A pre-holiday holiday

We’ve just spent the last five nights at Mt Maunganui…. having a restive break before the festivities begin. It was lovely to be away, doing not too much at all…

We spent a lot of time wandering around exploring.  The children were up each day by 6am… Holidays do not equate to a sleep in apparently, so there was plenty of time to get out on the beaches before the crowds did (or the sun for that matter). Mind you the weather was mostly cloudy, but that actually made being out nice (and I didn’t feel the need to bathe the children in sunscreen every hour). We did have a couple of very sunny days mixed in, and even on the cloudy days it was warm.Paul and the kids spent a lot of time exploring the rocks…Searching for crabs – but they wouldn’t pick up any bigger than this little guy for a photo (I wonder why??)…While they were crabbing, I was searching for shells (which generally don’t have nippers!) to add to my already substantial collection.Or taking random photos – like the one of the pohutukawa (otherwise known as the New Zealand Christmas tree) at the start of the post.There were a fair few very sizeable (ahem) fish caught by two very proud fishermen (er, women… people).  I don’t really get fishing (although I apparently loved it as a child), its too smelly and slimy. Luckily Dad and Grandad love it.

My beautiful baby also turned 6 while we were away, so we had a low key family celebration to mark the occasion. The number six candle got its second outing… I cant get over how grown up she looks in this photo. So now its back home to the Christmas build up, and a mountain of washing a mile high (with rain for the foreseeable future). The trip has put a serious halt on my Christmas crafting – Ive got about a thousand half finished projects on the go – hopefully Ill have some more to show you soon! How are your Christmas preparations going? Jxx