Summer, Summer, Summertime

It's 7.50am as I write this now. Michael and Bethany have gone off to do their Saturday morning swim thing leaving me home alone. Normally I would take advantage of this and have a bit of a lie in but on a day like today that's not going to happen!

The 1st of December is officially the start of Summer, yet for the last few weeks, despite the odd rainy day Summer has already started. To wake in the morning and see a cloudless blue sky and have temperatures already at 17 degrees, it really is bliss. If this Summer is going to be anything like last Summer then I know for a fact this will become way of life for us now for many months to come.

Still it is a strange one. Christmas is fast approaching - do I feel festive yet? Nah. I think it will take many years before I can get used to watching our Christmas tree decorations twinkle in the sunshine!

Bethany is as you can imagine so very excited. This year she turns 5 on December 22nd and so has a whole new understanding of what Christmas is about. We will be celebrating her birthday on the 14th December this year so we can try and break the two occasions up, the last few years have proved that trying to mix birthday and Christmas pressies together is just confusing and overwhelming! Funny though that for the rest of her life she will always associate her birthday with the sight of a Christmas tree.

Bethany prepared her list to Santa, it took us nearly an hour to sit down, sound out the words and for her to write them, but she got there in the end. Spelling mistakes and all - she was very proud. We popped it into the post to go to the North Pole and Santa should hopefully send her a letter back soon (thank you New Zealand Post!).

My week has been pretty busy, my social calendar has picked up and I have been getting together with my friends nearly every day, it's been lovely. As you might know Bethany is heading off to a school that most of her Kindy friends are not. It's difficult for Bethany to understand the reasons for this and so we have had a few long fuelled conversations on the reasons why.

I have been (selfishly) reluctant to buddy her up with children at her Kindy that are not going to her school as I can't bare the thought of what happened last time, happening again. So I took on the mission to at least seek out two new friends for Bethany that would be going to her school and make a point of her getting together with them.

Luckily for me the two friends Bethany has bonded with (one a boy and one a girl) have amazing mothers too!! I have had such a wonderful time with them, it's so lovely to meet new people and feel like you have known them forever. So here is Bethany and one of her new friends (who is just the most gorgeous girl with her long blond hair and blue eyes!) - all dressed up and ready for some festive fun.

Playing in the garden is foremost, we have had some of the best fun this week, the bubble machine being the most used and easily entertaining toy we have had in a while!

We have also been privileged to meet some of the most kind hearted, soul warming people. Our good friends Justin and Alina have been totally amazing. We did hit a rough patch recently with some neighbour issues (possibly another post on that another time!) but Justin and Alina have been so supportive. We did in fact feel very alone in our troubles yet they stood by us and gave us the strength to rise above it all. We cannot thank them enough.

We have so much to look forward to over the next month. All the festive parties, decorating our house for our first Christmas in our new home, our first Christmas with Denver, celebrating NZ style with a Christmas Day BBQ, our big New Year camping trip and then the arrival of Lynn (Michael's mam) early January for her second trip here with us.

I am so very excited about it all, and to be honest I'm not too worried about feeling festive. Just being here in NZ, knowing we not only made it but are here enjoying our 3rd Christmas in the blazing sunshine is just crazily awesome enough!!