Ted

Samoa

Rich is in Apia for a few days. He was in Pago Pago yesterday and will go to Tonga before coming home on Saturday.

Australian Holiday

Three girls and a cannon

Happy Birthday, Gracie!

Ferry Ride

Disaffected European popstar (aka Charlie) and entourage took a ferry ride from Devonport to Auckland to eat chocolate sundaes.

Make it Better

Charlie joined with some of his school friends to do a dance routine for the assembly. The song was "Men in Black" and the message was MIB: Make It Better. Well done Charlie.

Music Award

Charlie was hnored by the music education centre for having a great attitude and practicing hard.

Pah as a little boy

Pah's cousin Joan sent this picture to Joey recently. Pah is in the picture, with a hat, sitting on his Aunt Beat's lap. He was about three or four. The photo was taken at Wellington Point in Brisbane.

What matters most

This is a lovely little video about what matters most to each of us.

Torah Bright

Rich met Torah Bright eight years ago in Sydney when she was 14 years old. Her older sister, Rowena, was gearing up to compete at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. They are both lovely young women originally from Cooma. Torah is a great example of someone passionate about her career but also grounded by her faith and family relationships. The Daily Telegraph did a nice story on her today.

Photo courtesy of the Daily Telegraph.

Finding Hope

This year has been a year where we as a family have been exposed to the reality of mortality, in our own family and among our friends. Rich found this video about one man's story after surviving 9-11. It is a touching account about the possibility of finding hope after tragedy.

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Charlie is 9! Hard to believe my baby is dressing up as Brandon Flowers for GPK day. GPK stands for Growing Positive Kiwis. It's a program they have at school where the kids exhibit positive behaviour and are rewarded with celebration days once in a while. Charlie was delighted that his birthday coincided with both the end of term and GPK day. The theme was 'red carpet' and the kids had to go as a rock star or movie star. Charlie's favourite song is Spaceman by the Killers, whose lead singer enjoys wearing jackets with feathers sprouting from the shoulders. Gracie went as Mary Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. I suggested that she go as Laura, but she was very firm that she should be Mary, as Mary gets to wear her hair out.

Anyway, after a great day at school, we went out to celebrate the birthday at Burger King, and then came home for the alien cake. This was an easy one to make - it turned out very different to what I had planned - the four arms and wings I had planned were a bit too hard and had to be ditched, but no-one even noticed.

Josephine

My name is not Josie...it's Josie-aphine!

Jane is Four!!!

Hooray! Our three-year-old is now four! We love our Jane and hope she enjoyed her day today. Thanks for being such a sweetie Jane. We love you!

The Simpsons

Our lovely friends from Brisbane, the Simpsons, came to see us last Tuesday evening. We had not seen them for almost four years. They are here for a week or so, touring around seeing the sights. The kids hit it off and the grown-ups reminisced and caught up on what's hot in our respective households. Basketball is in, and so is heavily-guitar-oriented music. Friends like these make life nicer.

This is a lovely little video about a great father.

Four

Bath Art

A long time aficionado of paint, crayons, glue and modelling clay, Gracie has recently branched out into other methods of expressing her inner artiste.

Tunnels

On the Queen's birthday 2009 (Queen's birthday in New Zealand is called 'the Quin's birthday) we went spelunking at North Head, Devonport. We rugged up, got our torches and set out to explore the tunnels under the reserve, built to store artillery and ammunition at various times in history when invasion was not very imminent at all.Don't tell Mickey, but Charlie thought it was on a par with Disneyland.