I joined the kiwi Christmas ornament swap this year, lovely ornaments have been arriving and are being added to our tree.

For my ornaments I turned to some felt, buttons, embroidery cotton, sticks, bells and beads to make little moreporks who are all hopefully perched on trees all over the country by now.

Historic places

Last week I got to visit a historic pa site with the kids. This Pa was a place where Maori stored their precious kumara to protect it from raids. I dont think alot of people here are aware of the history of our area, I'm really enjoying learning all I can about it.
The historic vibrations of this place are amazing.

Beautiful warm evenings invite adventrues, which are especially fun with a few extra kids and dogs.

We whizzed down the Mot river to give the dogs a run tonight, the birds overhead were making a horrendous racket! The red head and I looked down and he was about to stand on a nest! We took a quick pic and moved away, hopefully the birds will settle down again. We're not sure what kind of birds they are but we think they are the Black fronted tern.

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Stone throwing, splashes, family, friends, barking, laughing, teasing.............

Things all the good memories are made of.

Thinking of the West Coasters

Some of you will be aware that my kids Dad works in a mine in Reefton. Friends and family started texting me on Friday evening to ask if he was alright? News had just surfaced that there had been a big mine explosion on the West Coast. For a few minutes our family was feeling a bit shell shocked as their Dad wasn't answering. A wave of relief swept over everyone though when he did answer his phone, he was in shock too for his fellow miners involved in the explosion at Pike river.
Our families thoughts and prayers are with the miners, all their families and the entire West Coast community.

Garden goes rampant

Ok lets be honest, I haven't spent any time in my garden. God bless nature for doing it's own thing.

Nana's knitting aside

I love living in paradise:
visited the Ngarua caves today:

An easy walk through the beautiful local landscape, I should have listened more carefully to the guide so I could tell you all about it, but I was just drinking it all in.

The water from the cave comes out here at the Riwaka source. Freezing cold, fresh and pure.

Jannelle, he drew out your name.

A fabulous red head will do the draw tomorrow night.
Some other stuff I just need to write is here, it's not for the fainthearted I just need to get it down. Invites only.

Lucky to call this place home

We were lucky enough to go on the Aqua Taxi into our nearby National Park today.

We got up close to our iconic "split apple rock" where the red head was most impressed as the boat driver said they think it has been there since the last ice age.

I loved the wildlife. Getting to view it all up close from the boat was fabulous. It was just the right time of year to see shags nesting and a mother seal feeding her pup on the rocks on the predator free Adele Island.

The water was quite rough today so we didn't spot any of the dolphins we had been hoping for, but that just gives us an excuse to go back again another day.

Perhaps if we had lived here 150 years ago we might have been lucky enough to see some giant moa which were native to New Zealand but are now extinct. The statues at the gallery by the entrance to the National Park were pretty impressive. How lucky are we to have all this at our back doorstep.

shop update

Yesterday I popped some new bags into the shop

Fantastic odds on the giveaway though so don't be shy.