Painting a School

On Saturday, Rich, Charlie and Grace helped give a local primary school a facelift. Around 600 volunteers from our area here on the North Shore of Auckland painted, weeded gardens, planted trees and generally gave the school a spruce up. It was a fun morning and we managed to get more paint on the walls than on ourselves.

Welcome Ted

Yesterday we picked up our new little puppy. After several goes at naming him, we decided on Ted. Other names considered were:

Sparkle
Eddie Narain
David
Guy
John
Decorum
Chaos
Magician Grasshopper Fatt

He is sweet and we're all very excited to welcome him into our family.

Draper Temple Dedication

The LDS temple near our home in Draper was dedicated a couple of days ago by Thomas S. Monson, president of the Church. It would have been nice to have been there. Draper is a lovely city and we loved living there for 18 months or so. Our friends there are excited that a temple is now just a few minutes away. Read more about the temple dedication here. This link will take you to a short video about why Latter-day Saints build temples.

Tasmania

At the end of February we took a quick trip over to see Joey and Pah, and Janny, David andRuben. We had a wonderful time being together after too, too long.
We visited Joey and Pah each day, played with Joey's fascinating collection of little things, blew bubbles and went for long walks. We took Raffy for a walk and watched him do tricks. We chatted, lunched and laughed.

Birthday Girl

Josephine is 2! She had a big day, with a lovely new shiny ball and a lots of other surprises. By dinner time it was all too overwhelming, actually. Nothing like a duck cake to chase the tears away, though. Happy Birthday, beautiful girl.

Create

Rich just found this inspiring video on YouTube. It's called "Create."

Official Family Portraits - New Year 2009

Desk and wall calendars are available at all quality dollar shops.

Family Christmas

We loved sharing Christmas, barbies (both types) and much more with our lovely family visiting from Australia. The cousins hit it off...(well, the big ones did at least).

Draper Temple Opens Doors to Media, Public

We left just a couple of months too early for our family to have the chance to tour inside the new Draper Temple of the LDS Church. We had taken our children up to the site a few times when it was under construction. The LDS Newsroom site has some photos and videos on it. Rich will try to visit when he is in Utah in February, as the public open house goes for a couple of months. We used to watch the builders' progress from our front yard.

Christmas Eve in New Zealand

We have been in New Zealand now for almost two months. Laura's parents, her brother and his family, and her sister and her family joined us this Christmas. We have been enjoying our time in our new home with many of our dear ones. These photos were taken on Christmas Eve 2008.

catching up....

Well I guess we're only a couple of months behind on posting now - can't upload any photos of Disneyland or NZ yet, as I have no idea where the cable for the camera is. Could be in any one of 200 boxes! Will get to it asap.

Summer!

We went for a splash and a play at Thanksgiving Point on the last day that Grandad and Grandma were with us.

Rich and Gracie take a hike

Hiking with Charlie

Early morning hikers

On our first morning at the grand canyon Mum and I snuck out early and took a hike to look at the Canyon. Standing with Mum on the rim, watching the sun come up was sweet indeed.

Arizona

As we set out on our journey, one of my goals was to get a decent photo of the six of us in front of some spectacular scenery - you know, a real framer. This is about the best of my attempts. Sigh!

Upon arriving at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, we went out to take a peek at the sunset. It was a gorgeous evening, and the girls couldn't help dancing.

Kanab, Utah

We took a road trip with Grandad and Grandma. Here are some pics from just outside Cedar City, and in a great little park we found in Kanab, Utah.

Charlie's Baptism

Charlie was baptised on Rich's birthday, August 9th. It was a great day, and we felt so proud of Charlie. It was wonderful that Grandma and Grandad could be there, and that so many of our lovely friends took the time to come and share the event with us. So many people did so much to help us before and on the day, and we are so grateful. Thanks, everyone.

Birthdays

I guess with all the planning for our big move, we have not updated the blog at all fora long time. Here are some photos from Amanda's birthday and Gracies' 5th. note the spectacular mermaid cake. Thanks, Grandma!