After our lovely outing to the Gardens, we had a most enjoyable BBQ and evening in the sunshine that night, then attended church on Sunday and had a relaxing afternoon together before heading to the Naki (Taranaki) to see GeeGee on the Monday.
We only really had one full day in New Plymouth but made the most of it, catching up with Great Nana, and my Aunty Jan and husband Adrian in the morning. We were treated by GeeGee to a cafe lunch, and decided to give Noah a special treat that night, heading out to catch the festivities of the Pukekura Park Festival of Lights. First up was the excitement of the miniature train ride, and then the lights spectacular. Noah was very excited (translation: a little overexcited in fact) to be allowed to stay up so late (the latest ever, he was finally home with lights out at 9.30pm!)
We arrived back in Wellington on New Years Eve, and whilst we had a superb time away it was also lovely to be home, and we were blessed with the sight of pohutukawa in full bloom in the garden, and were greeted by an abundance of pea pods, courgettes and raspberries ripe for the picking!
New Years Day was a lovely day spent at home in the garden and later playing in the paddling pool enjoying the sunny (if a tad windy) day. We had bought some $2 water pistols after our water bottle water fight episode at Nana & Poppa's so enjoyed shooting at each other, and also trying to shoot little army men off the side of the pool. Mark and I also took the Wii Fit out for its first outing that night. It was rather fun as well as being quite the workout! As far as the balance games went, I was absolutely terrible at heading the football and got more blows to the head by flying objects such as football boots than I actually managed to head the ball! But I was surprisingly good at the ski jump! I also found some of the muscle workout exercises were quite sweat inducing, particularly the press ups and lunges. It is very cleverly done with a trainer and everything...I can see us having a few fights about whose turn it is to use the Wii before long!
On the 2nd we had Jared, Carrie and Charlotte over for coffee, Noah really enjoyed Charlotte's company, they had a ball jumping on the spare bed and playing in Noah's elephant pool and with the train set. After a mammoth 3 hour sleep (Noah, not us...we wish!), we headed out to Pauatahanui to catch up with Mark's boss Andrew, his wife Nichola and their wee girl Maddison.
Unfortunately the weather that we had on New years Day did not last and we've had a couple of grey and windy days. It hasn't stopped us enjoying ourselves though! Today we made the most of the afternoon when the weather perked up and headed out to the zoo. We have found ourselves barely needing the stroller these holidays, and Noah managed to walk all the way round the zoo today, no trouble at all. It was feeding time at the zoo (literally) while we were there, and so we were able to see the pelicans, baboons and giraffes all being fed which was fascinating. We had the place to ourselves, in fact Wellington seemed pretty deserted all round today which made it very easy to get from place to place!
One memorable moment today was when Mark and Noah were standing against the airport runway fence watching some planes take off when the wind clean lifted Mark's cap off his head and over a 10-foot barb wire fence onto a side area of the runway. Mark was a bit gutted as it is his favourite cap! Mark pleaded with me to go and see if anyone was inside the Life Flight (rescue helicopter) centre next door...and luckily there was a very obliging lady who was happy to go and retrieve it for us. So the hat was back on his head in a matter of minutes! We remarked on the way home that there are probably not many international airports in the world where you could have your hat blown off your head into a secure airport area and actually get it back again!
We are not sure what tomorrow will bring yet, Mark has been asked to go for a bike ride but he's been fighting a strange malaise for about a week now - headaches, lethargy and aching muscles and had to take a fair few painkillers yesterday to get rid of yet another a thumping headache, so it seems that a mountain bike ride might be a bit too much to ask of his body at this point. I seem to have escaped it so far, and have been enjoying lots of running with the iPod Shuffle Mark got me for Christmas. I think I am up to 10 runs in 3 weeks now so I feel like I might be just about back on the exercise wagon...not before time. Or at the very least I have hopefully just about offset all the naughtiness of Christmas indulgence!
Well, our feet are firmly into 2009 now. It's back to work on Monday, although Mark will only have a week before he starts his new job with Hertz on the 12th January. And it's also just 4 weeks until our lovely parents arrive from the UK, we are already feverish with excitement!
And now I'll leave you with my favourite shot of Noah from these holidays taken in the London copper's hat sent by Baba for Christmas...gorgeous!
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