Flying visit to the Tron for a precious family meet up..

A few weeks back, actually a whole month back (yes I am THAT behind with my posts!) we travelled up to Hamilton for a short-long weekend with the family. I say short-long as by the time we got up on Saturday afternoon, had crazy fireworks with daredevil Uncle Sam on Saturday night, hung out with Nic, Kim and Maia who'd arrived over from Oz on the Sunday, had dinner at Sam and Alesha's on Sunday night, spent some time at the Hamilton gardens on Monday, it was time to come home again. Just like that!

We seem to strike it pretty lucky on our journeys north through the centre of the island, and this trip was no different. With a cold snap only a few days behind us, there was an incredible amount of snow on the mountains for this time of year - it sure made for some good photo opportunities as we drove.

Most times, we avoid getting stuck in traffic in Taupo and skirt around it on the bypass. But today being a normal (non-holiday) weekend, we figured it would be safe to venture in - plus we needed to pick up a voucher for my brother's birthday and it was bang on time for lunch. We found ourselves a lovely little self-serve sushi place that wowed us all - so much so that we stopped in again on the way home! Love finding little spots like that!

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. But we had plenty of thrills and spills that night when Sam brought over a whole load of unsold fireworks from his shop and proceeded to get all crazy making sparkler bombs and fireworks cakes. Let's just say it's a good thing Mum and Dad's field was still pretty green during the spectacular otherwise I'm fairly sure we'd have set the paddock alight. Great fun though!

Sunday was a quiet day, our weary travellers who'd taken an overnight flight from Oz needed some time just to recover and rest, and the most exciting thing we did was take a bike ride over the new swing bridge a few roads over and then bike all the way home to Nana and Poppa's. Which sounds like it should be fun but it's a bit terrifying as a parent letting your child loose on the country roads where the speed limit is up to 100 km/hr. I breathed a big sigh of relief when we made it back onto their dead end road.

We'd struck lovely weather for the weekend, and so a trip to Hamilton Gardens is always high on the list of places to go when we're there. Hamilton Gardens has gained such a reputation over the past few years with its constant development of new themed gardens that it's even winning international awards these days! There are new gardens being developed all the time so visiting only a couple of times a year means there's a lot of progress to see.

Someone may have been having a 'moment' in the photo below! Love how he curls his feet over like his daddy though!

This photo is available for sale in the Nature Gallery on my website: Meghan Maloney Photography

This photo is available for sale in the Beautiful NZ gallery on my website: Meghan Maloney Photography

And then there was the joy of hanging out with this little girl.

As you can see I also made up for lost time shooting loads of photos of our niece, she is such a gorgeous wee cherub and just recently turned one. She's growing so fast (it seems especially so when we don't live in the same country!) so I had to take advantage of the moments while they presented themselves. Missy Maia as I like to call her has quite possibly the sunniest, smiliest personality of any littlie I've ever met and I think this shines through in the photos!

On our last night, we settled in for a game of Settlers of Catan - which is a bit of a tradition, and always ends up being a little too competitive - I may or may not have been shooting daggers at Mark very early on in the game !

It's hard to believe the next time we will all be together is in Rarotonga next May for Sam and Alesha's wedding - it feels as if a week on a tropical island can't come soon enough right now!

49/52: Goals, goals, goals - for the love of the game

A portrait of my children once a week every week in 2014

I never want to be one of those parents who brags all the time about how good her kids are at x or y. I was absolutely useless at sports growing up - I'm still scared when any balls come flying at me whether it be in football, cricket or any other ball game. Badminton was my thing - I think I enjoyed it because even if you did get hit with the shuttlecock there was no real danger of getting properly hurt. And when I recall the fact Mark has broken his arm twice since coming to NZ, once when a cricket ball hit him and the other time when a football hit his wrist last year - I feel somewhat justified in my fear of flying balls!

That being said, our boys have developed a real love of football - and I have Mark to thank for that for getting them involved so early in Little Dribblers and more recently in a local winter football club. Noah was pretty timid in the early days, and has really only come into his own on the field the past two years - he's really tall for his age and has learnt to use his size to his advantage on the field. (And I totally forgot to get any photos of Noah playing this week - too focused on encouraging him from the sidelines!)

Mylo on the other hand, well he was wanting to kick anything that moved before he could even walk properly, and growing up in his brother's shadow it was inevitable that he would start playing at some point. I don't know that much about football, but Mark tells me that having a good left foot is a fairly rare skill in football, and despite not being a leftie - Mylo seems to love kicking with this foot!

This year, both the boys are playing in Friday football teams with kids from their class at school. This means that this mama has to stand on the sidelines at the notoriously windy and freezing cold Ian Galloway park for two hours on a Friday afternoon both this term and next. We are about seven weeks into the season and we are yet to have a warm and windless afternoon - the past two weeks have been utterly bitter - so much so that Mylo and I had to retreat to the car between games for a bit of respite one of the weeks. Last week I even had two jackets on (one was a puffer!) that's how cold it can get and it's meant to be SUMMER football - ha de ha ha!

Last week both the boys had great games though - Mylo scored 7 out of his team's 8 goals and it was great to see him be a leader on the field amongst his classmates. Noah also scored 4 goals out of his team's 5 goals so we had two happy and proud guys who came home that night. I would be lying if I said I wasn't totally stoked and super proud of their efforts - but I love watching them play even when they don't score any goals at all - coming from this ball-scared girly I find the fact they are on the field getting so stuck in pretty awesome just in itself!

A date night at the Cape {with lighthouses and friendly cows}

When I told Mark that I wanted to go and get some sunset shots of the lighthouse at Cape Egmont, he said 'I guess I'd better come along for protection too then'.

You see that? That's true love right there.

We left the boy's at Gee Gee's with strict instructions to go to bed after the start of the national provincial rugby final which was coincidentally being hosted and contested by Taranaki that night and they won too which was even better - the first time ever! The drive to the Cape is almost an hour around the Coast, and the further round we went, the more the skies darkened.

I have this ability to get pretty het up if I think that the weather is going to put a kybosh on my plans. So when a few spots of rain hit the windscreen I had to seriously hold in my anxiety. The mountain had long disappeared behind a thick cloud so I knew I wouldn't be able to get any of the lighthouse foreground, mountain background shots I'd originally wanted.

That being said, from past experience I know that stormy skies and lighthouses makes for an equally exciting backdrop so I figured I'd better reserve judgement till we arrived.

The lighthouse is on farmland very close to the sea (funny that!) but not right beside the water as some lighthouses are. We had to step our way through some very large cow pats to get up the hill and sure enough soon we were surrounded by some super inquisitive and friendly four-legged friends. So much so that they followed Mark right around the lighthouse and back again.

This photo is available for purchase in my Lighthouse Gallery on Meghan Maloney Photography

I was actually getting a little miffed after a while as the cows were appearing in in ALL my shots - but hey, it's rural NZ and we were on their patch so what can you do but go along with it?!

Not so miffed about this guy though - it was so nice to share this night and experience with him even if he does look rather pained in this shot, I think he was secretly enjoying himself!

I don't know what it is about lighthouses - they are so majestic and always seem to be set against such stunning landscapes that it's kinda hard to take a bad shot in my opinion. When the lovely setting is combined with time spent with your loved one and some Lindt dark chilli chocolate to share - well it's always gonna be a good night.

This print is available for purchase in my Lighthouse Gallery on Meghan Maloney Photography

This print is available for purchase in my Black and White Gallery on Meghan Maloney Photography

As the sun sank lower in the sky, we headed down to the beach - well tried to. It was a very rugged beach with pretty big slippery rocks so in the end decided that instead of slipping and sliding all over the place, perhaps this vantage point would do just fine actually!

I would so love to come back here on a night where the mountain is clear - just IMAGINE the cool backdrop that would make - maybe at Christmas I can give it a whirl when we'll be back to see Gee Gee for a couple of nights on the way home from Hamilton.

What about you? Do you love lighthouses? Have you ever even seen one up close and tried to take photos of it?!

ONE DAY ONLY Canvas Giveaway - your pick of photo!

Hi lovelies. How's your Christmas shopping going? If you're like me, rushed-off-your-feet busy with a new website and a market fair 3 weeks before Christmas (who does that by the way!), then you'll appreciate how much I'm loving the ability to get 95% of my shopping done online - it makes life so much easier - but it does require a little forethought too to make sure everything arrives in time!

And as I'm feeling all 'in the Christmas spirit' I thought you might like the opportunity to win your very own piece of Meghan Maloney Photography artwork to hang on your wall - or to give to a loved one this Christmas. So how does an A3 size canvas with your choice of photo on it from any of the Meghan Maloney Photography Galleries? Pretty good I'd say!

The thing is though you're gonna have to be SUPER DUPER QUICK on this one people - as it's a one day only offer hosted by The Best Nest and The Bubbalino Kitchen as part of their 12 Days of Christmas giveaways -  so a little bit like Cinderella it'll expire early tomorrow morning if you don't get onto it!

So to be in to win head on over to both The Best Nest and The Bubbalino Kitchen NOW for your best chance to enter.

NB: due to the time restraints with Christmas delivery deadlines this giveaway is open only to NZ addresses.

Finally a funky place for little guys...Welcome to The Boy's Store...

It's a big week all round this week people!

Not only have I just launched my new photography website Meghan Maloney Photography but I've also been helping my oldest, dearest friend in the world (we've been friends since about age 11 so you do the math!) who has just launched an awesome new online store called The Boy's Store this week too.

The Boy's Store has been created as a unique online store to celebrate boys being boys in all their loud and messy glory.  And guess what - I'm lucky enough to be involved as key content writer for the site - making good use of all those years of blogging!

Here's a little taster of our dream for The Boy's Store:

No longer do you have to search all over the Internet to find quality, affordable and cool gear for your exuberant bundles of boy energy. We've been frustrated in the past that a space like this didn't exist anywhere online so we decided we would just go ahead and build it for you. 

We’re also here to put the ‘cool’ back into being a boy. To give your wee buddy the opportunity to grow an imagination beyond his wildest dreams doing the things that boys love to do best, and of course it can’t hurt to look pretty darn cool while doing it too right?! 

We don't want you to think for a moment that we are just an online store though. Of course we plan to be your one-stop-shop for all the little dudes in your life, offering the ultimate in cool and funky alongside functional and quality products and all at reasonable prices. But more than that we want to go on this journey of learning about boys with you, to partner with you and build a community who just want to bring out the best in their boys and to give you all the tools and advice you've been searching for. And even better it’ll be all in one place right here. So we're more than a little bit excited about the opportunity to share this with you too. 

The Boy's Store plans to be to boys what The Sleep Store has been for sleep - i.e.  a one-stop shop with quality, affordable and cool gear for little guys, with plenty of great articles and ideas for parenting your little dudes along the way.

If you know some awesome little buddies whether they're your own or they belong to someone near and dear to you, The Boy's Store is the place to go for inspiration.

So head on over and check out the awesome-ness that is The Boy's Store!

48/52: getting into the spirit of it

A portrait of my children once a week every week in 2014

A couple of weeks ago we went to our friend's place for a belated Guy Fawkes fireworks night. Sometimes it's good to have to step outside your comfort zone and you both surprised us by being willing to hang out with the girls and get your 'pretty' on. We were especially surprised that you were OK with this Noah at the age you are, but good on you for getting into the spirit of it all. The face says it all mind you!

 



This is the third year running that we've had a fireworks night with our good friends and every year the kids get that much more into it - less frightened of the big bangs, more adventurous. Noah - this year you were even brave enough to light and throw a smoke bomb or two!

 

 

The best bit was seeing all you kids playing so happily for hours without any adult intervention!