Lego the puppy

'Lego' you ask? She's fun to play with and hours of entertainment... just like her plastic counter part.

Anyway... Here she is... Cute as ever!

Delayed Honey Moon - Clay Cliffs

Clay Cliffs are definitely worth seeing. We fosicked around in Dads truck for 5 minutes trying to round up enough coins for the $5 donation, and it was well worth it!









We didnt exactly wear suitable footwear for the climb up steep slippery clay tracks.. but our bums were as good as anything for sliding down the almost vertical cliffs. Clay everywhere!

Delayed Honeymoon - Twizel's best feature

Gaz played like a big boy in the huge machinery at Twizel.






From what i gathered - thats all Twizel had going for it.. haha.

Delayed Honeymoon - Salmon Farm & Lake Pukaki

When following the canal from Tekapo through to the top of mount cook.. we came accross a bunch of fisherman clustering the banks of the canals trying their luck for escaped salmon on the farm boundry. The water is soo intense! the colour looks like an artifially flavoured cocktail its so blue. Even the clouds mimick that glacial blue colouring.




And then following the hills over to Lake pukaki.. and it just gets bluer!



We played here for a while because it was so picture perfect & Gaz liked the hydro pipes.

Delayed Honeymoon - Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo was pretty even on a grey and spitty day. Not short on coin i can imagine, with new housing developments all over the show.



& Lupins... Lupins everywhere!!!

Delayed Honeymoon - Rakaia & Mayfairs 2nd hand treasures

We recently went on our honeymoon. We thought we better do it before our 2 year anniversary. It helped that we had saved up a bit of spending money as our holiday would have been a bit bare boned if we went at the time of our wedding.

Anyway. We had an awesome time! The south Island i so incredibly beautiful. And i've decided instead of blogging vaguely about the trip in one post. rather i will a blog for each exciting part in more detail. So prepare to get overloaded.

Rakaia River Bridge

Our trip started going through the Rakaia gorge which we have seen a million times.. but its still pretty and this was the start of our self taken photos of ourselves (of which we mastered the art of self timed and extended arm shots).


Lusting after 2nd hand goodness at Mayfair
We then came accross THE meanest 2nd hand shop ever. While gaz was scoping out vintage bikes and old suitcases i was lusting over vintage fabrics and crownlynn. In doing so we clocked up over an hour in this heaven for a shop. HEAVEN i tell ya.
As you can see... endless supplies of crown lynn crockery, old suitcases, bikes, furniture, vintage fabric, jewellery etc etc.




A must see on any southisland trip. Unsure why wises maps havent caught onto this iconic NZ attraction yet. I certainly marked it on our copy for future reference. Mayfair people mayfair!

To be continued...

HA! That will teach you burglar!!!

For those who havent heard the ultra dumb news... Some bastard made himself welcome to our house and property. Through our top (and quite high might i add) kitchen window. Not even a nice considerate burglar. He smashed my nice wine glasses that were in his way. Grrrr... and thats just the start.

He then proceeded to clean poor Mr Builder Gledhills new room out of a playstation, camera, laptop (with his last 6months of travelling photos) etc etc. Dumb part was... the alarm sensor had been playing up in that particular room so we had disarmed it.. so he could take his pleasurely time.. even wrapping up the cords for Codys new massive TV (maybe for a return visit?) and then going for a fish into the lounge. Bad decision really.. He managed to get our playstation and had big ambitions to take Gaz's Stereo system. That was until, our awesome alarm peirced his ears and he dropped his lounge pickings, and scampered outter here.

I feel so terrible about all Codys memories lost.. as well as lots of expensive gear... :( but the ever so frightened burglar did leave quite alot of our stuff behind. Thanks for that.

This was all of course while Gaz and I were on a lovely holiday down south... the kinda one where you dont really want to hear bad news such as above. Moving on a little in time. We arrived home on Tuesday with our new puppy, to an amazingly clean house (Thanks KY! x).
Due to the puppy being new and us working full time, Gaz decided to take a few days off work to settle the puppy at home. Today was the first.

As he sat at his computer in the lounge with the curtains facing the road shut, he noticed a shadow whisk past the other side window. This shadow was distinctly burglarly like - back for the items he left behind. But as he passed the window he saw Gaz sitting inside. He made a fast getaway across the lawn assuming he had not been seen. With a phone on direct dial to the police and a slow paced walk behind this piece of crap for a human Gaz followed until. UNTIL! With Gaz's navigation and the most awesome of police appeared from all directions and captured our burglar!

We weren't suprised to hear that he was already wearing a home detention bracelet and was wanted on a trillion charges of horibleness. The Police were very impressed with my awesome detective husband. Thanks to our gorgeous little puppy for requiring Gaz's looking after during potential further burglary time. Of course this doesnt mean Cods gets his stuff back.. which is so dumb! but mannnn i feel good knowing that poor excuse for a person is going to be locked up at the very least.

Freakky to know! But let me assure you.. Since all of this we have gone to extraoridnary measures to make sure our house is very hard to help yourself too. Dont like their chances next time!

Once-was-chinese-hat

There is something about me and not being able to accept things for what they are.

The damn chinese hat. (Covered in cobwebs.. but whatever)
Classic piece of design right there. Its such a simple, well known, affordable piece of everyday design that has become part of a trazillion lives around the globe (whether they like it or not). Though, i will give it some credit, it serves its purpose well and has been rewarded by years of sales and i'm sure will be rewarded for years to come.

But it irritates me... I have two sitting right in front of me. I randomly feel the urge to modify, to create, to change it. So out comes the knife and i begin to shape it into petal forms. I'm not saying i have recovered the chinese hat by any means. But i feel such satisfaction looking up at my 'once-was-chinese-hat' creation.

Fractal in Hawkes Bay

I recently had the best weekend ever away up in the Hawkes bay with 2 of my favorite girls (Aimie & Kylie). We took the family wagon up to visit Aimie's Parents in their new place.

Aimies parents and a bit of tourism were the main events planned, but both me and Aims managed to slip in a bit of a business trip too.

Aims is a famous NZ metal artist. Her work is called RaWIRoN and can be viewed here: http://www.thebach.org.nz/ProfAimieWhiting.htm But anyway... She had just finished some amazing gigantic letters that spell 'EAT' and wanted to find a place to sell them in the Hawkes Bay. These managed to fill most of the bootspace which is awesome. And then we stuffed in a few fractal lamps and a suitcase of my design work.

We visited a number of galleries and shops around the place.. People seemed to love my lamp up in that direction! One lady loved the clear so i made one up for her:



It was a successful weekend too.. I now have a stockist for my White fractal lamps in Havelock North called RED CURRENT. So if your ever there, stop by and purchase one ;)
And Aimie now has a metal cake in a gallery in Napier and hopefully her EAT in another in Ahuriri.

Demolition!

We did have a ceiling in our laundry. A really crappy falling apart one. We'll not anymore.. Gaz did a good job of smashing it down - foot first!


This was all very fun, UNTIL, The old woolen spray insulation that was all settled down underneath the pink bats came snowing down. We had a full drop sheet between the kitchen and where it was falling from.. but the kitchen got absolutely covered in grose old 50 year old dust.


So i did some mega dusting.. and some more... and even now its calmed down a bit each day there seems to be a new layer settled on the bench. Hygeine at its best. I have given up.

Bet you wish you had one of theeese!!!

Yes thats right! A husband in his grundies doing the plumbing!

If only i recorded the song he was composing at the time... went something along the lines of "im a plumber, im a plumber.. oh yeah i'm a plumber"

I think thats all i need to say...

How Genius is this??

I never thought i could be so clever. Planting seeds in egg cartons is just so greater idea... i wish i found out earlier.


This is my observation:

1) The carton keeps moist and doesn't dry out at the same rate as the dirt.
2) The carton starts breaking down slightly during the germination period which means when the seed generates roots they just pop out the bottom of the egg carton without any strain on the plant.
3) You are re-using and decomposing a consumable product.
4) The seedlings are easier to plant (egg carton and all) and possibly less disruption to the roots.
5) Garden centers should get amongst.. no more plastic seed containers!

Go on... try it.

Hannahs 6ths Birthday

It all started with:
A hard core DJ set up


A crazy mother


An Aunty trying to re-live her childhood


A bunch of costumed kids from school


Pass the parcel

Followed by some sugar

An awesome pumpkin cake (Sugar)


The dance competition & statues

Followed by more sugar

Flying broomsticks


A game kids like to call "Attacking the witch"


And farrrrrrrrr out. Am i glad that this is only an annual event!?! I am completely ex-haus-ted! STILL!