A New Year

Happy New Year everyone.
We had a great Christmas... not many photo's, as usual. but I did get this one of our new (secondhand) big red funyak, which is an inflatable kayak...kind of like a bouncy castle in the shape of a kayak. It is murder trying to steer the thing, so is recommended for down stream only, and even then you end up making sudden unexpected circles. We took it out on the lagoon for a quick try out and then down lagoon creek, out to the Rees river and around past the wharf and into the boat harbour.
And now here we are at the last day of 2008.
I actually hate this time of year....Christmas no problem, but new Year? Yuk.
Am I the only one who finds nothing appealing in drunk people, loud music, and getting kissed by strangers?
It also means a lot of work for me with the Motel...we are full full full...but that doesn't stop people from ringing up to ask if we have any space....or calling in...or just double checking.....which means that when I sit down I have to jump up again...oh well another week of being flat out, then it eases back to busy for the rest of the summer. I'm so ready to sell these Motels
If anyone wants to buy them...drop me an email and I'll let you know the details....

happy summer solstice

The longest day here gets celebrated most often by a staff Christmas party.........lots of summer food, including a pavlova and big fruit salad...In the past years we have organised this ourselves, and it has always been a mission..this year we let someone else do it for us, and it was great....no big day of preparation (scrubbing pots and pots of new potatoes to be par boiled so they can then be finished off on the barbe) and no big clean up on the day after either...wonderful.
And almost in recognition of this the longest day...the sun is back with us, making up for lost time with big temperatures. Yesterday we all had fires going again and I was thinking that maybe there would even be a frost....and today no sooner than the kids had climbed out of the lake, dried off and gone home, than they were wanting to be back swimming...
I want to be in the garden of course, but house cleaning comes first...and we need to get the ginger bread house finished.....

the agony of waiting

In spite of loving Christmas and the whole spirit of the season thing.....the time between the last day of school and Christmas itself becomes quite hard to live through when you have kids...The tree is up and decorated and presents underneath it...and there is still 5 days to go!

Anyway...

The rose beads are progressing nicely...they now look like this...

and I just need to find a minute to make them into beads...maybe tonight....under the Christmas tree...maybe. But then we are also going out for drinks at a friends house tonight so maybe not....

Here is the end look of my gypsy journal swap, made into a book...I was lucky to be given a couple of sacks full of off cut leather to be able to make the spine with, and the pages are all tied in with various ribbons, cords, lace etc
I've also been making some jewellery, but I can't show you those since they are all wrapped up in Christmas paper and are located under various Christmas trees right now.

Have a nice Christmas if I don't get back before then.

nearly Christmas

Once again we start the count down for the last days before Christmas...

I Love Christmas....I love planning the gifts, and the food and hugging secrets tight.

I love the smell of the pine Christmas tree...and the mounting excitement as gifts start to appear under the tree.

We make a special time to go and cut down a tree...the exact right tree....bring it home..discover it is too big for the house....prune it to size, get it standing upright.....and then cover every branch with ornaments and decorations. Pine trees are a weed in New Zealand..they grow super fast and self seed every where...so we love having a real tree for Christmas.

Next Wednesday is the school concert and Thursday the break up of school for the long summer holidays...

Meanwhile the weather has been crap!

Rain cold more rain more cold ...
and what have I been up to?

well....

In spite of the horrible weather the roses are in bloom and I decided that I needed to make rose petal beads.....Interesting experiment.....

I finally got started on making my gypsey swap pages from the art retreat earlier this year into a journal....It's nice to have the pages safe in one place..and I added a few more pages to work on as well....it probably just needs some rose beads on a chain to finish off...I'll post a pic next time

It must be summer, because the boys are swimming in the Lake brrrrrrr...that water is cold..only about 9 degrees...which is what? about 48 - 49 degrees F? Cold anyway. The lake is so deep it stays much the same temperature all year round