A bit of a catch up...

So, apart from the wedding and all the fun of having UK and Aussie visitors come to see us and share in the fun, lots has been happening since December that has taught me more about the land Izzy comes from and the family he is (and now I am) part of.

Here are some highlights!

We made a veggie patch at Taylors Road to distract us during all the mad wedding preparations..

We met Arlo, our nephew. We even had the honour of welcoming him into the world as soon as he arrived, Daya allowed the whole family to be present! It was incredible, and really fascinating...

We had some fun evenings at Otaki beach - including this one, with a view of Kapiti island, Izzy and I borrowed Mardi's jetski and had some fun until Izzy got a little carried away and threw us both off...

Some of my best buddies came to help me get ready on the morning of the wedding, and having them there made all the difference to my sanity!

Coopers Beach - Northland. Pretty much the only really sunny day on our tiki-tour honeymoon in North Island New Zealand. Can't complain too much though, this was stunning.

I ran up Mount Eden, and was rewarded with this fab view of Auckland.

We met this lovely cow who lives in Taylors Road and likes to watch the world go by.

We gave Maapihi a bath in a bucket!

We met Meika who fell asleep during no nappy time!

We housesat for a month in Kelburn, Wellington, where we thought the view couldn't get any better...

We went to an airshow.

We ate some tasty home-grown goodies!

We went to a basketball game in Wellington and I met Piri Weepu - star All Black!

We had some cuzzies over to watch Daya play netball for the Central Pulse, and dressed up like fools!

We moved into Black Rock Road, Izzy's first house purchase from 10 years ago, and our first home together! Let the renovations begin!

And we find that the view here is the best in Wellington by far...

I get baking - gingernuts to start off with, but have since made scones, brownies, chocolate sponge, numerous crumbles and an apple scone cake. And lots of banana muffins too - baking is so satisfying, I never believe it's actually going to work, so when it does - it's brilliant!

We started off the renovations in the master bedroom, dark blue/grey to a nice cream - shame we didn't insulate first though...brrr thank goodness for electric blankets!

We witnessed the carnage/success of the first duck shooting weekend of the year.

And I get persuaded to have a go at gutting one!

Izzy got to work insulating the house - expol in the floor to start with. Horrid mucky job and I'm secretly relieved he didn't ask for my help!

I designed some blackboard spaces for us to write reminders and shopping lists - such is the sieve-like nature of our memories!

We get to babysit Arlo whilst Daya is playing netball.

We play a trick on Meika when JB and Mardi are away for the weekend.

We go to see the Hurricanes at the Westpak stadium - they won.

We set up a french table for dinner - this is when Nick and Janine came for one of our Super Sunday dinners - we take it in turns to cook something from a different country and make ourselves feel better about the fact it's Monday the next day! So far we've had UK, Thailand, Spain, Mexico, France and next time (our turn) is Italy!

Izzy demolishes and reconstructs the study into my office when I start back working for MedWire again - full time freelance writing from home, and I LOVE IT. No exaggeration.

Although I do sometimes get distracted by the amazing view!

And lastly, for now, I stewed some tamarillos to have with ice-cream one night, as I'd never heard of them let alone tried them before, and they have just come into season. They are a bit odd though, just like fejoas are odd - not sure what I make of NZ fare.. I tried freshly-caught kina (sea urchins) recently too and they were DISGUSTING.

That's it for now. Will try to be a little more regular from now on!

Time flying by...

I can't believe we have been here for 6 months now, and I haven't posted anything in all that time! It's testament to how much has been going on. Most importantly of course, we got married! And so a new adventure began.