Dawes Family in New Zealand

2010

Wow, 2010 already. Eeek, the time seems to be passing by so quickly now. Bethany asked the other day what year I was born, 1979 didn’t seem to register in her brain, she looked me for a while, laughed and walked off!

So of course New Year’s Eve was upon us, last year was truly amazing when we went away camping with all our friends and their children. 8 families all pitched together for 3 nights and we had the most amazing time, you can read about our fun from last by clicking the links here: Part One. Part Two. Finale.

This year was a different story. Michael had to work, as did many other families and so this year we couldn’t pull off a giant camping trip, but who was to say we couldn’t have our own? And it would be with decent amenities too!  

We went and got our tent out and put it up in the back garden on our deck (around our ongoing project!) and told Bethany we were just checking the tent for the upcoming camping we will be doing over summer.  She was most excited and surprised when we told her to go get her bedding as that’s where we were sleeping for the next few nights!

We had great fun putting the tent together, the weather was sunny and warm and it was going to be so very exciting for us all. Even Denver and Bailey were excited!

Earlier on in the evening we were invited round to our wonderful friends Alina and Justin’s to spend some time with them and their family. We had a great time chatting, the children played merrily and we shared round a very lovely bottle of champagne!

We headed back around 8.30pm so we could have a BBQ and as it got dark we lit some sparklers and let off the few fireworks we had. All good fun!

Bethany zoned into bed around 10pm and Michael and I pretended we really were camping and just sat out under the stars talking till the wee hours. It was funny to hear suburbia in party mode, listening to people being silly, shouting, and dancing wasn’t at all annoying (for the first time!), just nice for the fact people were having so much fun. Everyone was shouting Happy New Year around the street as the clock ticked over…very funny.

We awoke very early the next morning! 5.45am to be precise! That’s the joy of having light mornings and a 6 year old child! The weather was stunning too and so after a slow morning we decided to shake off the cobwebs and head out to the beach for the day. We loaded up the car (dogs too) and visited our most favourite sandy place where the beach is long and warm, the views amazing and the water perfect. There were a handful of people there too which was even better, we swam and played in the water – all very nice. We only however managed an hour before the cold Southerlies start to blow in, the water changed and suddenly all the seaweed was being churned up. Time to get out!

As we got home we heard on the radio that there was a severe weather warning issued – gale force winds! Not what we needed to hear when we were planning another night in the tent. It still truly amazes me that you can have glorious sunshine and pure blue skies and then within an hour it can be overcast and blowing a gale!

We decided we would stick it out – one more night in the tent. If we were away camping on a site somewhere we would have to, and we did promise Bethany two nights. As it got dark the winds started to really pick up. Bethany was sleeping soundly oblivious to what was going on outside, but as Michael and I (and Denver and Bailey) settled down the tent seemed to get more and more animated. The wind howled and shook the tent wildly. As it was we weren’t able to peg the tent out properly due to the space we had the wind was also blowing through the tent causing mayhem. We laid there for a few hours before we really had to give in and head inside to the safety of the house at 1.30am!

A very disgruntled Bethany came bounding in our room the next morning wondering what had happened. She wasn’t pleased, but understood when we went outside and stood in tent in the still very high winds and saw it practically flying!! A sharp end to our New Year camping trip – but it was still awesome. We had a great time and will certainly we doing it more often – it was nice to have a break, even if it was 10 steps from the house!!!

So 2010 is here, onwards into another new year, I wonder what it will bring, what will happen and what I may be typing at this time next year. Its been a strange year 2009, a lot of my friends and family have had very hard times and even the recession hit us hard. Some people have had some rotten luck. For us 2009 was a year of learning, I personally feel like I have come a long way, getting back out into the work scene was hard, but rewarding in some ways. We hope to make 2010 our best year yet and to make plans for our future. Onwards and upwards!

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and it’s first chapter is New Year’s Day” – Edith Lovejoy.