A month of fun, frolics and festivities

I can't believe it's nearly been a month since my last blog post but that's the way it is sometimes, we're more often getting on with doing stuff once summer arrives. There's been a fair amount of gardening and I'll blog about that some other time. Today in an attempt to bring you all up to date I'll do a bit of a Blogging Flyby, so just snippets of what we've been up to. If you really want to see more you can click on the links I'll add and you can go see more photos on Facebook. Most of you are Facebook friends already so you may well have seen the photos anyway, if not enjoy........

At the beginning of December we decided to take a stroll around Hamilton gardens, Joe had never been around the rose gardens or into the Victorian glasshouse... here are a few of my favourite shots...

More photos can be found here

Start of the festivities

December seems to be full of birthdays and the weekend before last (13-16th) was non stop.

On the Friday we were at Ray & Mary's for Rays birthday, they are good friends we made when we lived at Rotokauri, you are pretty much guaranteed a hangover the morning after any party there.

We don't see nearly as much of them as we should, 

maybe 2014's resolutions should be to spend more time with friends

 

 

You can see more photos here

Next!

On Saturday we were at Natasha's 21st, her actual birthday is on Boxing Day and as she'll be spending that day with her family in Hastings, Hawkes Bay she had a party here in Hamilton. It was a lovely evening and equally lovely meeting her family. Michael had been pretty busy leading up to the evening building a bar, lean to's and tables out of old pallets and getting a sparky mate to put in some party lighting, it all looked great. Well done Michael x

 

 I made the cake...

You can see more photos here

Next!

Joe also has a birthday in December on the 16th, he decided to have a few friends around the day before, Sunday, he did a BBQ and it was bring a plate.

We were having such a good time I forgot to take photos of our guests!

On the Monday he cooked breakfast on the BBQ and then we headed to the beach at Raglan and had lunch at the Orca Restaurant. We met up with Michael and Natasha that evening in Hamilton for Thai meal at Thai village. It rounded off an altogether fabulous weekend.

Raglan

 

Pohutukawa, NZ's Christmas tree

Lunch at Orca Restaurant

A delicious meal at Thai Village, Hamilton finished off a splendid weekend

See more photos here

But wait! There's more!

Thursday craft was on a Wednesday last week and it was the last one of 2013, we all took a plate and had a lovely lunch and I even got some crocheting done....

 A gift for everyone

 

See a few more photos here

And finally (for today at least!)

Friday was the last Suesday of 2013, we had initially gone to see a Christmas tree thingie in Hamilton but it was closed (only open at certain times) but if you go to have a look at Op Shop Mamas blog here you can see what we could have seen! :-)

So instead we gasped wandered  our way up the hill to the Cathedral, I'd only heard of it's existence about a year ago! It's rather lovely inside, as are most churches of course.

Back down the hill and across the road is this rather lovely old bandstand, Sue posing in the archway.

Sue took heaps of photos, so go have a look at her blog here

It goes without saying that we got in a spot of Op Shopping too!

And here is my wee haul..no idea where I got them or the cost, I can't remember! 

More to come tomorrow, we had our Christmas lunch on Sunday with Michael and Natasha as they are both away over the holidays. Also we felt we should attempt to walk off that lunch at Taitua arboretum today. So for now goodbye and as the great Mr Schwarzenegger said..

"I'll be back"