2013 News.

Hi Everyone,
I was not sure that I was going to get round to scribbling a few notes here but I have finally got there before we start another year. 2012 is a very hard year to follow with all the stuff that happened including a month in Italy. This year has been very tame by comparison although there have been some fairly large dramas.

News is therefore very thin on the ground and photographs even thinner as I have dropped the ball a bit in that department.  A disproportionate amount of time was spent looking for a house due to the fact that houses in Christchurch are in very short supply post earthquakes. We originally intended to move before the quakes but then the project went on hold for three years! More on that later...

The year started off as it has for ten of the last eleven years with a camping holiday up at Mapua, the kids want to go back there year after year because it's a lot of fun with many other families with kids at similar ages. The weather wasn't quite as reliable as normal with a few more cloudy days and the usual one day downpour with evacuation to the Nelson cinema.

The rest of the summer was punctuated with some mountain biking weekends to Reefton, Hanmer and Castle Hill. Our friends Joy and Iain have built a beautiful 'bach' at Castle Hill which is a superb base for mountain biking and skiing.

As winter arrived Dee had organised a ten day trip to Fiji which we were all really excited about. Unfortunately two days before we were to leave Lucy experienced a seizure at school and ended up in hospital. There is no need to explain to any of you parents what a period of worry it was until we could establish what was going on. Clearly Fiji was out of the question so that adventure still awaits us.

Chris and I only got out skiing once this winter partly due to sunny days not coinciding with weekends and the ongoing house search.

One night at a friends birthday party I allowed myself to be talked into playing a season of 'Golden Oldies' rugby. Unfortunately this category starts at 35. My brain was willing but my memories of tackling a player and then sprinting to the next player were misleading me. The first horror was discovering that our team captain used to play for the Crusaders. This was okay (he's on my side) but who was on the other team!?
Somehow I survived the season with some missed games due to damaged ribs and a pulled hamstring, my latter tactic was to hide behind a really big guy who loved tackling. I was told his other sport was cage fighting. Good fun but I think I have now officially retired from rugby.

Sport for the kids was football as usual and Lucy was picked to play for Canterbury U12 Girls. To my dismay she has started supporting Manchester United. Chris continues to play for Christchurch Boys High School.

Lucy is at back row left.

The kids school year has gone well with Lucy completing her first year at South Intermediate and Chris doing his first year of NCEA's. He seems happy that he has got good results and he studied hard so he deserves that.

The final story of the year is that we actually found a house and have moved. This whole process is a bit trickier than normal in Christchurch because of all the outstanding insurance claims on properties.

We were in the old house for over 16 years and it was very sad leaving as I guess our kids have grown up there. When we moved in Dee was pregnant with Chris and when we moved out he drove us down the drive for the last time. The last photo at Fisher Avenue...

However, everyone is really happy with the new place. It is only 2kms away but is in a valley at the bottom of the Port Hills so it has a nicer outlook. We moved ourselves which was a bit of an epic but at least we had ten days to complete the move. Here are a couple of photos of the house, unfortunately I have no pictures of us in there yet. I will include the address and phone number in the email with this link.

Happy New Year!

Pete, Dee, Chris and Lucy xxx

2012 News.

Here we are again....another year has passed us by. It was tempting to post a big 'ditto' symbol as a lot of events were quite similar to last year. We started the year on holiday in Glendhu Bay near Wanaka with lots of water fun. The weather was kind to us again too.

We headed north from Wanaka up to Mapua near Nelson at the top of the South Island. Two days were spent driving up the west coast past Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. The family had a full month camping holiday but I had to return to work after three weeks.

April brought an even bigger adventure. Dee had organised a one month trip to Italy to rendezvous with her sister. The flights were with Emirates via Sydney, Bangkok and Dubai. Christchurch-> Dubai is the longest flight I've ever done (20 hours I think, with 45 minutes in Sydney and one hour on the aircraft in Bangkok). The girls insisted that Chris and I have a camel ride in Dubai. Enjoy the expressions on our faces as the beast tries to eject us during the normal dismount procedure. I think the last time I was this out of control I was on a horse.

The Italian trip started in Milan where we met Dee's sister Fiona after a late night taxi ride with an unofficial airport taxi. It seemed a good idea at the time as it was cheaper and a lot quicker than the train and metro solution. However we then had to try to tell the kids that jumping in a dodgy taxi in a foreign city is not the brightest idea! Our driver Luigi was very helpful, giving us his number in case we had any 'problems' in Milan. This left me picturing scenes from The Godfather.

The biggest surprise in Milan was the appearance at breakfast of Dee's brother Dugald and our nephew Finlay. It was really great to get to spend a few days with them. After Milan we spent a couple of days at Lake Como and then four days in Venice. Doing a trip like this with the ages the kids are at was amazing as they are both old enough to appreciate everything.

After Venice we took the train to Florence and picked up a hire car. Sounds simple doesn't it? Fiona had arranged a hire car at Florence railway station but had no instructions for the pick up. The station was completely devoid of anything vaguely resembling a hire car office so I had to leave the family defending the luggage pile while I went in search of the elusive car. About an hour later after ever increasing circles around the station and some help from a Hertz office, I found it. Great relief all round as we were starting wonder about Fiona's instruction free internet booking.

Florence is probably not the easiest city to launch into your first spell of driving on the right for many many years. Somehow we made it out into the country despite Fiona's screams  at the sight of another vehicle or a bend in the road. The villa that Fiona had booked for ten days near Poppi was amazing with a view out over the pool to the village of Bibbiena (see photo above). The time spent here was very relaxing after big city hotels and trains. It was easy to make trips into Florence and Siena or spend time locally.

The final leg of the Italian adventure was to take the train to Rome and see the sights. Having said that by this time we had seen an awful lot of cathedrals so attractions like the Colosseum and Trevi fountain were a pleasant variation.

 We finally had to say goodbye to Fiona and head for home via Bangkok. This gave the kids a good feel for an Asian city which is more real than the sterile Singapore. The rides on Tuk Tuks were a real highlight.

As was the endless pool at the hotel. Lucy would have stayed in the pool for three days if she'd been allowed. I had better move onto other news, although the Italy trip was easily the biggest newsworthy event of the year.

The kids sporting activities involved Lucy playing for Cashmere Technical girls U12 A team. She's becoming a very useful footballer. Chris also continued to play for his school A team.

Daisy is the latest member of the family, she arrived in May for Lucy's birthday, quite a cutie. She is a Wheaten Terrier like Scruffy but appears to be a lot smarter than him. Both Lucy and Dee assure me this is because she is a girl!

In the September school holidays we went down to Otago and rode the Rail Trail. This is a 160km ride on a disused railway line through some really cool country with nice places to stay. We did this with friends which worked out really well as the kids had more interesting company than 'the parents'.

Somehow earlier in the year I allowed myself to be talked into doing a big bike ride with my friend Andrew Trevelyan. The trip ended up being 1200kms in six days with a crossing of the Alps in both directions. Andy wrote a blog on this here if you want more detail....
http://www.andysrides.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/south-island-road-bike-tour.html
This was possibly the hardest endurance effort I've ever done, it was a good one to do just after turning 50.

Lucy finished primary school in December and moves onto South Intermediate at the end of January. She got a trophy for the "Most Academic Progress in Year 6". Chris has just finished year 10 and did his Maths NCEA a year early so he seems to be switching on to what he has to do.

We finished the year with a slightly earlier trip to Glendhu Bay and for the first time had Christmas Day on a campsite. I'll finish this post with what are the latest photos of the Dawson clan.

Have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!