Merry Christmas 2007!

Hey there everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We celebrated up at Brook's parents house in Palmerston North with my parents there as well. Because Peter worked on Christmas day (I know!!), we had a wee celebration with him and a reduced Stiles collective in the morning. December 14th was our 5th wedding anniversary! We went out for dinner then had a walk along the Petone foreshore and came home by 8pm - I think we are getting old already! Just before Christmas we went to Beth Thomson's "Fluro" 21st birthday party, which was full of crazy outfits and lots of fun. I am off to visit Sarah in a couple of days now and staying for the entire month of January. I will try to update our blog from there. Brook will be kept busy helping the builder with our bathroom renovations. He is a sweetie! Love Katie

Whangaparaoa retreat

Hey Team!
Just went on an awesome retreat about an hour north of Auckland with the Blueprint/Zeal crew. We had a great time in the sun, lots of laughs, fellowship and discussions. Brook even went for his first swim in the ocean for about 2 years!! There are a couple of photos of little scamper who unfortunately got put down coz he was real old, blind and too much to manage for mum. Loved that dog, he was very special and we treasure finding him up in the wilderness of the Tararuas almost 9 years ago. Pets are a real blessing in life but it sure is sad when its their time to go. 2 pets in one year is pretty tough too, bilbo is hanging on in there for the moment!! love katie

Busy times

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't updated lately, been real busy with the year drawing to an end soon - only a few days left until four out of my five classes go on study leave!! Here are some photos of our gardening efforts over labour weekend, my class party at school (special surprise in one of the photos for you sarah!) and our life group dinner. More photos soon. Blessings, katie xox

Trip to Auckland

Hey team!
Here are the photos from our trip to Auckland last week. We stayed with our friends Stacey and Tim who are starting a new Zeal youth centre and Blueprint church in West Auckland. Weather was alot warmer than Wellington and we had two lovely visits to beaches, Bethals Beach on the west coast (with "Romi" our friends' hyperactive doggie!) and also Snells beach on the east coast about 1 and a half hours north of Auckland. We caught up with Graham, Renee and Keenan on saturday which was awesome; I got my first Keenan initiated huggie!! He was also quite taken with my sunglasses case!

correction to last post

sorry, got my photo numbers mixed up! Here is the photo of our purchase of the year. That photo of me dressed up as a cowgirl was for our 'Americana' day at school. Sorry bout that!

Blueprint Church Camp

Hey peoples!
Here are a collection of photos from our church camp over the weekend and a random photo of our purchase of the year: a dyson vacuum cleaner! At camp we had the Blueprint Olympics; which included the cross dressing rely! Doesn't Brook look gorgeous in a dress and heels?!! Brook's country was 'Eagleshark'- named after the brilliant NZ film called Eagle vs Shark - definitely see it if you get an opportunity, gives a great impression of kiwi humour, I like to think of it as our own version of Neploean Dynamite. My country was 'Scoutland' - as we were staying at a VERY basic scout camp out in the Wainui valley. Blessings:)

School trip to Christchurch

hey team,
hope you enjoy these photos of my school trip down to Christchurch to participate in the national barbershop competition. We took 110 wonderfully behaved students and won the girls' chorus and our boys came third in their competition. We also went to the Antartica Centre; it was lots fun experiencing a simulated antartic storm....they also had very cute blue penguins there, we sang there as well as the restaurant we went to and outside the mall!! The weather was pretty cold but scenary was gorgeous...hope you like my artistic photos!