The morning after....

Got back from doing this.....

I even managed to do it!!

In wonderful Rarotonga to...... 

Doing this at 5.30am!!! (internal timeclock a bit out of sinc) at home. Brrrrr -3.8 C this morning. Fire pumping as hard to deal with after a week at 26 C!!

Relaxing summer holidays

Yes we had a fantastic summer holiday. We feel that this summer has been great as we have had two big camping trips away, both by rivers and with lots of sun.
We all managed to get some walks in - the boys and Aaron went up to the Trig but the hill was out for me so I did all the flat walks around finishing at the coffee shop.

Lots of lying around in bed in the mornings.

Some tramping

Ready to go (Eli took a while to get into it)

the game turned into other lego!!

Minatours 

I link to these places

All seasons on one holiday

Walking in the rain

Eating in the rain

Seeing Himalayan Lillies in the sun

Cozy in the caravan

Taking lots of photos

Exploring waterfalls

The last food after being rained and winded out

Gorgeous sunsets while camping

Great family photos

The boy cousins all together

Some exploring of limestone cliffs

Croissant for Xmas morning breakfast

Mayhem and all the family for Xmas lunch

We had a lovely holiday. Like most people in NZ there was rain at the end. Actually absolutely amazing thunderstorms!! In our caravan we were all snuggly but it was the wind at our campsite that did the damage. So many people lost tents and awnings. But we had a fabulous time. All my family were together for camping on Xmas Day. Later Mother and Dad left and Mark and Anna went off for their honeymoon, the rest of us stayed behind. Sometimes swimming five times a day due to excessive heat, sometimes in rainjackets and merino jumpers!! But all in all it was great. We are relaxed and have just said goodbye to my brother, wife and one child. The others fly out tomorrow. Our house will seem HUGE as we will have gone from 9 living in it to plain old 4 and the dog.

Trying to pretend that summer has been hot

We had a weekend away in Cust to pickup one caravan. This was the last weekend of summer and we were determind to spend it swimming at the river. It was cold. The whole time was spent with us exclaiming how warm we were!! NOT