Hello and Happy New Year! Wel Christmas has certainly been different this year for us, but never the less its been good. Christmas Eve we both finished work early and thought we go do the christmas shopping, so we went up to Ashburton an off we went trying to avoid each other whilst buying each others presents proved to be quite good fun!! So by christmas day we had collected quite a good collection of cards and presents (which we are really greatfull for!!), so first thing in the morning we got up and opened them all, we were like to excited kids he he!! I got Anna a ginger bread men decorating kit and she spent the rest of the morning creating members of the family!! For dinner Grant and Anthea invited us accross to the house for dinner which was really good, the turkey was done on the bbq and the pudding even had a coin in!!! Then we spent the rest afternoon playing board games with the kids and went back home about tea time!!

Boxing day, we decided we best hit the sales ha ha so off we went and bought a boogie board then we went straight of to Timarou to ive it a try its was a right laugh and we spent the rest of the day messing around on the beach although we could have done with a few more waves! So saturday of we went in the Primera to Akaroa this is on the east coast near Christchurch the drive was certainlt an eye opener up down all over but luckily we have the Primera sport ha ha,anyway we made it and it was a really smart place although it was full of Americans all plastered in NZ clothing and hats in there usual way he he, Akaroa was where the first french settlers came and had that feel about it, with french restuarants and art galleries hehe, am really getting into foreign culture as you can see he he!!! So after a Gull tried to nick my lunch but failed miserably we made made our way home! So we spent the rest of the weekend chilling out we had a ride up to Lake Hood up the road to see the boats, but i was like a motorway of jet ski's and spped boats think every kiwi owns one or the other!!

Monday came soon enough and Anna was back to work and i shot of in the moring to do a breakdown, exhuast fell of a tractor so i ended up workin until dinner time and then i spent the rest of the day trying to keep cool as mid afternoon it hit 36 degrees!! So it was friut salad and ice cream for tea! Tuesday and Wedensday were pretty much the same Anna was working and i was just 'bit'in and bat'in' across in the yard. For New Years Eve we thought we would go to the well advertised Ashburton NYE street party and we were quite excited, well unfortunately i think they had spent the majority of their budget on the posters, entainments included a 20 foot feris wheel thing, a many with a toy monkey pretending to be a ventrelaquist and some maori dancers, great! So it wasnt long before we homed in on the Spieghts Ale House and we met up with one of Annas work mates and spent the rest of the night sampling the beer, then before we knew it was 2009, 13 hours before you lot he he! New Years day ,with a bit of a thick head we set off for Christchurch and to the Royal NZ Air Force Museum, i could really see the excitment brimming out of Anna hehe, but luckily it turned out to be pretty good with loads of planes to look at, i managed to crash all the flight simulators, so hopefully our flight home wont need a pilot, and we even saw a David Brown, and even Anna tried to make herself into a plane!! From here we headed up to Sumner Bay just this side of CChurch, Sumner was a nice place, and on the way we passed through the Scarborough reserve, which was full of sheep! At Sumner we spent the afternoon boogie boarding nd messing about on the beach and eating ice cream ,so seen as it was New Years day we thought we would treat ourselves to tea, and we headed back to Spieghts Ale House!! I had called the Pig Hunter, it was a full rack of pig ribs and i took some eating he he put think i'll be avoiding pork for the next few weeks hehe!! But all in all it was good and Anna enjoyed her slightly less heartly dinner!! So Friday we hit the road again and headed off to the west into the mountians to a place called Arthurs Pass the roas here was certainly one to keep you awake and we spent alot of it in low gears climbing, but unfortunately when we got there they issued a server weather warning 35mm an hour of rain was due and you could see it coming,so they were ordering everone of the mountains, but undetered we did one of the short walks up to see the water falls nd to see the Devils Punch Bowl and we made it back just in time for the rain whilst having a quick drink we met one of the locals a Kea like a dark green parrot and i had it eye on my drink!!! Anyway as we mad our way home you could actually see the weather following us down the mountains and as we got home the winds really picked up to about 80 mph!! and before we knew the power was out, but luckily for us the Reiths were well prepared for power cuts and soon we were on the generator but lost the water as it could not powe both houses and the well, but at least we could see, good job tea was ok he he!! This Morning (Saturday) the power was still out so of we headed up in to town to do some posting and some shopping, and returned to find it was still off so we went on a trip to Omarou about 2 hour south (think we have kept Shell going tis holiday he he good job its cheap) This is an old port town but not a greta deal to see so we had a look round the shops down to the remains of the Harbour and to the Museum. Omarou actually is home to lots of Pengiuns on the beaches but i think they must have gone away for christmas because we didnt see any!! So we made our way back home and passed our power problem a snapped pole which was now repaired and returned to have our power back on and water and as we speak are just tryin to plan next weekend not quite sure what were doing tomorrow,but its back to work monday!! Hope your all well and congratulations to Liz and Plummey!!!