which was beautiful even though it was a bit windy!

We also discovered some of the highlights of our local area purely by chance really. On the way back from the beach we spotted some kite and windsurfers right on the water next to our house; o we went and found where they launched their kit from and found that the windsurfers base themselves only 5 minutes walk from our house! Paul couldn't believe it and now hopes that by this time next year he will have some kit to do this himself.

Auckland in Summer

Well, it feels like the summer is well and truly here; This morning i left the house at 7am for an early surf - went to a great beach just north of Muriwai and had clean mid to head height waves. Sadly I tweaked my ankle and didn't catch too many waves becuase of it. Had a good couple of hours in the water though and it was bliss.

We followed that with an awesome brunch with our friends Cam & Michelle - Cam cooked us pancakes and we ate them on their deck with wonderful fresh fruit.

This evening we are heading to Mount Eden for fish and chips with our cluster, followed by a walk up the Mount to watch the fireworks around the city (Mount Eden has awesome panoramic views of the city)

Our baby is expected somewhere in the region of 5 weeks, so really life couldn't get much better than this! I love life!