Happy New Year

New Calendars

We have received calendars from 3 cousins this year.
This one from Glenys and Athol has lovely shots of Maggie, Glenys' delightful granddaughter, photos of their South African safari, and photos of 'Tidsfordriv', Glenys' lovely home.
Stunning!





This calendar is from Esmee and Ian and contains family trees, heritage and present day photos as well.
Superb!
Another way of sharing geneology!

Our 3rd calendar was a small desktop calendar that will sit on our window sill. It is from Denise & Ross, and has their contact phone number on, so I can easily ring them.

Thanks cuzzies!

Day 9 reading Challenge...

Day 9 of my Reading Challenge. I have now read 12 books.

8."The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"-Stieg Larsson. An absolutely stunning thriller! It took me some time to get "into" the book, but then it went at a rivetting pace. Reading the 2nd book of the Trilogy now...

9."Fancy Nancy-The Show Must Go On"-Jane O'Connor. Delightful!

10."Fancy Nancy-Pajama Day" both books are in the "I can read" series. I have ordered 7 Fancy Nancy books from the Book Depository.($4 each!)

11."Alfie Gives a Hand."-Shirley Hughes. A thought-provoking picture book about Alfie who overcomes his shyness to become the most helpful party guest.

12."Tomorrow, When The War Began"-John Marsden- a young adult's novel. A great read, a little slow to take off, but then it went at full speed! I am left wanting to read the next in the series...

Ted's Waterwheel

Ted put the final touches to his waterwheel yesterday, it has been a 6 year project, but well worth the wait!

Day 5 Reading Challenge

It is Day 5 of my reading challenge, and I have read 7 books!

"Brown Paper Bear" -MacMillan Children's Books illustrated by Neil Reed
A lovely picture book showing toys of a bygone era, and a little magic from the brown paper bear.

"Fancy Nancy Butterfly Birthday"-Written by Jane O'Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser.Just delightful! Loved the illustrations and storyline. A great way of extending vocabulary. Nancy loves using fancy words. Manaia (one of my students) would just love this book!

"The Hardy Boys" Papercutz Graphic Novel #6 Hyde & Shriek
Took me a wee bit to get back into comics! I found it hard to follow at first, not knowing where the next comic strip went. However, once I got the hang of it, I enjoyed the mystery. I am going to use graphic novels this coming year with my older boys.

"Piggity-Wiggity Jiggity Jig" A picture book by Diana Neild, pictures by Phillip Webb.
Delightful! One I will be sharing with my students. The story of a wee pig with a very long name, and the story behind his name.

"CLUBS a Lolly Leopold story"-Kate de Goldi & Jacqui Colley.
This is a sophisticated picture book, and such fun to read! There is so much to read on each page, I was turning the book every way round to read everything! Tells the story of all the clubs Lolly's class have joined.

"Me and My Dad"-by Alison Ritchie pictures by Alison Edgson.
A picture book about the special relationship of a little bear and his dad. I always celebrate Father's Day with my students, so here is another delightful book to add to my collection.

"Our daft Dog Danny"-by Pamela Allen.
A delightful picture book about Uncle Peter, dogs at the beach. Problems, and a great solution. Another book to share!

I am in the middle of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" -intriguing story!

Christmas Blessings

Wishing you all the blessings of Christmas, and may the coming year be filled with exciting surprises and memorable events. One of my goals is to read 41 books in the remaining 41 days of holiday! Check out the Book Whisperer's Blog on the right. I am reading, just started,"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. I have ordered "The Book Whisperer" and " Training Your Brain for Dummies".
Any recommendations?

Ted's Homemade Wine

Ted' s new passion is winemaking. He has bottled his first and second batches.

I have enjoyed making labels for the wine!

Ted's hunting trip to Pine Milling

Ted has been away to Pine Milling (near Napier) with his mate Rick, and Rick's son Daniel, hunting. It was Ted's first hunting trip with his new hip, and it passed with flying colours! He had two small falls, but no damage to his hip thank goodness.

If you look carefully at the dark bush scene you should see a deer! Ted said there is one there... They all shot a deer, and saw lots of other ones.

We have also been down for a quick trip to Wanganui to see how Jahna and Christina are getting on, and all is well down there, a great visit.

We haven't had signs of Psa in our orchard, but are keeping a lookout for it.

Jahna comes to stay

Jahna came and stayed in the holidays. He went to work with Ted at Farmlands and managed to earn some money. The day before he left he went shopping! Here he is in his new clothes (JayJays). Skateboard, glasses,hat and shoes bought in Te Puke!

We loved having him!

He is over 6 foot now, so Nana looks like a real shrimp beside him...

Still Alice

I have just read this book, "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova. It is about Alice, a university professor, who develops early onset dementia.

For any of us who have dealings with dementia, it is truly an eye opener.

I am now reading Jodi Picoult's "House Rules" and am finding it a gripping story of a teenager with autism.

WOW

On Saturday I went to WOW with my great friend Judith, her sister Jennifer, and daughter Kerin. It was absolutely stunning, the creations, music, acrobats, gymnastics and music!

Top photo: Jennifer, Kerin, Yvonne and Judith
Bottom Photo: Some of the section winners. The supreme winner is 2nd from the right, top line.

Family Tree

Last Thursday I flew down to Wellington, then took a shuttle bus to the Railway Station, and then caught the train to Masterton. Just by the skin of my teeth! I met a lovely lady Fay Evans who flew down with me from Tauranga. She had just been to Tauranga to celebrate her 80th birthday with her twin sister. She was going to Masterton too, so showed me the ropes! Our plane was late, the shuttle dropped off lots of people in town, so we arrived at the railcar with just minutes to spare! Thanks Fay!

I spent the night with Glenys and Athol. Glenys told me about her latest Lions' Project, and on Friday she gave me some insights into how to search for information for family trees. She has done a lot for our Drysdale family tree, so that was a great start.

Kawerau Intermediate friends lunch

We had a lovely lunch today at Mary Tagelagi's home in Matamata. Mary's garden was looking delightful, and we all enjoyed a glorious day, after some rather unforgettable weather!
Top left: Mary Tagelagi, Bruce Slade, Jacque Hogan, and Jessie Slade. Top right: Mary & Jessie. Bottom left: Mary, Yvonne, Jacque and Jessie, Bottom right: Elva Leonard, Mary & Jessie.

Eyes on the prize.

Eyes on the Prize
An extract from Raising Teens Today by Ian Lambie & Les Simmonds
‘Take the time to enjoy your child’s teenage years. Enjoy the naivety and the idealism. Enjoy the courage and even the frustration of being young in an old world. Relish the opportunities to debate whether meat is murder, whether adults are all hypocrites, whether adults can or can’t dance with the stars, and whether education sucks. Take lots of photographs and videos, even of the things that drive you crazy, such as messy rooms and weird fashions. When you’re old and grey and full of sleep, and your own kids are middle-aged, maybe with kids of their own, these things will be treasures beyond worth You’ll look at these pictures of the room with the floor that didn’t see the light of day for years, and crazy as it might sound you may just feel rapt to have been there and survived it all. You may even find yourself wishing you could go back there again, just for a visit, just for one day, just to see them as they were, one last time.
Above all other things, keep your eyes on the prize’

Jahna comes to visit!

Last holidays Jahna came to visit. He spent time in the orchard working, and managed to go home even with some pocket money!

We really enjoyed having him to stay. The only thing I regret, is letting him have fizzy all the time! My dental nurse friends won't approve of that!

I have a lovely quote about teenagers that I saw on Nicki's blog... I will post it here. Jahna was able to create havoc in his room in only a few short days!

Brent is in the NZ Woman's Weekly!

This week's NZ Woman's Woman's Weekly 9 August has an article about a student I had on my Supplementary Learning Support roll. He came off my roll because he was achieving well academically. The article tells how he is using the computer software Marvin to "have a voice".

Great Great Grandfather

My brother Clinton & his wife Karen are in Britain at present attending two weddings. They took the opportunity to search out our great great grandfather's grave in the cemetery at the Old Polmont Parish church.

Sad News

It was really sad to learn that Trevor, who had been at our class get together in April, has since died. He wasn't well at our get together, but had looked forward to, and enjoyed it. He died on the 19 June, after a short battle with cancer. His funeral was huge, I think all of Maketu were there.

Two other members of our class have died since our get-together. Rose Wolland, after a long battle with cancer, and Keith Wooller, after a short illness.

Then and now!

2010
Here we all are, at our Class get-together at Eketahuna Saturday 17 April 2010.

Max, Elwyn, Trevor, Esmee
Glennys, Janice, Yvonne


1956

Schooldays, Std 4 in 1956 at Eketahuna School.

Saturday night was great fun! Glennys and I arrived at Eketahuna bright and early. We walked down to the school, and looked around, then around the street where Glennys lived, she lived opposite Esmee in Anderson Street, Elwyn used to live just around the corner in Alfredton Road, as does Janice nowadays. Glennys has an excellent memory, so was able to say who lived where, and had lots of stories to tell. Esmee and Ian arrived. It was such a mild night we all walked down to the Eketahuna Club. There were 10 of us in our class party, 7 of our class, and 3 partners. It was super meeting up with Max and Trevor and their wives. The Club had advertised Roast meals to their members for the evening. The food was fantastic, really amazing for $20. We were just talking about our childhood puddings, bread pudding etc, and lo and behold that was one of the puddings.(Made with hot cross buns... delicious.) We had lot of laughs reminiscing and fun trying to work out who was who in the photos. Such fun!
Over coffee at Athol's before bed we sat around and Esmee read our report about our Standard 6 trip to Christchurch! (Glennys, Nancy Olivant, Esmee and I were in this special class... with pupils down to Std 3, it was like a country school, we were in a Prefab far from the madding crowd.) Anyway, we marveled at the wonderful writing all the class had displayed in recounting our ventures. One of the highlights was visiting the Sanitarium factory, so it was very fitting that we had weetbix for Sunday brekkie. Kind of yuk (I hate it!) but I did it in remembrance!

Lower Hutt visiting Judith & John

Next stop on my holiday was visiting Judith & John at Lower Hutt. More glorious weather, a day at the zoo, and Miss Saigon were among the great things we did. Here is Judith with her daughter Kerin and grandsons Oliver and Hamish. Thanks for having me Judith and John. It was fun!

Visiting Lorraine & Bruce at Ruby Bay

I had a wonderful time visiting Lorraine and Bruce at Ruby Bay, Nelson. What glorious scenery, and great weather. Visiting potters, the WOW museum, and beaches were just amazing! Thanks Lorraine and Bruce for your hospitality. I will be back!

Ian's 65th

I had a fabulous trip to Hastings to Ian's 65th. The party was such fun. On my way down I caught up with Amy-Leigh my granddaughter at Reporoa College (top right) and Uncle Ted and Aunty Catherine in Napier(top left). They were all well.
Ted had a great holiday at Stewart Island, albeit a bit wet! 3 fine-ish days 3 days hunting in the persistent rain, and 3 in the hut far too wet to hunt! The party of 4 shot 7 whitetail deer so had plenty of venison to eat!
It's been hard to come home and to go to work! However, they have booked next year's trip, so have that to look forward to!

Well, here it is, heading towards the holidays again! what a busy term I have had, all fun. I have been enjoying adding to my Memorabilia tree, it certainly is a "work in progress"! At the moment I am adding beads and charms to represent people, interests and events in my life. I have just put on a wee waterski for Ted. Very cute!

On Wednesday he heads for Stewart Island, and will be home Easter Sunday. I hope he has a great time, he deserves it!

Next weekend I am off to Hastings to celebrate my cousin Ian's 65th birthday. After enjoying Thalia's wedding last September, I vowed to make more effort going to celebrations! But, in saying that, I can feel that I might pike out!

In the holidays I am going to visit my cousin Lorraine in Nelson, that will be super, then I'll catch up with Judith my super duper friend in Lower Hutt, and visit friends and relatives in the Wairarapa. I have arranged a dinner for my 1956 Std 4 class at Eketahuna for Saturday 17 April. So far 6 are coming, 4 from the class with 2 partners. RSVPs by April 5, so I am hoping a few more will say "Yes!"

Then... Sunday off to the Supplementary Learning Support Conference in Wellington.