It is Sebastian's 19th birthday today.
Happy Birthday to our special young man
He is away working on the mussel boat in Golden Bay this week so we won't get to celebrate with him until next weekend.
Seb - I'm making you your favourite - cheesecake!!

Here he is (2nd from left) with his 5 older & 1 younger siblings at Jesika's 30th in August.
I really like this photo



The past few days have been busy with work of many and varied sorts.
The girls have been busy wee beavers at the sewing machine.
Shanni has undertaken to teach Mahalia how to use it so Mahalia is now overjoyed she can also create clothes for her dolls.



Shanni has also been doing a lot of work in the vege garden.
We will be eating well this summer by the look of it
The men have been continuing their fencing work up the hills.
Tim has been doing a lot of long days on the bulldozer preparing the fence line.
I am preferring not too know where it precisely is as it all sounds a little too steep and scary for me!
Anson has been doing his possum trap line plus he goes out most nights possum shooting.
He is getting so many now that they can't cope with all the possums for dog tucker.
So they have been gutting them to fit more in the freezer.
It is a good revenue earner for him too which is his main reason for doing it.
Or is it that he is missing his night life so is having to create some excitement in his life out here in the sticks

Nathan and Anson continue their sparring matches.
They are like a couple of young bucks competing to see who is going to remain at the top of the order.
Mostly it is friendly but every now and then it gets a bit too intense for my liking



I don't think Nathan will be at the bottom for too much longer though.


I have been working away at the accounts.
Because I have been so busy I have not done any filing for 4 months now.
So I had quite a big job getting all the new financial years accounts into order before I began the gst.
I had the kitchen table covered and have had to juggle meals around my files.
It is all done now and I am just waiting for the accountant to check it over to see if I have made any gross errors before I file it with the IRD.

It has been cloudy and overcast here - no sun to be seen.
Just low heavy clouds.
Threatening to rain but coming to nothing.
After such lovely hot days we are all beginning to hang out for the sun again.

We had a really good long catch up call with Cat in Perth on Sunday.
She is looking forward to coming home on the 14th Dec.
She has a good long summer holiday planned.
I got to chat with Bri too.
She has been busy working at the youth prison and is nearly finished her studies for the year.
The children are all busy doing their own thing these days that days and even weeks can go by before we get to hear news.
So we really enjoy to have these catch up sessions


We are off to Nelson again in the morning.
This time Anson is coming with me so he can pick up his truck.
We also have to take his dog to the vet as it has grown a very large lump on his side.
Hopefully it won't be anything too yucky.

It is now 8pm and I am about to go put the children to bed - I'm trying to snuggle them down early cuz of their early rise in the morning.
The days are so long now that it is still quite light at 8 or even 9pm
Hard to get them off to sleep.
The men haven't yet come in for dinner.
Sometimes I really hate these long long daylight days!

Mum also shares her b'day with her cousin Graeme.
So I asked  Nicole if she would mind babysitting so I could join Mum and Graeme and a few others at The Vines in Redwoodtown for a dinner celebration.

She popped over the river at 6pm and I left her to enjoy pizza with the children and get them off to bed.

We were at the restaurant before Graeme arrived.
When he came in and was taking stock of who was all there he spotted me and asked,
'How is Paul?'
I laughed and told him to get his glasses on!
He took a lot of convincing that I was not Ruth.
Then he proceeded to tell me that I looked heaps better than when he last saw me.
Men!
He was digging himself such a big hole and he didn't know when to stop digging!!
So I asked,
'So do I look better than the last time you saw Ruth or the last time you saw Raewyn?'

Finally all 12 of us were there and we ordered and enjoyed a lovely meal.
Graeme's daughter Diana and I were the youngest there so we sat and got to know each other better.
Quite cool being the youngest at a gathering when I am normally these days the oldest!

Jill had bought along some fancy cupcakes.
There were two candles.
There was a lot of discussion - mainly from Graeme - as to how they were each going to blow out their own candle without contaminating the other with their germs


Happy 79th Birthday Lesley.
Happy 68th Birthday Graeme.


We were not too late home which was good cuz we were both tired.
Nicole said the children were good but had tried to make the bedtime stories last longer to delay their sleeping time!

I was up early Thursday and had the beds made and everything packed in good time.
While Mum & the children had their breakfast....

I took photos of Mum's b'day flowers.
They were all so pretty.

These were the ones her bro Lloyd gave to her at dinner.
You can see them standing in the beer mug on the table behind Mum & Graeme above.
Lloyd had asked his French wwoofer to gather some flowers from the garden for him - he was very impressed with how lovely they looked.


These flowers arrived at in the morning by courier from a friend of Mums.
The children had lots of fun arranging them in the vase.


When we got home from lunch this bouquet was sitting at the front door.
It is so pretty.


Another friend had also given Mum these roses.
They were getting a wee bit past it but still very beautiful and Azzan loved the way you can see them and the garden outside.


We gave Mum this big portrait of our family taken while we were in Melbourne.
We had fun choosing where it was going to go.
I moved various pictures around the living room until Mum was happy with the results



We were finally all loaded up and ready to go before 9am.
I had to negotiate the trailer
So picking up the ice creams was a longer process than usual.
Cuz I am out of practise with backing it I ended up driving right around the block to get back onto the main road again.
Then we spotted cherries for sale.
I was not in a place where I could safely stop so I kept my eyes open for another sign.
Saw another sign so turned off to find it.
It was right at the end of a no exit road so I had a lot of difficulty fun turning it around.
Got cherries - hellishly expensive but I wasn't leaving empty handed after going all that far out of my way and then getting stuck with the trailer.
Got back on the road again.
Next stops were all in Havelock.
Ray loaded the trailer with rope, he directed my backing and turning around which made it easier.
I managed to find enough spaces along the main road to park up while I ran back and picked up the mail and got some pies from the Wakamarina Cafe.

Then it was another quick stop at Rai Valley.
According to Mahalia they make the BEST sausage rolls so she won't eat them from anywhere else if she has a choice.

I let the children out for a run around the playground at Okiwi Bay but they were soon ready to get back in the car again.
Mahalia is beginning to weight bear on her foot but it is still very tender.
The day was very hot and the road dusty.
I was reminded how much I hate to drive home druing the day and why I much prefer driving in the evening or night.

We left the trailer at the top of the hill and went down to Waterfall bay to unload stuff.
Had a cool drink and chat with Jenny & David and then puddled off home.
Everyone was out working so we unloaded and then got dinner ready.
Alois & Toad went out kayaking.
Anson was busy getting ready for his trip to town today.
Graham was also loading up his trailer ready to head away too.
We managed to have dinner at 6:30pm.
Amazing
I was pushing for an early eat cuz we were all tired.
It was very pleasant to climb into bed at 9:30pm after a relaxing soak in the spa with Tim.