The MNM's are on the move: finally we can share our news!

This will probably be old news to some but very new and surprising news to others! At times it's felt like the worst best kept secret as family and close friends already know our plans but yet we haven't been in a position to broadcast the whole story to all until now.

But I better back the truck up and start from the very beginning:

More than a year ago when we were doing the long drive down country on our way back from our annual summer holiday up in the Waikato I read a wonderful blog post by Sophie (formerly of Little Gumnut) challenging me to 'dream the impossible'. The words that really spoke to my heart were these:

'What is it that you believe God cannot do for you this year? Why don't you ask him to do the impossible and see what happens?'

This sparked a conversation between Mark and I about the prospect of moving up to the Waikato - to be closer to family and to live in a warmer climate being at the top of the list of reasons why we would make the move. As the months progressed, we talked and discussed the whys and hows, but somewhere along the way the wheels fell off and the idea just stagnated. I think looking back the timing wasn't quite right and God put the brakes on.

So we just had to hand the idea back over to God and I instead threw myself into developing a passion for landscape photography. I'm grateful that things turned out the way they did as if we'd progressed our plans last year I may never have had the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of new photography friends, nor take any of the shots that came from my camera in the latter half of the year.

So it was with a sense of deja vu that we were in the Waikato again at Christmas still with the thought of moving in our heads just bubbling away on the back burner. We talked and discussed the idea with family more and came home and started going through the motions of mentally preparing ourselves for a move - cleaning, tidying, de-cluttering.

Hence the water blasting marathon effort Mark put in:

And the clear-out of I lost count of how many boxes of baby clothes sold on Trade Me and taken to the Sallies.

But we still didn't really have a definitive plan. One day in church I prayed the prayer - 'God if this is your will, if this is what we are meant to be doing, then you need to smooth the way and make it easy for this to happen, otherwise I'm not sure it ever will'

The very next night I got a call from a real estate agent out of the blue asking if we were thinking about selling in the next wee while. So we lined up a provisional meeting with him. Then we went out with our zone pastors from church for lunch and they recommended another agent who they had used in the past and couldn't rate highly enough - so I got in contact with him too - and it was this agent we ended up listing with and sold with!

So by mid-February we now had a rough plan - we needed to do a little bit of repair work on the exterior of the house - which actually turned into us getting a whole paint/re-coat done on the house as this would give a new buyer a 7-year peace of mind warranty since it's a monolithic texture clad house (i.e. the type of house that has the 'leaky home' stigma attached to it and can make it difficult to sell). This wasn't a cheap exercise by any stretch of the imagination but we just gave this extra cost over to God and said 'we trust that when the house sells we will recoup this money'. We also tried to put ourselves in the best position by getting an invasive builders report and the LIM report done up front to reduce the number of conditions people would come to the table with their offer.

We also got the carpet repaired - both a stair which Murphy had picked to death as well as some old battery acid stains from Thomas the Tank Engine trains that had leaked in the lounge years ago. Then we got the carpet cleaned as well.

In the background we were cleaning, tidying, decluttering, planting to get the place looking ship shape. Photos were taken, adverts were written and the house went officially on the market on 17 March with a short 2 week deadline sale process - offers had to be in by Wednesday 1 April.

Here's what the house looked like went it went on the market:

This part of the process was by far the hardest - keeping the house looking like a show home with kids around is no mean feat - a feat which fell to Mark every morning as he was the one getting the boys out of the house to school and having to leave it looking pristine. He joked that it was a bit like forensics - having to wipe down every surface and back out of the house trying not to touch anything!

We had 3 open homes - a Thursday night and 2 Sundays - even that proved challenging as Mylo had a tummy bug the night before the first Sunday open home and we were desperately trying to avoid any vomit on the newly cleaned carpet. Luckily, he was a trooper and made it to the bathroom each time. The poor sausage was not well though and as we had to be out of the house for the open home we ended up driving up the road to the local Countdown and sitting in the carpark there while it was on as we couldn't go to church with a vomiting child! While Mark popped in to get some things, Mylo sat in the back seat - ice cream container at the ready - and eventually fell asleep!

There was good interest in the house but getting the feedback reports through was still nerve wracking as most of the comments seemed quite negative - and much as you want to be realistic about the limitations of your own property - it's also hard to hear someone slating it when you've loved living there for the past 8 years!

Early on in the process I'd been praying just for the house to sell, but along the way I changed my prayers to 'God I really want 2 good offers for us to be able to choose between of at least xx' so that we would not lose money on the house.

It came down to the deadline day - and we nervously met at the real estate office in town to see what (if any) offers we had. There were four offers - the first two were (we felt) quite low with building report conditions and I admit my heart sank a wee bit at that point. The third offer (which was unconditional) was about $10k higher and was the minimum amount that I'd been praying we would get just so we didn't walk out having lost money on the house during our time here. The last offer was higher still and blew us clean away. It was towards the top end of the range that the agent said we might be able to get for the house and just wow....

Not only that but the buyers had written us a lovely letter accompanying their offer telling us about them as a family with three kids why they loved our house and wanted to buy it. I tell you I was a blubbering mess at that point.  Yes the extra money was nice but even more so for me was the knowledge that a family with kids aged 12, 9 and 7 would be moving into our little cul-de-sac - the exact ages of the other 7 kids who all live around us.  In the past 18 months, our boys have spent so much time playing outdoors with their friends and not only will we be very sad to leave these families behind but we also wanted the reassurance that someone good would be following in our footsteps.

This news was such a massive relief - and I think played a big part in why my body just basically shut down at that point and I got very ill - we had been working up to this day for months with all our preparations and then suddenly everything was resolved in the blink of an eye. The internal release of stress must have played a big part in the Crohn's taking hold at that point. But back to the story at hand.

So stage 1 of the MNM's move north is complete - house sold - tick!

I do have to say how utterly blown away by God's faithfulness I have been all along this journey - there were moments (like having to fork out a lot of cold hard cash for the external repair and re-coat) where I was questioning what on earth we were doing.  What if we'd invested all that money and then the house didn't sell? But as always is the case, He had it absolutely in control. And my very specific prayers were answered through the offer process giving us a very good price for our house, and He has also blessed our neighbourhood with exactly the right family to replace us in this little close-knit street which meant so much to us as well.

I don't want to leave you all hanging too much but this post is already WAAAAAAY too long, so tomorrow I'll share about our plans for our new life up in the Waikato... where we will be living and working and the like so stay tuned.....!

Another crazy, foolish day shared with you

Dearest Markie 

Today we share our 17th time of celebrating our birthdays on the same day. And while recent circumstances have meant that today will be much more of a subdued and less exciting shared birthday than some of our other more memorable ones (like last year when we had such awesome adventures in Queenstown), I cannot let the moment go past without reflecting on what it means to me to be sharing the day of my birth with you....again.

For a start, it was a crazy, foolish thing we did in the eyes of most, thinking that a Kiwi girl and an English lad who lived half a world apart could make this thing called true love work. But it was right and it was true. And we believed in it enough to make it happen. It wasn’t a walk in the park to make it work and we both made sacrifices, but make it work we did. And we are here to tell the tale.

Now looking back I can see I’d have been crazy foolish NOT to fall for you. I know you might feel funny about me extolling your physical virtues but hey can I help it if I think you’re super sexy - I first loved and married the 30kg heavier version of you and thought I’d hit the jackpot even back then - but you can bet I certainly didn’t complain about the new version of Markie that arrived on the scene a few years later either (who secretly reminds me a bit of a certain All Black first five who shall not be named).

And who wouldn’t want to spend their life with the most generous, caring and helpful guy known to man? One who never complains when he has to do more than his fair share in the family, a classic example being the past week when you’ve had to pick up all the pieces and keep things going when my brokenness has laid me low and incapable of doing much at all?  

Who wouldn’t want to live their life with a dad that her sons respect and look up to and who encourages them to be the very best they can hope to be? Who gives them opportunities to love all kinds of sport and new experiences and helps them learn new skills with the greatest of patience in all their hours of play together. 

And as we are about to enter a very new and different chapter in our lives together with a lot of leaping into the unknown still to come, I have no doubt there will be challenges ahead but I know together we can overcome them. I still say that taking a chance on a love that has already crossed oceans and continents and been the foundation for these amazing 17 years of shared Happy Birthdays together, is by far the best crazy, foolish thing I could ever have done. 

Love you my best ever birthday buddy 

xx Meg

Capitalising on the cricket world cup.....

You'd have to have been living under a rock in NZ to have missed the hype and entertainment of the cricket world cup that was on down under for most of February and March.

Our boys have been at the perfect age to learn about the game this time round and to really get into the action, so it's no surprise our living room was turned into a cricket pitch every morning and afternoon and there were a few near misses of breakable items as (soft) balls came whizzing in all directions. It makes a change from it being turned into a football field I suppose!

 Excuse the very blurry early morning iPhone photos - but you get the idea!

Mylo managed to accidentally break the little soft cricket bat we've had for a few years so they had to make do playing with a softball bat instead - which goes to show you'll use anything when you're committed to the cricket cause. Mark even splurged out on some of the fancy light up cricket bails to add a bit of fun to their endeavours - they did have to spend a fair while doing jobs to earn them mind you as they weren't cheap!

Growing up, cricket was by far and away my favourite sport. We went to several regional cricket games at the marvellous Pukekura park natural amphitheatre venue in New Plymouth while I was in my early teens and I will never forget the day I managed to get autographs and photos with Chris Harris, Nathan Astle but not to be trumped by a photo with my all-time hero Chris Cairns. This was in 1991, while they were all representing NZ on a national level and were part of the team who did so well at the 1992 world cup when it was last hosted in these here parts. Imagine my surprise when I then ended up sitting next to (and working up the courage to have a chat to!) my hero Chris Cairns a couple of years back on my way to the inaugural bloggers conference in Christchurch - that totally made my day I can tell you!

A sneaky pic I couldn't resist when I realised who it was!

As a teenager with a love of the game, I even decided I'd try my hand playing cricket in 7th form for our girls team at Morrinsville College - not very well mind you - I'm not much of a team sport player because I'm not particularly gifted with sporting abilities but I also have a terrible fear of any balls coming at me at speed which makes it difficult to do well from the outset!

When I later moved to England, Mark was already playing cricket for a local team so I often went to watch an hour or two of his Saturday games and our combined love of the game even took us to the Oval in England to watch NZ vs England one day during the time we lived in London. Mark carried on playing cricket for a local Wellington team when we first arrived back here in 2002 but a bouncing ball to the lower arm which broke his arm the following year meant his cricket whites were packed away and have been not seen since, apart from to show them the boys - although none of his kit would get anywhere near fitting him now that he's 30 kg lighter than he was back in those days!

Family day out watching Sri Lanka vs England - how very English do the two guys in front of us

look in their hats!

We have absolutely relished the coverage of the world cup here - Mark went to quite a few of the games with his friends, and as a family we even went and watched the Sri Lanka v England pool game at Westpac Stadium. Thankfully it was one of those 'can't beat Welly on a good day' days so we all thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and the opportunity to hang out with a few of our friends and neighbours who'd all come down for the game. Wellington's civic square was even turned into a village green for people to come and watch the final few big games on the big screen!

Unfortunately for Mark, his time down at the stadium for NZ's quarter final against the West Indies was cut short at the end of NZ's innings when he had to make an emergency dash across Wellington to retrieve a puking Mylo from a sleepover (since I was busy at our church womens conference) so he had to make do with watching the West Indies innings from the couch overseeing vomiting proceedings from time to time. But enough about that and at least he got to see Martin Guptill get his 200 runs!

Throughout the tournament, he boys have truly surprised me with their ability to pick up on the game so quickly - happily discussing even the more unusual players' names and some of the terminology of the game - you could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard Noah say 'he's nutmegged him' one day - I had to stop and ask him what that was - and here was I thinking I knew a fair bit about the game!

The night of the semi final when NZ played South Africa Mark was out at a friends and I was resigned to watching it on my own. When Noah poked his head out of his room at 8.30pm and asked how the game was going, I asked if he'd like to stay up and watch as I was rather keen to have a buddy to watch it with as I could tell it was turning into a bit of a nailbiter. It turned out to be one of the most thrilling one-day games the cricketing world has ever seen and I'm so glad I got to share that with him - even though it made for a very late night! With the game hanging in the very balance at the beginning of the last over, our screams of delight as Daniel Vettori hit a four to the boundary woke Mylo - who came out bleary-eyed wondering what on earth was going on. He perked up soon enough and got to see Grant Elliott hit the emphatic six that scored our winning runs to catapult us into NZ's history books with a place in the World Cup final - huzzah!

Two boys witness history being made as the Black Caps 

blasted their way to the final (which made it a very late night!)

Despite the fact the final didn't go our way, the Black Caps performance throughout the tournament has inspired young and old across the country and rekindled a lot of love for the game which has been awesome. We've decided to capitalise on the boys' current interest and get them along to a cricket holiday programme that's running during the school holidays and hopefully they might still be keen enough to then join a cricket team next summer too....

It's great to be able to add another interest to their sporting repertoire too...!

Attack of the Crohn's...again!

There was a distinct sense of deja vu this week as I found myself staring down the barrel of another Crohn's flare-up almost a year to the day since the last one.

It's so frustrating when I'd actually been feeling so good mentally and physically lately. Mark and I had been deliberately eating healthy the past six or seven weeks, and I'd been exercising way more with longer runs and faster runs. I'd started doing Tower Pilates and was feeling stronger and more flexible with less muscle niggles than I had in ages.

But unbeknownst to me, this must have been bubbling away in the background waiting to pounce. Over the past couple of weeks, it'd been gradually ramping up but with a lot of other things that had been going on I'd been successfully managing to ignore it.

Then on Wednesday, we got some life-changing news. And all the planning and waiting to hear had obviously been causing me to internalise way more stress than I had ever imagined. The relief of hearing this news was clearly the last straw and my body just literally crashed to the ground straight afterward. Luckily that afternoon, I got hold of my specialist and upped my medication back to full strength and also got onto doing some samples for the lab which take almost two weeks to come back with results for how active the Crohn's is in my body to determine whether just increasing the dosage will be enough.

On Thursday morning I was not in much of a fit state for anything, but I did manage to drop the samples into the lab at 7am, grab my laptop from work and head home to work from bed for the rest of the day.

 This guy always seems to know when you're ill and was my constant companion all day

I was meant to be finishing packing for our 10-day road trip to Gisborne, the East Cape and Ohope that afternoon, but it was just an effort to even be vertical and walking around the house. I managed to put in an extra burst of effort for an hour or so before crashing on the couch - full body wiped out - and to the point where we really questioned whether we could even go ahead with the trip - with at least 7 hours of driving ahead and with regular waves of tummy cramps hitting me, I wasn't sure how I would cope.

Good Friday dawned and with it my resolution that the show would go on, and I would brave the journey. We got on the road just before 9am, me armed with a hot water bottle and a resolve that this silly disease was not going to get the better of me. It was a very long day as we didn't arrive in Gisborne till nearly 6pm, but the best part of the day by far was the stop at Morere Hot Springs - my tummy just loved the warmth of the plunge pools and I didn't want to get out!

When we arrived in Gisborne, Mark and Noah headed out to get takeaways and after eating dinner I fell asleep on the couch straight afterward for 2 hours - boy I must have needed that!

So here we are, another day down on Saturday, and think that little by little things are on the improve. We got out of the house today for a good chunk of the day - and while I only watched the boys energetically playing beach cricket and boogy boarding, I could at least enjoy the sea air and sunshine and feel a part of the holiday.

So far, the biggest frustration has been that I'm finding myself physically incapable of doing the location photo shoots I'd lined up for this trip... not helped by the fact the clocks are going back tonight either and I physically just cannot get out of bed that early - mornings and evenings are when I feel at my worst, but I'm hoping as each day goes by I will keep improving with less cramps and more strength, so I may yet get some golden opportunities before the holiday ends .... here's hoping!

Giving it a go at the Weetbix Kids Tryathlon

This year Noah decided he'd pair up with a friend from school to race as a team in the Weetbix Kids Tryathlon (doing the swim whilst his friend did the bike and then they ran the running leg together). Not that he wouldn't have been capable of doing the whole thing since the bike is probably his strongest discipline but it was a really good introduction for him to see what an organised event is like.

The Weetbix Kids Tryathlon is a nation-wide event held over a number of weekends throughout the country at different venues, and there were approximately 2,200 kids from all over Wellington competing (in fact the event had completely sold out!) and despite the weather looking decidedly dodgy - it was pouring at 6am which forced the organisers to shorten the older kids section to try and beat the heavy rain forecast again in the afternoon - for the few hours that the event was on the sun actually shone!

Mark and Noah headed off bright and early at 7am to the event which was held at Kilbirnie Park with his team-mate and family early whilst Mylo and I leisurely made our ways around the bays (stopping in for a takeaway coffee on the way - how sleepy I look in the shot below - definitely needed that coffee!) and arrived there at the leisurely time of 10am just in time to see Noah's swim in the pool.

Mark had given him the heads up that we were inside watching so he managed to pick us out in the bleachers across the other side of the pool and we gave him lots of encouraging waves and thumbs up signals while he waited for his race to start.

Despite looking like organised chaos there were a good number of instructors in the pool  helping the kids get through the course - handing out flutter boards for those kids who struggled with the depth of the pool. Noah did a great job of the 100m swim - switching to backstroke for a lot of it - which as well as being his best stroke he found was much easier to prevent getting kicked in the face and made it easier not to get completely splashed. He ran out for transition to tag his team mate and get changed ready for the 1.4 km run.

 Weetbix official photo of Noah in transition

In the meantime, we were waiting at the run finish line and eventually met up with Mark, who then went to grab a coffee and meet up with Noah's team-mate's dad. By this stage we'd moved over near to the start of running course to see if we could see them running which turned out to be a crucial error  - as by this stage they must have already been well ahead of this point - in hindsight we should have stayed put in sight of the finish line as it meant we missed their run altogether.

Thank goodness the Weetbix official photographer captured this for us!

After about twenty or more minutes of watching other kids streaming past to the finish and a couple of trips by Mark to look around for the boys, we decided that they MUST have already finished and be somewhere around the venue - think 2,200 kids plus families and you can imagine the chaos. Anyway, not long after this Mylo and I headed over to the 'lost kids' tent and Mylo spotted Noah and his friend sitting down waiting for us!

We were somewhat gutted to have missed his run and I was worried that Noah might have been nervous that we couldn't find him (knowing he has a history of having a fear of being left places which stems from an incident of getting locked in the toilet at a holiday programme when he was five) but he was just fine since he was with his buddy, it was actually his idea to head on over to the 'lost kids' tent when we hadn't managed to connect with him straight away at the finish line, which was good thinking Batman!

So a great outing for his first multi-sport event and even better he sounds keen to do it again next year! It was also great to run into and catch up with so many other families we knew from our various workplaces over the years, as well as families from school, church and sports teams - it almost felt as if everyone we knew in Wellington was there!

Anything 'but' a happy valley....

How many of you were kept riveted and on the edge of your seats by the Happy Valley drama that was on TVNZ last year? Did you even watch it? Shame on you if you haven't! We missed it at the time but sat down and watched the whole series (only six hour-long episodes) recently.

We've also watched The Missing and Broadchurch (Season 2) recently but I really felt like Happy Valley was in a league of its own for intensity of drama, gripping story line and outstanding acting.

You might first have to get past the fact the main actor policewoman Catherine Cawood from the depths of the drug-ridden Yorkshire valleys (played by Sarah Lancashire) might well be familiar to you as a bar maid in Coro Street in a previous life that is. Her acting is truly sensational in this show, I promise you!

In my humble opinion it had a lot of parallels with Breaking Bad in its intensity, but unlike Breaking Bad which if you stayed the distance there were 5 seasons of anywhere up to 13 episodes per season to get through, this is just a mere six episodes to taunt you, and terrify you with the story line that unfolds.

The villains seem almost decidedly normal to begin with, especially the hard-done-by middle aged accountant who sets in motion a chain of events that he couldn't have even begun to imagine, but as the story unfolds it becomes clear that the main protagonist is deceptively dangerous and cruel beyond belief, whilst Catherine cast as the policewoman who little-by-little uncovers the plot, is herself from an incredibly dysfunctional family history that is unwittingly linked with her main target which makes for riveting if not somewhat harrowing watching at times.

I was literally on the edge of my seat throughout episodes 3 and 4 and both Mark and I actually found it difficult to get to sleep the night we finished watching episode 4 the adrenalin was coursing through our veins so much! To me that is the sign of a great show - although perhaps we should have finished watching it a couple of hours before trying to sleep!

Did you watch it when it aired on TV? If so, what did you think? If not, have I convinced you to watch it now?!