2009 News.

Hi, everyone! Despite the good intentions I seem to have got around to the 22nd December without any interim posts to keep friends informed of what we've been up to. Having said that maybe once a year is enough. What's really scary is how fast the year has gone and that will not be an unfamiliar feeling to any of you. Once again I'll keep the news in a mostly pictorial format because the reality is that in a nutshell we're all one year older and look a bit different and have done some stuff this year!!


The year began with a holiday up at Totaranui in the Abel Tasman national park. The camp site is fairly remote with no hot water but solar shower bags work fine. We went with friends Mark and Jo and their two daughters Maddy and Neve. Mark has a boat and knows what he's doing when it comes to catching fish and diving for crayfish.The dolphins also put on a free show.

At Easter we had a great road trip across to the West Coast then down past the glaciers and through to Wanaka and Queenstown.

The usual sports activities have been on the go this year with Orienteering, Football, Skiing, Mountain Biking and Cricket.

Chris has really got into his cricket this season and made it into one of the Canterbury teams for the Spring tournament.

Scruffy is still the most laid back member of the family. He's a lovely dog despite his "issues"!! He seems to be scared of everything.

That's a big string of photos without much text. If I'm honest the blog format is better for more text with less photos. At least the photos give an idea of what fun activities we've been up to this year.

Both Chris and Lucy love their sports and on top of those shown above Lucy has been doing some roller hockey and athletics and Chris has played softball, Aussie rules and also done athletics.

Chris has just finished his first year (of two) at intermediate school. He's had a good year and seems to have realised that the academic work is more important than the sport. He won an award for multemedia studies. It will be the big step up to high school next year.

Lucy has just finished year 3 at primay school, she's enjoying it and was given the citizenship medal for her class at the end of the year.

Work has been more of the same for me, programming in Java on an interesting project in the avaiation industry that has just had a patent raised on it. Hopefully that will bring some overseas sales for the company.

Dee is on great form as ever, still enjoying her cycling and trying to be (and succeeding at being) the perfect mother. She has recently started working part time in early childhood education centres. She is really enjoying that. Somehow she still manages to put up with me!

I think the above photos and words should give a reasonable idea of what another year in New Zealand has been like for us. All that reamins is to wish you a very good Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Pete, Dee, Chris and Lucy.

xxx

2008 News.

This blog is a bit of an experiment to see if I can give relatives and friends a bit more news on what we've been up to during the year. I'm so appallingly bad at using the telephone or emailing people, hopefully this blog will make amends. I'll attempt a full year this time in lieu of a Christmas card! In the future I may see if I can do bi-monthly updates. For any of you who are not familiar with the blog concept, just click on a photo to see a bigger version of the image. I've kept the words fairly minimal but hopefully the images should give a good impression of our year.

We started the year with our family camping trip which for a lot of years has been to the top of the South Island near the Abel Tasman national park.
The beaches up there are amazing and the combination of blue water, native bush and golden sand is unbeatable for summer holidays.

Easter was spent with friends Nikki and Andrew and their three kids, Josh, Hannah and Toby at their family bach at Kaikoura.




















It's a great place for outdoor fun like walking, fishing and snorkelling. Some mornings you can see the dolphins leaping out of the water while you eat your breakfast.

Lucy turned 7 in May.





















I suppose we should also mention Scruffy our Wheaten terrier who drags us off to the beach at every opportunity.

We've had a couple of weekends up at Castle Hill this year. Castle Hill is a great bouldering area and base for skiing just an hour away from home. Our good friends Joy and Iain go there often and Ian is a great guide for finding stuff the kids can have a go at. I manage to hide behind the camera rather than show myself up.

Akaroa is another day trip and weekend destination that is about an hour from home. It is on the coast so is more of a boating and fishing venue. Mark and Jo Morris have a bach there and Mark always gets the set net out which guarantees a few fish and the excitement of pulling the net up.

Martin, Sally and Tom came to visit us in May and had a great time doing a tour of the South Island.

Karen (my sister), Steve, Alex and Natasha came to vist for a couple of weeks in August. The kids get on brilliantly together.

We got out skiing with them and then had a weekend in Hanmer. They also managed to visit Queenstown (and got snowed in there!!) and Kaikoura. These visits always seem too short.

Both Lucy and Chris were again playing football for Halswell United. I've been coaching Chris's team for a few years now and really enjoy doing that although it takes a fair bit of time as I now need to watch two premiership games a week to stay current with tactics ;-) We had a great bunch of lads this year and they won their division.

In September we had a ten day camper van trip round Northland which is the area north of Auckland at the top of the North Island. The climate up their is a lot warmer than in Christchurch, they get 18 degrees in winter, so in spring we were in the sea every day. There are beautiful beaches everywhere so the camper van was great for just staying where we wanted to. This was also ahead of the tourist season so everywhere was nice and quiet. We made the pilgrimage to Cape Reinga which is the northernmost point in New Zealand. Just near there at the top of the ninety mile beach are the Te Paki sand dunes, these huge dunes are great fun for toboganning on a bodyboard!! On the way back down the east coast we passed through the Kauri forests, some of the old trees there have a girth of over 5 metres and are 1200 years old.

The school sports are always a big event in our family as both kids seem to be fairly talented at athletics. Lucy won the 50m sprints in her year and Chris had places in the 50m, 80m and 1500m. He had to go to represent the school at the zonal competitions.

Chris also played chess for his school this year.

Dee has been getting out on her bike with friends and singing in a choir group which she really enjoys.

I'm not a fancy dress fan but Dee did a good 'Darth Maul' job on me for a Halloween party.

We managed to get a nice fishing trip out on Lake Coleridge with friends Nick and Cindy and their boys Alex and Joseph. The lake is about an hour from home and Chris caught a 2lb salmon which we had on the barbie at tea time. Fortunately Nick is a keen fisherman and actually knows what he is doing!

Early December brings Chris's birthday and that made him 11. He and his friends are starting to seem quite mature these days. Most of his presents were sporting kit as shown here with a Liverpool shirt and his cricket gear.

Chris had his final day at Primary school last week. Fortunately all of his friends are heading to the same Intermediate. They are a great bunch of kids.

Regarding the old man, I've been running again (up to 90 minutes) and am finally getting out in the hills a bit more with some mates. There always seems to be too many things I want to do! The last couple of year have seen me getting very keen on my photography again. If you don't want words and want to see pictures check out this site.

http://petedawson.zenfolio.com/

It needs a bit of an update but I should get that done in the next couple of weeks.

Have a brilliant Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Pete, Dee, Chris and Lucy.