It's been a while...

It's been so long since I've posted that... I forgot my password. Eek.

We've been busy!

Mother & Son at Charlee's Cafe

Charlee's Cafe (60 Picton Street, Howick) is now well and truly in business. Scott and I worked 7 days a week in the initial 2 weeks until his Mum moved up to Aucks. I tell you, this is one daughter-in-law who could not wait to see her mother-in-law!! I've really enjoyed working in the cafe, and think I've done pretty good considering I'd never worked in the industry before. The best thing is the people I've met, we get alot of regulars and it's always nice chatting to them.

I'm now a "lady of leisure" for 2 weeks - well, inbetween working (looking after the kids), getting our house back into order, and getting my head round this whole teaching thing. Now that all my thoughts aren't being consumed by the cafe, they are being consumed by what on earth I'm going to do in my classroom!! I'm very excited but also quite nervous. I can't wait though! I met my class (Year 7) at the end of last year and they seemed lovely. Get this, I only have 19 students. No doubt more will be added as new students arrive at the school, but is that awesome or what! I also have a huge classroom, complete with a permanent data projector. I am a pretty lucky teacher, and the support from the school seems really good.

Anyway, Christmas was great. It was spread over a few days, starting with my family on Christmas-eve-eve. We had a lovely dinner at Mum and Dads, and Santa even came early - though we had to save our stockings to open on Christmas morning. One of the more interesting presents we received was three buckets, planted with lettuce and tomato. Mum has grown them for us, so now we have fresh salad on our doorstep!! Very cool. And she's even looking after the tomatoes until they bear fruit, so that I can't kill the plants.

Scott and Char (his mum) worked Christmas Eve, while I stayed at home catching up on laundry and packing. In the late afternoon we headed off to Scott's dad's place in Whakamaru - near Mangakino, which is near Tokoroa. There we were met by two very surprised neices (we'd told them we weren't gonna be there til about 2 hours later), Scott's sis Jo and his dad John. The hubby and I slept in a tent in the backyard with Amanda (9) and Cori-Jo (5), and it was great fun.. we read Christmas stories and put out treats for Santa. Amanda caught much of the action on our video camera, so I hope to put together a montage sometime. Stay tuned - I'm back.