We don't know what we have done to deserve all this glorious weather! We have lost count of the number of fine weekends we have had lately....and long may it last.
It has been an eventful week in more ways than one, starting with the rude awakening we received on Monday morning when a drunk guy tried to force his way into our house at 3am. In hindsight it appears he had got disorientated from the party next door and probably thought he was trying to get in there, but it didn't make it any less scary for us hearing loud banging on the door. Mark tried to reason with him for about 10 minutes through the glass window on the door 'Please go away, you don't live here, why do you want to come in?' and we did call the police as a precaution as the guy was none too keen to go away to start with. Anyway, all is well that ends well as eventually he stumbled off, and the police turned up about 10 minutes later. Needless to say though our hearts were pounding a bit after that episode and it wasn't very easy getting back to sleep with the party that had started at 10pm still going on next door till 5am. Luckily our gorgeus boy slept through it all, which we were thankful of, and even more thankful for God's divine protection over our family and our house through the experience.
Thankfully, Monday ended much better than it started with the great job offer Mark received from Hertz, a 20% increase in his base salary, a company car (brand new Ford Mondeo) with petrol and all car costs paid for, as well as a 5% bonus. It was an easy decision for Mark to make in the end as he has had a good, long innings with APX and there is little immediate chance of progression in his current role due to the current economic climate and recent restructuring that was undertaken. His new role will be similar to what he does now, with the potential for more business development, and starts on Jan 12th, so a good way to start the New Year!
Thursday night saw us entertained at the annual daycare BBQ. Noah point blank refused to go and perform with the other kiddies, prefering to stay sitting on my lap and watching from a safe distance. I think, once again, he was a little overwhelmed with the volume of parents and big people (about 100) in what he must see as 'his space'. He did, however, muster up enough courage to go up with Daddy to get his present from Santa. And nonetheless it was a nice opportunity to catch up with the other families (although we did end up seeing most of them 3 times this week - the BBQ last Sunday, the BBQ Thursday and then Aarnav's birthday yesterday...phew!)
This weekend started with a smart new haircut which was 'beautiful' according to Noah! And then it was onto Junglerama for Aarnav's 3rd birthday, and a good amount of energy was burnt off as all the kids (and some energetic parents) charged around for an hour or so.
We took a walk up to the wind turbine yesterday afteroon which we haven't done for a wee while. There was a bit of a chill in the air from the southerly that briefly blew through on Friday night, but it was a pleasant walk up there with the usual stunning views on offer.
Today, Mark went out for a bike ride, I went to church and on the way home purchased some more shade cloth...our poor lemon tree is being devoured by bugs, every few days it appears that more leaves have been chewed, and we are trying everything we can think of...strong insecticide etc, so we are at our wits end. Right behind the lemon tree is our raspberry bush, and we got our first raspberry of the summer yesterday. No two guess who munched that one! We also cracked open our first pea pod and enjoyed crunching on the tender and juicy young peas.
It was so warm today that we pulled out the paddling pool and by the time Noah woke up from his nap and wanted to get in, the water was quite tropical. Mark went off to play a game of netball at 3pm, so Noah and I enjoyed some fun in the sun outdoors, and treated Daddy to a waterfight when he got home to help him cool off after the game! Tonight we had BBQ homemade burgers ala Markie and sat outside together enjoying the end of yet another lovely weekend.
This week is bound to be full-on. It's our last week of work before 2 week's holiday, and we have 2 nights booked up (James & Sarah from the UK on Tuesday, Tracey & Dayne on Saturday) as well as the big feat of organising my staff Christmas lunch on Friday, Mark is out for a big ride Saturday, and then a baby dedication and a BBQ on Sunday afternoon at two separate places before we hit the road first thing on the Monday morning for our trek up to Nana & Poppa's for Christmas.
Noah's new Zoo animal play-doh set he got for his Secret Santa last week. And check out the big yellow moon spotted at about 10pm last night..very big and very yellow but photos never do it justice!
We splashed out a little bit this week and invested in a portable DVD player that was half price on
http://www.1-day.co.nz/, it does 3 different deals every 24 hours. This was in anticipation of the long car journey ahead of us! We tried it out yesterday with his all-time favourite, Nemo and it seemed to be a success. We've put a few other DVDs together for him, so here's hoping it helps wile away a bit of time on the 500km journey ahead!
The next blog is likely to wing its way to you once we've made it to Nana & Poppa's as I imagine we'll be too busy racing around next weekend getting ready to hit the road bright and early.