Our summer holiday

We headed up north to a place called Whanarua Bay, in the East Cape of New Zealand for our holiday this year - with our good friends Mark, Rachel and their daughter Holly. It was a great week filled with good food, lots of beach time, games, laughs and amazement watching the girls play together and learn from each other. It was fantastic because Emily and Holly synchronized their nap times and that made it really easy for us parents to get good workouts and bike rides done while the girls slept in the morning. Then we would all go have lunch on the beach and play in the sand and waves and then the afternoon nap would allow some book reading or just chillin out. The Mojitos usually made an appearance sometime after that. Pretty tough schedule really!

The view from the deck of our bach (aka cottage)

Mark, Rachel and Holly - our fellow vacationers

A game of BLOW FOOTBALL between Bryce and I - harder than it looks

The boys doing the morning shift, letting the mommies have a sleep-in

The open plan lounge/kitchen/puzzle center/dance floor at the cottage

Interesting picture below. You may have to zoom in on the hind region of this specimen to get the full appreciation of the picture. I found some car keys sitting beside me on the beach and just about to get swept up in the waves. As we left the beach, we were contemplating what to do with these keys when this woman came running up to check the spot we had just been at. We asked her if she was looking for keys and she was surprised and then immediately relieved when she saw us holding them (must have fallen out of her bakcpack). Anyway, she skipped off happily and we all went on with our day, until....we looked a little closer at her backside. Turns out her keys weren't the only thing she forgot that day.

Bryce and Emily on his shoulder - he likes carrying her around but recently she has taken to sticking her fingers deep into his ears when on his shoulders, so it is not the most comfortable position for him. You'd think she would just take hold of his 'fro instead.

This is the dairy (convenience store) that was in the movie "Boy". With Bryce's encouragement, I admit I did re-enact some of the scenes by doing my own Michael Jackson moves in front of the store. I am sure Emily is glad she doesn't know yet how to be embarrassed of her parents.

Dinner and wine on the deck at the cottage. A beautiful view!

Emily and Holly - great friends and fellow connoiseurs of the '70's mix tape we found in the tape recorder. Both girls got their groove on all week, to the same 'wonderful' songs.

Holly and Emily in their beach attire

This is Emily trying endlessly to get on this shelf. She would climb onto it and then get upset because she was then stuck and couldn't sit up or turn; but then when we rescued her, she would go right back to climbing onto it again. She was simply drawn to the shelf....

A tired girl after all the excitement of the holiday

This is the 9 month picture (only about 2 weeks late though). George the bear is sure getting smaller with every month picture we take

Our little girl

Emily and her friends Cara and Sophie


Emily is on the move - we now have crawling races, and chases, and lots and lots of "house-al defence" - as in constantly protecting the rest of the house from Emily the crawling conqueror.

Fun times in 2011

Emily and Daddy playing on the 'rocking elephant'

Mommy got bored and decided that Emily's hair was now long enough to play with

This is what she looked like after we took the pigtails out

Emily in our bean bag

This one is for Nana, the outfit she got Em for Christmas - so cute

Christmas Day

Christmas Day at Trish and Craig's farm is always a fun and exciting time, and this year was no exception. Besides Emily and I trying to conquer a cold, we
enjoyed Christms weekend with John, Cushla, Trish, Craig and the kids Sammy and Henry, and Craig's mother Gladys. Christmas morning was fun; especially watching Emily soak in all the chaos of present opening. She managed very well, and although had no real idea of what was going on, absorbed enough of the excitement to nap really well all day.

On Boxing Day, we helped draft sheep with Craig and Trish. Drafting is the process of getting all the ewes and lambs into sheep pens and then pushing them through bunch by bunch until you have separated all the lambs from their moms. It is a bit sad to hear all the sheep crying out for their babies or moms but it's the "way of the farm". All of the sheep were being shorn ("sheared?") the next day so the wool needed to be separated between new lambs wool and old ewe wool. I enjoyed helping to move the sheep all around and trying to use my best imitation "dog bark" to assist my canine co-workers, we got the job done pretty smoothly! Emily joined us in her stroller and liked watching all the sheep moving around, but soon was over it and wanted a quiet place to nap. So I decided to take her back to the house for a nap. Craig asked me to go to the 4 wheeler and get the "rattle". I told him not to worry, as Emily didn't need it because she was gonna go back to the house. He looked at me weird, and said again "but if you just grab it, its on the steering wheel". I figured he hadn't heard me so said, "that's alright, I will just take Emily home for a nap". As I moved Emily's stroller out of the yards, Bryce came to help carry Em's stroller over a fence. He then walked over to the 4-wheeler and grabbed a rattle-like thing and I said,"whats that?". He said, "its a sheep rattle to use to move the sheep around the pen!". Oh, so Craig wanted the rattle for the sheep, not Emily......duh.