Christmas 2009

So the marking is over; thank goodness for that, and the holiday has begun!!! After 1300 exams I am finally happy to put "physics" behind me and move on to art of baking. Truly, in addition to "baking a child", I have been baking up a storm in the kitchen. Must be the nesting starting, who knows.

We headed up to Wanganui for Christmas with Uncle John And Cushla and the rest of the clan. We had about 17 people with us for Christmas lunch and it was great to see everyone. For those of you in a winter Christmas, we had full sunshine all Christmas day. So much so that it snuck up on me while I was sitting under a tent and the back of my arms got a wee bit sunburnt. However, I must say that there hasn't been many Christmas days where I have been complaining about sunburn!

In the afternoon, we headed to the park to play teeball with some of the lil cousins. All was going well until another little boy from a different family decided to join in and grabbed the bat and ball and had a swing with the bat, then decided to take off with it; so we had to stop the game a moment to get the bat back. Too funny.
The next day was Boxing day so Bryce and I hit the stores and got some great deals on a camera and a microwave. We had been meaning to buy both for a long time, especially the camera. Never really felt the need to overheat my food quickly in a metal box (the oven has always been fine), but EVERYONE seems to feel that if you have a baby, you MUST have a microwave. So we caved. It won't be too bad I am sure. I will have to get used to using one again though. I tried putting some ham in the microwave today for a minute and luckily a friend stopped me after 15 seconds and said, "I think you will find it's done already!" as its spluttering away. Felt like a grandma with an Ipod!
After all of our shopping we went to the pool with the kids and me tummy being hard to hide in a bathing suit made me stand out a bit. First, I wasn't allowed to go on the water slide which was pretty disappointing. Then when I ran through the inflatable obstacle course that they have over the water, I kept slipping which slowed me down. Some kid must have caught up to me and landed on top of me over some hurdle and said, "oh sorry, miss, I don't think these things are meant for people as big as you!". Needless to say, I gave him a bit of an "accidental" shove to knock him in the water after that.

Yesterday, Kirstin (Bryce's childhood friend) and her boyfriend Ant from Australia came to visit for the night in the midst of their New Zealand Christmas tour. It was great to see them and catch up with Pam (Kirstin's mom), Andrew and Quentin for a bit before they all headed back up north.
No plans for New Years yet, but we are very excited about Clare and Brent's wedding on the 2nd. Then we head up north to do some "last summer as only two" holidaying before coming back to school and getting ready for the April Project to kick it off!

I'm getting bigger!

We went out for Bryce's birthday last night and I had some fun wearing this dress which showed off the bump pretty well. Don't think I will be able to fit the dress by New Years though at the rate I am going!
Just over 25 weeks now.

Meet Mr G.

More marking procrastination....

This is a clip from Summer Heights High. An australian show that involves one actor who plays 3 different characters. Politically incorrect and so funny. Maybe funnier because I am a teacher.
(Warning: there is a bit of swearing in this clip.)

23 Weeks.

What you will note here is an attempt by Candace to do anything but mark school exam papers, no new update in ages then a whole lot at once. Here is the 23 week 'getting bigger' shot.

Vball reunion

I had a game organised last week between the Senior Girls vball team I coached for 5 years who graduated in 2006 and the Senior Girls from this year. It was great to see all the old girls again and catch up with what they are doing now. Makes me feel a bit older to see how they are done, or almost done university now! Fun day though.

More photos....

I keep meaning to have a weekly update on this thing but I seem to go in cycles: whenever I have time to add to it, I have nothing interesting to add. When I am too busy to add stuff, it seems like that is when I have stuff I want to put on here!
I will just add some of the most recent photos from my phone and do a quick entry. I seem to be in one of those phases where they is too much to do right now. Doing exam marking again this year and still have about 1000 Physics papers left to mark. What was I thinking?


This is a photo of Kim and I taken at a karaoke bar during Clare's hens party.


And this one is Clare (the hen herself) and Kim and I before the night became a bit more wild. Belly dancing and karaoke were fun. Even for a pregnant chick! I found it weird to try to swing my hips, and shake my pelvis, without actually being able to differentiate the difference anymore between my waist and hips!


This is a photo of John and Bryce, the day after John had eye surgery. This is the first time Bryce had ever seen his uncle without glasses. John's vision had been improved from the surgery and he said he was feeling naked without his specs. Awesome!!


This is some of the teachers and I at school who are dressed up as zombies for our end of year "dance on stage, look like weirdos and entertaing the kids" dance. I am on the left. A pregnant zombie made some of the kids a bit weirded out. He He

New photos of the April Project

SOme photos from my trip...

What a great time it was back in Canada! Vegas was great too, but nothing beats being at home with Mom, Dad, brothers, nieces and nephews and friends! And Clamato by the bucketful!

The vacation so far...

Tim and I and our big belies. Not sure what he is growing in his though...

Robyn's parents cottage, near Parry Sound. Great place. The swimming in chilly cold rainstorm weather was interesting. Memorable though. Bryce made some good "cold" noises whilst bombing off a jumping rock.

The Knight ladies (Kristie, Maire, Mom, Kathy and I)

Mom, Dad and Bubble

The pool at Treasure Island in Las Vegas where we stayed at the beginning of the trip

The last two weeks...

Last weekend I went to a Murder-Mystery birthday party, that was set like we were all at a school reunion. We all had to dress up like school students and then had different roles, etc. My role was House nerd, or SWOT.

Yesterday, we headed down to Wellington to have lunch with Donal. It is so nice to have him back in New Zealand, as he has been back in Ireland for most of this year. He is working for WETA workshop, who is the company that did all the Lord of the Rings cool effects and designs as well as King Kong and lots of others. He says there are cool replicas of characters from all these movies all over his workplace.
We then went to the World Press Photo exhibit which has award winning photos taken by journalist around the world from the last year. ONe of the most incredible photos was of a family in China who were busy cooking in their kitchen, with the countertop all tidied and cleaned off to cook from, but there were no walls to the kitchen. Nor was there anything but rubble in the rest of the photo. (It was taken after the big earthquake in China last year). But in the midst of all the destruction, this family were using the only space they had left to cook dinner. Just amazing.
After that Bryce and I went for a walk around a forest in the middle of the city called Otari-Wilton's Bush. We hiked up to see an 800 year old rimu tree, the oldest in Wellington.

After that, we made it up to Otaki to see the Pram College canoe polo team play in the finals of their competition. Neat game similar to soccer or hockey, with the net being above the water and everyone in a pool with kayaks. Great day.

Marking and packing today and then off to sunny Las Vegas tomorrow!!

Our Plum tree

I am loving looking out the window in the morning and seeing our plum tree covered in snow. Well, actually, no snow, but the white blossoms look like snow and being a Canadian, I would expect to see snow-covered trees in the winter. It is weird having a long winter with just serious wind and rain, without snow. Lucky, we are almost near the end of it and in only a few weeks, B and I will be lapping up the Vegas sunshine!

1000 awesome things

I love this website. Anytime you feel low, check this site out and remember that bad days don't last! There is always something good in your day!

http://1000awesomethings.com/

I love this lady...

My brother introduced me to this video. How great!

Whole lotta shakin going on...

So, yep. We are fine. Nice to see so many people worried about us way down here. Nobody takes the term earthquake or tsunami lightly ever since 2004 eh?
Bryce and I were watching TV when we felt a massive jolt (biggest I've felt since being here) and then some shaking afterwards. It was all over within about 10 seconds though. Eddie sure wasn't happy about it. She jumped up real quickly (from being lazy in front of the fire) and her ears were pinned back with a thick tail.
It turns out to have been a 7.8 earthquake down in Fiordland, which is to the west of Invercargill (the southern most city in NZ). They have been having lots of aftershocks but not too much damage. One guy said that he was sleeping in his campervan and thought some young punks were standing outside shaking his caravan. He was yelling at them and when the shaking stopped, he realised after when checking outside that there had been no one around! Some other guy said he was in the bath and the water was sloshing from side to side!

This is a seismic graph from last night that shows a big shake on the drum at almost 10 pm. The red area means that the shaking was so much that they block it off from shaking too much and wrecking the rest of the graph. As you can see, the shaking has continued since. We haven't felt anything else since though, up here in the BIG P!

The reason why I ride cautiously...

Cyclocross

Bryce rode in a Cyclocross race this past weekend. Pretty cool race; ride a short 1km (or so) lap around a park, with lots of little descents and climbs, and some barriers that you need to get off your bike and jump over. Seems inconvenient but a fun challenging race. Especially for the spectators who were able to see the riders several times on each lap. Carl and Denise (and their wee one Liam) were here for the weekend too, so Bryce had lots of support as he rode 16 laps in 45 minutes. He was not too pleased about the mistake he made by sprinting to finish in front of some other guy, only to find out he had one more lap to go after that. So displeased he was, it went internal and Bryce actually vomited in his mouth. He was able to swallow it, but that probably didn't help the last lap either. He was shattered at the end. An hour later, with a coffee and a brownie in his tummy and he was a fresh kiwi again!

Still here!

Haven't updated for a while. I guess married life has been pretty busy and fun and I just haven't been getting around to catching up everyone on what's going on. Its winter here now and we are having to crank up the fireplace every night. It is nice and cozy inside though. I miss summer and I miss having Mom and Dad here. I was so lucky to have them here for so many weeks in this year, over two trips! Next exciting thing is to head to Canada and Vegas for our trip in September. Until then, I sit in front of the fire, with my Clamato (a treat from all the Canadian visitors I have had over the last few months)!

More photos again....

More wedding pics

I have a husband!

So as you can imagine, the last few months have been a bit busy with being the first term of school, new roles at school, volleyball season, and also a wedding. But the term is over, and the wedding was Saturday, so I am now beginning to reap the rewards of all of the work we have just done!
And yes, the wedding was awesome. An absolute perfect day, with stunning sunshine, no wind and just fantastic company! We had so much fun hanging out with everyone and just enjoying a special day. The ceremony was pretty special, and very beautiful in the middle of the garden. More pictures will follow, but here is the first one.

Beach Volley shot from last weekend

I took some students to the Beach Nationals last weekend. Check out this shot I got.

We are engaged!

We are very excited! More to come...




The ring is just a fun ring until we find something better for PE teaching.