Dad and Gail come back from their South Island holiday tomorrow so we decided to surprise him. He's been wanting a footpath from the side garage door to the clothes line so tonight Paul went and dug it out for him, so he doesn't have to do it when he gets home. I seriously can't even begin to explain how supportive Dad has been while we were trying to get our loan approved. Dad always talks about swings and round-a-abouts. I just hope that one day I can do a lot ...

Yesterday morning we dropped our plans off to the architect. We're using Chris Needham who lives up the end of Smithville Road. Hans and Ilonka know him through Ariana being friends with his daughter. He currently doesn't have much on so is able to start drawing up our plans straight away. Hans suggested that we take a drive out to Miro Road so that Chris could get a visual of where we're planning on building. We went for a walk over the building site and talked ...

Tonight we're having a date night and celebrating at the Old Stone Butter Factory, because our land went unconditional today! It's been a stressful couple of weeks. Paul and I have spent a lot of time getting quotes for building materials, tradies, a fireplace, carpet, curtains, things for our bathroom etc. Paul and Hans have also put hours into drawing up a floor plan and elevations for our house. We went back to Westpac with our timeline and quotes, as they'd a...

After a couple of months of house hunting, Paul and I decided to start looking for a piece of land buy and build a house on instead. Paul has been working away in Dargaville recently so I've been spending a lot of time looking at pieces of land on Trade Me. I came across three blocks of land on Miro Road. There were two 4000 sq/m sections and a 1.3 hectare block of land. Dad, Paul and I went for a drive and walked over the 4000 sq/m block. At the time I thought i...