Archive for All Posts
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Wings Over Wairarapa 2013
Another amazing event, the weather was blazing and as always they put on a stunning show. This blog post is for all you plane enthusiasts! ...
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Under The Influence
With my recent call back into a more active lifestyle, the influence from this has not gone unnoticed. Bethany has always been active, loves swimming, more recently getting well into Netball and since learning to ride her bike she's been an avid fan of getting out and about. I asked Beth late last ...
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Christmas 2012
I know I keep harping on about the same thing year in and year out - but honestly it soooo strange having Christmas with the sun blazing! This was our 7th Christmas in New Zealand, and still it just doesn't feel quite right. It took a LOT to get myself into the mood this year, the sunshine arrives a...
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Little Miss Nine
Yep, nine already. Time has flown so quickly, and our little baby girl is no longer so little. Living six out of her nine years in New Zealand it's safe to say she is a fully fledged kiwi, her accent is so broad, and her laid back attitude matches life here. We do feel like nine years have swept by ...
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Otaki Bach Weekend
Every now and again you meet someone who inspires you, someone who makes life for them, and especially their children, as magical as it can be all of the time despite the adversity. I met a very special lady a few years ago now, and instantly we connected. Her sheer drive for life and inability to l...
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The Hobbit Premiere: The Middle of Middle Earth
New Zealand is known for a lot of things such as Rugby, Kiwis, Culture and fantastic coffee, but a unanimous world understanding of not only the land, but the wonder of where it comes from are the words 'Lord Of The Rings'. We moved to New Zealand a few years after the premiere of Lord Of The Rings ...
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New Plymouth: Part 2
After a gorgeous restful night we were up early, ready to face the fun day ahead. First on the list was to head out to the Tattoo Festival, which was being held at the TSB Stadium. It was a 10 minute walk through the town to get there, and as we approached there were some amazing views of the mounta...
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New Plymouth: Part 1
There is so much of New Zealand to see, we have given it a good go over the last few years and visited some amazing places, so when an opportunity presents itself where we can see somewhere we have never been before we grab it! Earlier in the year we saw some information about an annual tattoo fest...
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Firey Celebrations
As we head into the back end of the year - it always becomes a busy time, so many things going on and so many events to go to. Next in line was Bonfire / Guy Fawkes night. We were quite excited about our local City event and turned down other invites to attend, only for the flippin' weather to spoil...
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Halloweeeen!
Last year we held our very first Halloween event at our house, Kiwi's don't really tend to celebrate and my friends pretty much got sick of me moaning about how no-one did anything - so we decided to show them how it's done! It was fantastic, a huge success and we were told that we would forever be ...
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RIP Chips
I wouldn't normally do a blog post for a fish, but Chips was far more special than just any old fish. We got her and her friend Fish for my birthday the first year we moved here, sadly he didn't make it past a few months. She has been through so much, different fish we got bringing disease, snail...
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Summer Is Coming
As the year winds down New Zealand winds up as Summer approaches. It's something still quite foreign to us that summer is here at this time of the year, but it's something that we are starting to get used to. So from December 1st official summertime begins! With the clocks changing there are love...
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6 Years In New Zealand!
We are so proud of ourselves, we have been in New Zealand six years now and it's been an incredible journey so far. When we arrived all those years ago we were hoping that things would work out, and we certainly made moves to secure a future - and now we can firmly say that we are here to stay! So ...
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No Longer ‘Pending’
Way back in 2005 we sat in the front room of our home in the UK and told my parents we were moving to New Zealand. At that time I said to Michael I could never survive knowing that I would never see my parents again, or only see them once every three years, and that I could only move if I knew th...
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Netball Niche
Bethany for a long time hasn't had an interest in a sport, it was almost like she would prefer torture over having to do sports, adamant that she would never want to do anything, let alone sport as a team. A horrified disgusted expression would fill her face at even the mention! Then something ch...
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Meet Milo
We have had Enzed for over a year now, he has never really been a cuddly bunny, as was never a fan of being picked up and held, and is still that way a year on. That's fine as he has grown and his Flemish Giant breed has turned him into a big bunny to handle! He loves to sniff and come over to check...
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Goals Aren’t Met, They Are Smashed
Life to us is all about setting goals. Then, you don't just achieve it, you smash it to oblivion and move on to the next one. Take moving house for example, we wanted to move and do something different, so we moved to the other side of the planet. That's how we roll here at Dawes HQ! My goa...
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New Zealand’s Next Top Model?
"I want to be a model when I get older - but I also want to do it now too" - Bethany. It started with watching the TV show - New Zealand's Next Top Model, Bethany would watch the girls in awe, making suggestions that they could have done something better, picking out her favourite, telling us over ...
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School Holiday Fun
The school holidays are always lots of fun, we are extremely lucky that I can be at home the whole of the holidays and be with Bethany. Normally the holidays come and they pass so quickly, so this time we actually sat down and wrote out a two week plan of where we go and what we would do - there was...
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Wellington Love Affair
We adore Wellington, how cool is it that we can live so close to one of the most amazing cities in the world? Wellington goes through the seasons so gracefully, the changes in the vast beautiful ocean, the meandering skies and distinct landscapes are something to be witnessed no matter what time of ...
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Easter In New Zealand
So I was recently asked if events such as Easter, Christmas and Halloween are any different over here in New Zealand to the UK, and whilst there are a few differences the answer is not really. For instance Christmas is through the summer months here, so it's usually hot and you would rather BBQ than...
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Grandma & Grandad: Last Few Days
There may have only been just less than a week left after the whirlwind trip to Australia but we were determined to make the most of it! As usual the weather in NZ was as unpredictable as ever - at the start of the week we had glorious sunshine, where Bethany (and Denver) got to enjoy the paddlin...
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Grandma & Grandad: Go To Australia (and take us!!) (Finale!)
The trip back to Adelaide was like the trip there, despite the change in route on the way back, there was so much beautiful open land but it just seemed to go on and on, and so we were excited to see signs to say we were nearing Adelaide. We had originally thought that we would maybe visit Adelaide...
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Grandma & Grandad: Go To Australia (and take us!!) (Pt. 3)
Penola is such a cute little place, the main road runs right through the middle and it's quite a popular tourist spot which surprised us - probably because people hadn't seen civilisation for hours! It's lined with boutique style shops and cute little cafes. We enjoyed walking around and havi...
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Grandma & Grandad: Go To Australia (and take us!!) (Pt. 2)
The next morning we were refreshed and ready to go and after breakfast we packed up and headed away - on our journey to Penola. The ride was going to be about 5 hours, probably longer if we stopped off to look at things. We made sure studied the map really well and decided to take a different route ...
