Wednesday, August 16, 2006


Ciara's indulging in one of her favourite pasttimes - reading cookbooks and saying 'WOW' at every colour picture :)

Goodness me, my last post was March and now it's August!!! Eeeek!

As you can probably guess things are hectic as usual! Brendan is doing his first year of Masters (his papers year) and he's flat out. I'm studying Maori language again this year, and it's a bit of a step-up from last year, so I'm having to work quite hard at it.

The wee girl is full of mischief and now walking and running all over the place. Her vocabulary is coming along in leaps and bounds and we estimate (it's a bit hard to count because she keeps surprising us) that she now knows and uses about 60 - 70 words. Her favourite colour word is 'purple' (everything is purple at the moment) and when she's hungry she's not shy about demanding 'dinner'! Ciara has started at Playcentre and she loves it. She is also really enjoying swimming at the moment and is proving to be fearless like her big cousin Ella.

As well as parenting and studying we're both also working part-time, fitting it in around our other commitments.

Anyway I must away and do some study while the wee girl is in bed having her afternoon 'sleep' (actually at the moment she's warbling away to her toys, but she'll probably fall asleep eventually).

Wednesday, March 01, 2006


Hi All,

Wow it's March already - time flies when you're having fun! Haven't posted for a while - I thought we were busy last year - if possible we are even busier this year!

We have just about completed the building the new garage, which is great, have so much more space inside now that all the garage things are finally finding a proper home!

Ciara is coming up with new tricks every day! Her favourites at the moment are blowing kisses and waving (usually done at the same time). The words 'Hello', 'Bye bye', 'wave' and even 'the trees are waving in the breeze' all prompt frantic waves - too cute!

Brendan very busy with his first Masters year, and trying to finish off the garage.

I'm slacking on my triathlon training (triathlon is this Sunday) - oops! I think it is because I know that I have no problems with each of individual discipline lengths - putting them all together might be interesting though!

Will leave you with this picture taken today :)

Friday, January 06, 2006

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note to let you know we are still here (it's been a while since we last published!).

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We did, we had Christmas dinner for 12 at our place, and it was great fun. Dave's Mum joined us from Timaru, Sharon from Wellington, Naomi and Kathy from Rangiora and Gaye and Dave from Auckland - so a far travelled bunch we were!

Our trip overseas was fabulous, it was lovely to catch up with Brendan's parents and for them to meet their new wee granddaughter and spend so much time with her. I will publish a couple of photos when I get a minute.

Gotta zoom, wee girl is in bed, so should be doing something (like washing argh) while I can.

Take care,

Nicci, Brendan and Ciara