Well today is Laura's 26th Birthday... so a big happy birthday to the most gorgeous girl in the world.
She'll be joining the staff for a birthday lunch, and then we'll be having an action packed day full of fun and laughter....
At 9am tomorrow morning I have to give an hour long session on the theology of worship at the St Paul's school of theology. I'll be finished there at 10;30 and will be leading worship at 10:45! I am going to be soooooo exhausted tomorrow! I'll look forward to watching the knock out stages at the time they were intended!
We are all fine, we had a bit of a scare this morning with the pregnancy but all is fine.... Laura is on bed rest for a week though, so i'll be tending to her every need. We'll post again very soon.
COME ON ENGLAND!!!!!
Last year we didn't get a 9th June due to our strange travel itinery - we literally missed a day! So this is our 1st 9th June in 2 years! Strange concept, but fun.
We've got another couple of people coming through the apartment this evening so do have a pray about us finding someone to relieve us of our contract. We'll be in touch again soon.
This past weekend was a long one as we had the Queen's birthday off on Monday. As Paul mentioned, I thought I was over the worst of my morning sickness on Sunday as i woke up feeling 'normal' for the first time in months. Sadly then came Monday! I think this was the worst day i have had yet although it didn't stop us having lot of fun with our friends Dizz and James. These guys blessed us massively by driving all the way to our house on Monday morning to fix our flat car battery which took some time - eventually James bought us a new one - thanks sooooo much James! - then they cooked us a yummy breakfast (nice going down- not so nice coming back up!) and then we went to the beach.
It was such a beautiful day, and we went walking on the huge sand dunes- taking the body boards with us so that we could sand surf. This was a new experience for us and although slightly scary (they were very steep dunes!) we had such a giggle. Paul managed to fall off his board which was very amusing at the time but i haven't stoped hearing about his aches and pains since!
We walked through a large stream back to the car and the guys played in the water for hours - it took my back to my childhood watching them attempt to create surges in the water! We left later with 2 very wet men, very happy with themselves!
Our evening was spent with some other friends Rich & Ange, eating pizza and having a giggle about nothing - these are the best kind of evenings in my opinion and a great finish to a great weekend.
Well the lovely Brazillians didn't get back in touch with us which was such a shame. We were really confident that they would take the apartment - they absolutley loved it. So, we're still waiting for others to come and have a look whilst being very aware that it is quite a bit above the market rate.
We'd really appreciate your continued prayers; Laura is now down to 2 days work a week, which leaves us very little money to save for the baby. We really really need someone to take the apartment off us soon.
Laura has been showing some signs of getting rid of the morning sickness, but whenever she thinks she's cracked it, it hits her again big style! Hopefully she'll be feeling well by the time we get to England (3 Weeks).
We'll write again soon. Lots of love to you all....
Yesterday was a typically busy day for us; I was leading worship morning and evening, and Laura was helping at the creche in he morning - obviously just trying to get in as much practice as she can! Rich & Kath are now back from England which is great - Rich spoke yesterday morning and was very good.
I've also started a new blog - more of a chance for me to share some of my thoughts and ideas about God. I've not posted yet, but i'll get to it very soon.
Well, I've woken up this morning in the happiest of moods-its feels a bit crazy (much like the song i'm listening to right now-'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley- i love it!). I think it might have something to do with a dream i had-i woke both myself and Paul up by laughing!
Well, as you can imagine, we are encountering alot of baby talk at the moment, mainly consisting of 'what do you think it will be- boy or girl?" I love this kind of talk as it gets me all excited! However it seems to make Paul very frustrated as he says nobody can 'sense' or know what the baby's sex is- i find this very funny as it must be a girlie thing because i've always done it with pregnant people. We aren't planning to find out the sex of the baby which is more uncommon here so i'm not sure that encourages this kind of conversation.
Anyway, we are having a lady look around the apartment this afternoon so please pray for us and we will keep you posted. Thanks!
Well, our landlords have told us we can move out if we can to find new tenants, so the flat is advertised on Trade Me, and at church. We'd really appreciate your prayers that we would find someone to move in - the sooner the better really.
We're contracted till September, so the sooner we get out, the sooner we can live somewhere cheaper. If you want to see the advert, and have a look at where we've been living for the last year click here.
Our template seems to have gone up the creek - if it isn't back to normal within a couple of days, we'll just have to re do it - sorry for the blandness!!!
Well what a way to mark our 100th post! We went for our scan this morning and all is well with little baby Kingsley-smith. We got a whole heap of images, but this one is my favorite - when we arrived the little thing wriggled like crazy which was SO exciting to see. Made me very emotional, and even more in awe of how something so precious can just grow inside of you. How people can doubt God as a creator, and claim this is all an accident is totally beyond me.
I think we'll get the mothers perspective on this soon - we'll be back in for another scan at 20 weeks, at which we get to have it recorded to DVD!
We'll keep you posted as ever.
OK guys, we need to mobilise the prayers among our readers. Laura found out yesterday that her temp job comes to an end this Thursday. We are living in a flat that is very much dependant on 2 incomes - of course with a baby on the way we have planned to move out before the baby comes, but the sooner the better now that her employment is totally up the creak!
We have 3 months left on our contract, but have asked to be released ASAP so that we can get in to something much much cheaper - i've left this with our landlord, but could really use some prayer that they would have favour on us and let us out.
If you could pray that would be absolutely amazing. We'll keep you posted.
With the emergence of the crappy Kids music that is around now, I've been thinking about this album a lot over the last couple of years, and have searched for it on the internet a couple of times with no success. I have just found it though, and i'm very very very excited! I found it on this blog - go and check it out.
Just a friendly reminder that it's Laura's birthday in little over 2 weeks... she'll be 26 on the 13th June. Our address is at the top of the page if you want to send her a card :-)
I'm sure she'd like that!
Well, i've made it past the vital twelve week mark, expecting to feel amazing but found myself with my head over the kitchen sink once again! Morning sickness is really a myth, my sickness has not been confined to just mornings, it's been all day - yuk!
We have our second meeting with the midwife tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, followed by our second scan on Wednesday morning. The system works slightly different here so we have a Lead Maternity Carer from now until a month or so after little 'kinglett' is born - we got to choose her, and she is lovely.
The other exciting twist in the tale is that we found out that my sister Lucy is due just a week before us with her 3rd child - any one else want to join the 'baby in december club' ?
There seems to be a large group of us at church that are having babies within a couple of months of each other which is very exciting, and assuring to know that we'll be well supported. There are already SO many kids here at St Paul's, so we'll be adding to what will continue to be a very very 'young' church!
Cameron is a gifted comedian - we had a lot of clean laughs, and had a really fun night. I think he will be taking this show to the UK next year, so watch this space! Full marks from me!
Well, the news that we've been sitting on for what seems like an eternity is that we're pregnant, and yes this is the test that Laura took at roughly 8pm on the 7th April 2006.
Laura is 12 weeks pregnant, and we're expecting our little bundle of fun in early December. Of course, it will be born here in New Zealand which will be fun, although slightly strange to have a summer / christmas baby! The 2 don't normally go hand in hand!
Check back soon, for updates from me and from the mother to be :-)
As you know, we've recently launched our new website. One piece of content that i've added today is our promotional video for the Life Course. Laura and I are leading a group on this course, and we're into week 2 to of the 8 week marathon!!!
It's a great course, giving us the chance to meet new people and share our faith over fine food, wine and fun!
Take a look at the video by clicking here if you have quicktime installed. If you don't have quicktime you should download it here, otherwise you can watch the Windows Media version here.
For now though, tonight we have Andy & Katherine coming out to stay; they are good friends from Sheffield and were in our small group in our final year there. They recently got married and are on their round the world honeymoon - what fun :-)
I'm sure there will be plenty more for me to post on here over the next couple of days, so i'll keep this short. Speak again soon.
Hey Guys... once again, it's been a very busy month or so for us; I've been working on the new St Paul's Website which is now live - you should check it out.
Laura has finished working with the 2 girls, and is now doing some temporary work before we fly back to England at the end of June for a couple of weeks.
We had SOAK at church last night, which went really well - we do it every couple of months, and it's a cool evening of worship and ministry and basically soaking in God's presence. To read a review click here, or view images here.
We'll be in touch again soon, I promise!
Well, the fire alarm in our flat has just gone off twice in the night - very annoying indeed. The irony of course is that today is a public holiday, so we were all looking forward to a long lie in!
Sadly, instead we have a faulty fire alarm going off every hour, and we'r ebeing evacuated into the rain! No fun at all.
We're off to McDonalds now though - their breakfast has got to be the silver lining on this very dark cloud!
We're still alive!!! We've had a good couple of weeks, although have been pretty busy with church and our ever growing social life!!!
We've just had John & Jenny Peters visit the church for 2 weeks which was great; They lead
St Marys in London, which is the mother church of St Pauls.
John did some great teaching at a number of evenings, and services which was very refreshing.
We're looking forward to our trip to England in June - we'd love to see as many people as we can while we're back, so we'll be in contact soon with some more details of our trip.
We booked our flights home with Emirates to England yesterday for a short trip over the summer for Esther & Tom's wedding. We arrive in London on the 27th June, and leave for Auckland again on the 12th July. It's going to be a brief visit, but surely lots of fun! Hope to see as many of you as we can while we're back.
Just to let you all know that we are off on holiday with mum and dad today. We are not exactly sure where we are going but it should be lots of fun and we will no doubt have lots of photos of this gorgeous country when we return.
Talking of photos, those who know my mum and dad, they have posted their photos of their recent trip on this site in our photo section so please take a look! We have also recently added a few of our own pictures, as well as made some needed improvements to the site.
Right, off on our holiday now. Speak to you all when we return at the end of the week xxx
Oh, just want to wish Chloe a happy birthday for yesterday and Rosie for today xxxxxx
Yep, they made it - Laura's parents have arrived to stay here in New Zealand for a month. So far they have been up Mt. Eden, Had dinner in Mission Bay, Walked around the CBD (Central Business District), and watched people throw themselves off the sky tower - they bought a map at the Dairy, and Alyson wore her Jandals, which she purchased in Singapore! They still don't know if it's day or night; Ally is recovering from being checked twice in customs for carrying offensive weapons - Andy assured us though that she left the inspection room with a smile on her face.....
They have taken a trip into the future lives of the residents of Erinsborough; It will cost you to find out what happens!!!
More soon ........
A great friend of mine, Rob HIll, from the UK and his band Airborne have just released some new demo material and it is fantastic. Check our the website, Airborne or Airborne, My Space Downloads
I'm very impressed - before christmas my mum was involved in the recording of The Choir advertising the latest Honda Civic. The choir simulated all the noises of the car as a soundtrack for the advert - she was also in vision for the TV commercial, it's very impressive and well worth a watch if you haven't already seen it on TV. Check it out here.
So excited about the dolphins that i almost forgot to share my other news - our good friends Greg & Yona arrived at the beach at around 6 this evening and Greg & I got back out in to the water and I cought my first wave on his shortboard! I was pretty excited - i could stand up although it was high tide which meant for a short surf.
By the way, our 50lb arrival was our Apple eMac - sorry for all those of you who thought we'd given birth to a monster or got ourselves a lion cub!!!
Well... sorry we've not posted for a litle while; we've been cought up with going back to work and getting our lives back in to rhythm again.
So... last week we went to a beautiful white sandy beach called Te Arai with a couple of friends from church - we had a great picnic and enjoyed some bodyboarding in the beautiful sea. The highlight of the day, and infact the whole christmas holiday was having a pod of about 6 dolpins swim up to about 10 metres away in the surf - playing and jumping as dolphins do!! We were blown away by how cool this was, and were assured by the kiwi's that it's not all that common to be out in the water with them.
Today, Laura and I took a drive upcoast to a little beach (well pretty long actually) called Pakiri - again, there was a reasonable swell towards the end of the afternoon, so we got back out in to the water for another body board. We were seperated from the main section of swimmers and body boarders, and my heart skipped a beat, when i saw a fin metres away - Laura saw my face and pretty much pooped her pants, and seeing a very dark fin I decided it was a whale, and assured Laura it would be fine!!! Not quite sure what i was thinking, but suddenly a few more fins appeared, and it became aparent that they were in fact dolphins - this time round we think they were offshore bottlenose dolpins - they were very dark, and had short noses and looked very similar to the photo above. They were a lot closer this time, and i loved having them close by, but Laura was not convinced.
It was really an amazing experience once again - you just can't beat being out in the surf with dolpins 2 weeks in a row!!!!
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