Holiday – Page 8 – Pamper Stamper

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July 30, 2013May 15, 2015

The trip is now upon us!!!

All the planning…which seemed like years ago now…and the holiday starts tomorrow! How super exciting! Our itinery is as follows…

31st july – Fly to Auckland and stay with Jess for the night
1st August – Auckland to Singapore
2nd August – Singapore to Rome
3rd August – Rome
4th August – Santa Margherita Ligure
5th August – Baveno
6th August – Venice
7th August – Venice
8th August – Florence
9th August – Florence
1oth August – Sorrento
11th August – Sorrento
12th August – Taomina
13th August – Taomina
14th August – Palermo
15th August – Palermo
16th August – Rome
17th August – fly Rome to Athens, then fly Athens to Budapest
18th August – Budapest
19th August – Budapest to Vienna
20th August – Vienna to Salzburg
21st August – Eagles nest and Alps area
22nd August – Switzerland (Cog railway)
23rd August – switzerland to Paris
24th August – Paris
25th August – Paris
26th August – Paris to London
27th August – discover London
28th August – London area
29th August – London area
30th August – Fly London to Singapore
31st August – Singapore to Auckland
1st September – Auckland to New Plymouth arriving at 4.35pm!!!

The bags are packed except for the toilet bag. The travel cards are funded and cash brought. Photo taking is organised….I have a new camera!!! Yay! Legs and eyebows are being waxed this afternoon….hopefully less personal grooming to think about. Have caught up with a few friends. House is looking pretty tidy. Lawns are mowed.

What else is there to do???

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July 30, 2013September 21, 2018

Grandie Fill!!!

The school holidays are now over. I am in a mix of emotions! So happy to have had the grandsons to stay and have lots of Nana cuddles, but sad because all too soon the time was up and they have now gone back home to Palmerston North. They are fabulous little boys. G2 is quieter, very thoughtful and loving, and an absolute lover of computer/video games! He reminds me of his Uncles, C4 and C1. He gets totally into this other world. His Mum and Dad have to make sure that he is having adequate breaks away from the computer as he would play games all day. He is actually quite clever and has left me one of his games to take care of. I have been sucked into the quest, and have been feeding his little monsters and looking after his ‘earnings’ as best I can, but it is getting very close to me saying ‘no more…that’s enough!’ G2 won’t have access to my computer again until the next School holidays and I am NOT going to keep doing this for 10 weeks! Far too time consuming and very addictive I must say! Even if the look of his gorgeous pleeding eyes remains forever burned in my memory…I will stop arghhhh!

G4 is far more active than G2 but that could also be his age. He turned 4 in May and he hasn’t a care in the world. He makes the most of every environment he is in! We went to the indoor playground, the local parks and to the zoo, and he ventured off in all directions in each place. About 2 years ago he ran straight into a wall in McDonalds playground because he was running so fast and got an amazing bleeding nose! Blood everywhere! Believe it or not he did exactly the same this holidays…at McDonalds as well….same place! You just have to love him though. He has such a cute look of innocence and gives love so freely!

Both boys slept in C5 room in our old bed. Yes Robin and I have finally brought a new bed..after 23 years of marriage…and I love it. I have had longer and more refreshing sleep than I have in years. It’s not a soft bed but it has memory foam and moulds to your body shape. I haven’t had an aching hip or shoulder since sleeping on it! Yay! But…back to the boys…every morning they would come and hop into bed with me. I loved it! Even though they would have a cuddle and then one would lay with my iphone and the other with the galaxy pad…we were together and that was all that mattered! I miss them soooo much.

Whee...Jayden goes down the slide — Whee…G2 goes down the slide

Christian in the ball play — G4 in the ball play

Jayden learning to play table tennis — G2 learning to play table tennis

Stacie helping Christian play table tennis — Stacie helping G4 play table tennis

Smile for the camera Christian — Smile for the camera G4

Just look at that cute face :-) — Just look at that cute face 🙂

a favourite park to visit. Lots of boys activities!

Just too cute...love him! — Just too cute…love him!

Lovely pose Christian :-) — Lovely pose G4 🙂

Jayden posing for the camera — G2 posing for the camera

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January 11, 2013September 21, 2018

It’s January 2013!!!

I can’t believe how fast the last year went! Who would believe that we are now heading towards the middle of January 2013 already!

Well….life is great! I had a fabulous Christmas and even managed a week in Sydney with C1, D1, G1 and G3 (and had a night out with C4 and D3). Robin and the girls were also in Sydney for Christmas day so we had a lovely family time. C6 and I had to fly back home on Boxing Day because I had to work the next 2 days and C6 had booked to go to ‘Rhythm and Vines’ music festival.

Since being back home I have had Simon and the 2 boys staying plus C4 and D3 came to stay for about 5 nights as well. We tried to do as much as possible together for those 5 days. C3 left and went up to Hamilton where he is going to be best man for his friends wedding, and C4 and D3 flew back to Sydney. I still have my 2 grandsons staying and have been having so much fun with them.

Robin and C5 got back home on the 6th of January and both have been working again this week. Life is slowly getting back to normal and that means routine!

C5 turns 21 on the 15th so the next big event will be her birthday dinner. Luckily for me, she has booked her party at a local venue so I won’t have to be preparing food.

My crafting life has had to be put on hold during the Christmas season, but I have plenty of photos printed out ready for when time once again becomes available. I can’t wait! One thing that I have managed to fit in though is shifting a heap of my very old photos from their old unsafe photo albums, to new albums that are acid free. I purchased lots of photo life pages from ‘Simon Says’ and have found them a very quick way of getting the photos into albums and yet making them slightly more interesting than just plain photo albums. I have a long way to go before finishing them, but I am very happy with the progress so far.

I also made a few crafty things for gifts and also for selling in my sisters craft shop. I will attach some photos!

I will also add some photos of my fabulous family and of our time together celebrating our Saviours birthday 🙂

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July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

Day 3 in San Francisco

Today was a relaxed morning. Robin has been suffering bad toothache for 3 days now so it was time to sort out a dentist to see him and sort it out. Appointment was made for 12.30 so we decided to go and try out a San Francisco tram. We only had to walk 2 blocks to get to it and it was $6 for the trip. Not too bad as it was one experience we really wanted to do, especially as you see them going up and down the steep streets on movies, and wonder what it would be like to ride on one personally. It was great. Only two people are allowed to travel outside on the back and Judy and I were the two people. I videoed nearly the whole trip. We got off at Chinatown so we could wander through but stopped at Starbucks for a coffee first. Robin then left us for his dentist appointment. Judy Len and I had fun exploring as many of the shops as possible and also had a lovely lunch at a chinese restaurant. We even walked all the way back to the Hotel as it was a lovely sunny day and actually really relaxing just wandering along.

Judy and I left Len about 3 blocks from the Hotel to do a bit of shopping before we leave San Francisco. The first real time of shopping with no time limits. And did we have fun. I only spent about $125 but loved every minute of the spend!

We decided to have tea at the Rainforest Cafe again as it is only down the road and serves fabulous meals. Another nice dinner to add to our growing list!

Home to pack our bags to 1. see if everything fits in and 2. see if there is room for any more shopping! We have until 5.20 tomorrow to fill in. At 5.20 the courtisy van takes us to the airport for our trip home! I can’t believe that that time has come so quickly. And yet….I find it hard to recall everything that we have done in the 6 weeks. It has been a very full trip with lots of happy moments and memories made. I have loved every single bit of the holiday and would do it all again if I could!

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July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

Day 2 in San Francisco

A nice early start this morning. We were being picked up for our tour to Monterey and Carmel by 8.30 and we had to have breakfast first. Ihop was the choice again as we really enjoyed our breakfast there yesterday.

The tour bus picked us up and took us to the depot ready for the tour. And there we waited for the next hour. The bus was held up in a traffic jam caused by Barak Obama. He was visiting the town and was going by in his car. All the roads were stopped to make way for him. Finally we got on our way over one hour later than we should have. Monterey is a three hour drive south and we were stopping there for 2 hours, driving on to Carmel and staying there for one hour.

The trip was really scenic and thankfully the bus driver stopped a few times for us to get out and take some photos. We travelled along the coast line and the road changed from being sea level to very high…looking down the cliffs to the land and sea below. Monterey was a lovely town built for the cannery industry. Many of the large cannery sheds are now converted to shops especially for the tourists. There is also a big Aquarium there and many restaurants. We chose to have our lunch at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Restaurant. Now that is a great experience including trivia questions about the movie during the lunch time.

We travelled past some very rich properties to Carmel including a private 17 mile road (which we had to pay to go on). The road had 2 big golf courses, one we stopped at to take photos. Clint Eastwood, Nicholas Cage and a few other ‘stars’ own the golf course and it reaked of money! I needed to go to the toilet while we were there exploring and taking photos…so I just used the toilet at the club rooms. They were just like a first class hotel with special cloth towels to dry your hands and extremely tidy and clean. I found out later that we were suppose to use the public toilets! Oops…no one said anything to me so hopefully no one noticed.

As we left so much later in the morning we didn’t get back to San Francisco until 10.30pm, and we still had to wait until all the people were dropped off at their hotels. We were one of the last drop offs. It was a fabulous day! I hadn’t realised that we were going so far, but it is now great to be able to say that not only did we go to San Francisco, we also went down to Monterey and Carmel. Very nice indeed 🙂

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July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

San Francisco Day 1

Well…after staying up til as late as possible, and trying to get into the time zone as quickly as possible, I woke up at 11.30pm…ready for the new day! I got up in the dark and checked the time on my cell phone. I couldn’t believe it was only 11.30 so fumbled for my watch to check. In the dark I read 11.30 as 6am. I thought the others are still asleep so I will try to sleep in a bit longer and wake again when they did. I thought 6am was pretty good and I will cope with the day fine! Feeling rather good about getting into the time zone rather well. Next time I woke I checked the time again as everyone was still asleep…I stirred to look as Len asked me if I was awake. And no!!! I do not share a bed with Len! We are in a room with 2 double beds! Len asked me if I knew what time it was and I said it must be around 8am. When he said it was 2.30 I couldn’t believe it. I felt ready for the day again and it was like torture to just lay in bed. I finally managed to sleep again and woke up with everyone else at 5am. It was time to get up…we couldn’t wait any longer.

We had booked a city tour which started at 9.40am so our next step was to find a place for breakfast. Blow me down….next door is an Ihop! Ihop is an amazing place for a breakfast menu specialising in pancakes and crepes…along with the usual bacon eggs etc! Off we went and joined the queue for breakfast. Tomorrow we will come down earlier and miss the crowd! Well worth the wait though as it is so yummy!

Our tour of the city sights was great. First stop was the Golden Gate Bridge, second the view from the Twin Sisters. Lots of photos taken at both places folks! We also went to Ocean Beach and viewed heaps of other places from the bus. A great tour!

Our Tour finished at about 1.30 so we went to Fishermans wharf again and experienced lunch at Rainforest Cafe. What a neat place to eat! The whole place is done up like a forest with animals everywhere. Everynow and then the animals move and make sounds and then about every hour there is a thunder storm. The whole room darkens, thunder sounds and then it lights up with flashes of lightening. Of course this disturbs the animals so they move and make sounds as well. Oh by the way the food is great too!

We wandered the shops and found our way back to the hotel. All of us could hardly keep our eyes open and it was only 9pm. I think I was the first asleep again! What a great day though 🙂

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July 26, 2012May 15, 2015

And we are off!

A very early morning today! We had to get the rental car back to sixt, take our baggage out of the rental and load it into their airport shuttle van, and get to the airport by 8am. It was a bit of a stressy drive to the rental place, rather unnecessarily so as there were hardly any cars on the road. London doesn’t come alive very early on a Sunday as the shops etc are closed until 11.30! Fabulous idea I think! We had a couple of hours to fill in at the airport but that was okay as we had a lovely leisurely breakfast to drown out our sorrow of that part of our holiday being over! Not that we are not thankful. It ha been amazing! But it means that normal life is just around the corner!

The flight went quite fast…although 10 hours long. I watched 3 movies! All approx 2 hours long each. The best was a movie about an autistic boy who lost his father in Sept 11 at the World trade Centre. I cried most of the way through the movie! I think it was called ‘Extremely loud incredibly close’. We arrived in San Francisco at 1.30pm to a beautiful hot and sunny day.

We are staying at the Raddison at Fishermans wharf. So, once we were unpacked, we wandered off to discover Fishermans wharf. It was buzzing with thousands of people and street performers. We had a lovely meal at one of the many fish based restaurants….all while we were fighting off falling asleep. Our bodies were still in UK time and it was the middle of the night for us! We even went through the wax museum to fil in time. I thought it was great! I was the only one of us who hadn’t been through one before!

We finally hit the sack at 9.30 exhausted! I was asleep first believe it or not! First time in the whole trip! I was so tired! Anyway so far San Francisco looks great! I am going to enjoy the next 3 days 🙂

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July 25, 2012May 15, 2015

Windlesham and Windsor – Our final day in England!

We had a fabulous evening with Daniel and Marysia and a really good nights sleep. The plans for today were to do the walk through Windsor Park starting off at Virginia Waters, and then walk the long mile and end up at the Castle. We woke to a beautiful sunny and hot day. So pleased as it would have been less fun to walk it in the rain. We had planned for Glenda to get to Dan and Marysias place and we go together, but she got stuck in traffic and was running late. So the plan was changed and we met Glenda at the park.

The walk was great and along with the views we had plenty of time to chat and enjoy each others company. We arrived at Windsor Castle just after lunch time so we found a cafe and had lunch together. After lunch we walked down to the river and looked at the swans and the boats. Lots of families were at the river and surrounding parks because of the beautiful sunny day.

We had to catch the 6pm bus back to the gates to Virginia Waters and the Windsor walk entrance so there was time to have a coffee at a cafe near the Castle. We arrived back at Daniels around 6.45pm. Glenda was able to stay for tea so we all went to the local Indian restaurant and enjoyed our last meal together.

What a fabulous time we have had in England! Tomorrow morning at 6am we are off to Heathrow airport to catch our plane to Singapore. This certainly has been a full holiday! It’s hard to remember the details of our whole time away. I will be reading this blog to help jog the memories. Onto the next chapter of the holiday….

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July 25, 2012May 15, 2015

Bournemouth to Daniel and Marysias place

After a reasonable nights sleep we were up bright and early to get started on our big trip to Windlesham. We had so much planned. Our first stop was a little pub in Bournemouth for breakfast. We found a park on the sea front and were blessed with amazing views over the ocean. The sky was a beautiful blue and hardly any clouds and the sea was calm. Bournemouth has an amazing beach, and Poole even better. They just don’t get a long hot summer!

Len has family in Tiptoe, which is just north of Bournemouth and in the New Forest. New Forest is very different from other parts of England as it has lots of wide open spaces and also forestry areas. It also has animals roaming free all over. You see horses, deer and cows often and they are very near the road. We travelled through New Forest after having a lovely morning tea with Lens cousin and his wife.

We drove on to Salisbury to have a look through the Salisbury Cathedral. It is a great Cathedral to visit as the grounds are well kept and picturesque, and the Cathedral itself is very tall, big and interesting both on the outside and the inside. We took heaps of photos and decided to have lunch in their cafe as well.

The next place was a place that Judy needed to see. Stonehenge! Len, Robin and I had already seen it, but it was still good to visit again. Once again we took plenty of photos and the added bonus was that we got in free! We brought tickets to the English Heritage when we first left on our tour of England and they have well and truely paid for themselves.

From Stonehenge we had the biggest part of the journey, and that was to get to Henley on Thames to meet up with Glenda for tea. We were so pleased to get there as we were stuck on the motorway for ages as there had been a car accident. Henley on Thames is a beautiful town filled with historic buildings. Glendas place was one of them. We wandered through the town and along the river than had a lovely meal together.

The final part of the trip was to get to Daniel and Marysias at Windlesham. They have such a neat little place and it was so good o finally be with them again. We had a big catch up, had Daniel blow a candle on his belated birthday cake that Marysia had made him, had supper then went to bed. What a very long day…but a very good day as well.

The photos for today were loaded in yesterdays blog by mistake so that is where they will stay until I have time to fix them up. I hope you enjoy looking at them. We have seen some amazing sights!

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July 22, 2012May 15, 2015

Painswick to Bournemouth

What a neat experience staying in our B&B last night. Robin and I slept in a four poster bed that was so high we needed a stool to get up into it. The whole place was centuries old and was in an area surrounded by historical buildings. We all slept really well and even managed to get some washing washed and dried!

Well what a huge day we had today! The list was 1. The Cotswolds 2. Bristol Suspension Bridge 3. Bath 4. Shaftesbury – Gold Hill 5. Burnemouth and tea with Robins family! The distance travelled seeemed like MILES! Both Judy and I are getting a little sick of sitting inthe back of the car. Worst of all is having no control! Anyone who knows me knows that I am a control freak!

But the day was great! We saw so much and loved it all. The Cotsdwolds are very picturesque to drive through. We stopped at a couple of the little villages to look around and see the historic houses closer up. One place was Bibery which had a trout farm and also one of the most pretty streets in England. I will add some photos of this place.

Bristol Suspension bridge was a recommendation by all the visitors guides, so we just had to divert to Bristol to check it out. We weren’t disappointed..it was quite a sight…and long and very high. We stopped under it for some photos but it just didn’t look as good as in real life.

Now Bath!! If you haven’t been to Bath, you have to add that to your ‘bucket list’. It HAS to be done. What an amazingly pretty historic town. Very much built on Roman influence. We included a visit into the Roman Baths this time. I was so pleased as I have been to Bath before so I had seen most of the touristy spots, but not inside the Baths. It was like a museum and very interesting 🙂

We have a photo at home of Barbara (Robins Mum) walking up a very steep hill with Ken and Margater Pittwood. The little houses in the photo are so quaint and old. I have always wanted to go to that very same spot. So that was our next port of call. Shaftesbury! We arrived around 5pm. Parked the car and walked Gold hill looking at the distant views on the way and also those very same little houses as in the photo. Such a great thing to do.

Next thing was piling into the car and driving as fast as we could to get to Bournemouth. The only trouble was the roads were very narrow, windy and hilly! The trip took much longer that we thought. But we also saw some very good views the whole trip. We arrived in Bournemouth at 8.15pm and booked into our B&B! Went to KFC and brought the worst tea of our whole holiday….yuck! But we didn’t have time to do anything different for tea as we had to take it around to Ken and Margarets place and eat it there. We are running out of holiday time very fast! But, we did have a lovely evening with the Bournemouth Pittwoods (well 3 of them) and had a pretty late night. The internet was useless at our B&B, so once again I could update my blog or load any photos.

My goodness have we stayed at some interesting places, seen some amazing things and had lots of laughs….so good for the soul 🙂