Well - Happy Christmas to everyone. We have had a very hot and happy christmas. Just a few snap shots to show you what we have been up to during the christmas holidays.

Xmas day was spent having a bbq with some friends, drinking wine and chilling in the garden, we then went down to the beach and met up with several other families. The kids had a great time in and out of the sea.

Boxing day was a lot warmer than xmas day so we spent the whole day on the beach. Jess and her friends had fun on the body board. The boys were out on a little boat and then trying to dig their way to england on the beach.

We braved the very very cold sea for a swim. I have never had a swim in the sea so I decided this would be the first time. I wish I had waited for the sea to warm up a little more so I could breath whilst swimming.

The boys decided to gate crash Christine and Adam's picnic after they had demolished ours!

We have also been to a wedding blessing, Martin's boss Ian married his partner Liz in Turkey a few months ago and had the marriage blessed in their garden. It was a really lovely evening.

Jess always has to befriend the bride.

 Martin is now off for 3 weeks so we are going to chill out a bit and have a look around some of the local areas.
We will keep you all up to date. Have a lovely christmas everyone and All the best for the new year.
love the millards
xxx

Well ... how proud are we. Each teacher picks 4 pupils to get an end of year award.

Jess was picked for Achievement in Reading and Writing.

And Joe was picked for Outstanding Achievement in Year 6 Mathematics.

The 3 of them got excellent school reports so we are all happy. Next years classes have been picked Jess will go up to the 'bossy teacher' and be a year 3. Sam and Joe will be year 7, Sam will stay with Mr Hall as he teaches year 6 & 7's and Joe will go up to Mrs Knell who teaches year 7 & 8. All of them get to be with their friends so they are happy about it. We are pleased as there will be a door between Sam and Joe for 6 hours per day, so lets hope this helps them to get on better.

After the presentations we all went up to school to have a picnic on the field. It was lovely G&t's all round and plenty of laughs. Sam and his friends were in the pool whilst the others were playing in the 'natives' - a big bush area at the bottom of the school grounds. Jess as usual managed to get covered in mud!

Didnt get them to bed till 9.30 so we have some grumpy children this morning.

Today was supposed to picnics on the beach but that seems to have been called off due to the rain.

Its like being in the tropics here at the moment as the humidty is really high. Not complaining though - far better than the snow.

love to all

xxx

Just a quick update. The diggers have been working on the land, in true new zealand style it is taking quite awhile to get the land level for the base to go down.

School Assembly today and Sam was the host, he did really well introducing people. He spoke loud and clear, he was really good, and we were really proud of him.
We have end of year presentations and picnic tomorrow evening. The whole school is having their classes on the beach on thursday with a picnic lunch. The last day of the year - friday will be spent doing sports on the field. So no work this week.
Will update soon
love to all
xx

The family festival went well, I was 'bullied' into doing a Zumba demonstration in the burning hot sunshine at 3 oclock in the afternoon. It was fun but very hardwork. The kids enjoyed all of the rides and things to do and play on. I worked on the Centre stall so didnt get to see much. Martin says the festival was OK but missing a beer tent!

Work started on the land this week with the diggers starting to level the site ready for the concrete base going down.

the pictures aren't showing too much action yet but anything is better than nothing.

We went to a carol service on the domain last week which was good

Yes it was on the back of a lorry !!

Nothing else much to report this week. The kids have one more week at school and Martin one more week at work and then we have a few weeks off to chill out and rest after a busy year before the next busy one starts.

Will update soon

Love to all xx

Jess has had her athletics day this week, here she is on the obstacle course.

Then she threw and amazing discus shot.

Here she is in action.

Then the high jump.

 Jess was in the winning Yellow team.

It was a good day but sadly no coffee cart for the mum's caffine fix!

Our plans have been passed by council this week so the builders will be starting to level the site on Monday ready for the build to begin. We still have to decide on a style of brick yet but we are getting to the exciting bit. The build takes 62 working days so we would hope to be moving in around Feb time.

There is a girl in Sam and Joe's class called Fran who has cancer. She is doing really well with her treatment and has been able to come back to school for some short days over the last few weeks.

Her best friend Jasmine has a little brother called Dylan who is 4 and also has leukemia, so Jasmine decided to raise some money for Starship childrens hospital and cancer by shaving her head so she can show her support for Fran.

That day was today, here she is with Fran having her lovely locks shaved off.

And then wanting to get in on the action.......

Sam decided to get his head shaved and then not to miss out on the action....

Joe followed suit.

Posted this picture I know its blurred but just for once they were enjoying each others company.

It was really fun and lots of money was raised for a fantastic cause.

We are off to the Family Festival this weekend, its on Sunday afternoon and the temperature is expected to be high with the sun out all day. (sorry to all of you with the snow!)

love to you all xxx

This week has been the boys athletics day, it was held in Omokoroa so we didnt have to go too far. Lots of different schools from around the area came to compete hence the different school colour uniforms.

Action shot of Joe completing the high jump.

Just to show the delight on sam's face has he throws the quoit and sees it heading straight for me taking the photo - bless him.

We have been to the mount today to see the christmas festival and parade with our neighbours Kim and Scott and kids. We went Handy which means early in liverpudlian! as they shut the roads so the parade can go up and down the main street.

Sam and Joe and their friend Sam waiting for the parade to start.

Lots of fire engines, motor bikes, sports cars all were on the parade all decorated in tinsel. It was a really lovely day, the sun was shining, lovely friends and the bagpipes and other bands playing loudly. It was a great atmosphere.

This was the Tauranga Salsa group.

Here is Jess showing the loss of one her front teeth. She is trying to get to grips with speaking.

There is no news on the house yet as its still at council. We have Jess's athletics tomorrow at another school so we should have some photos from that. Jess is not looking forward to it and is praying for rain so its cancelled!

We also have the family festival at Omokoroa next week which was a really good day out last year.

See you all next week

Love xxx

Well its now spring in sunny Omokoroa, the sun is shining and that summer feeling is with us. The barbie is back on regularly and we are enjoying the longer days. We had a bbq at a friends house a last weekend and chilled out whilst our 3 and their 2 boys had a water fight with the water guns.

We have been seeing lots of Parakeets in the garden recently

Jess being a bird lover made sure we caught it on camera.

So just to annoy Jess we caught her on camera too!!

Not sure if I have already posted that one or not!

The boys have been on a visit to another school to play the marimbas (think that is how you spell it!)

They loved it and play really well, somthing to do with hitting things as hard as possible with a big stick that makes it so much fun. The school was a lovely little school which has year 1 to year 8 with a roll of 86 - how small is that.

Here they both are playing away. Yes they do look miserable but they did enjoy it honestly!
We have athletics for the boys next week where they all compete against all the other local schools and then Jess does the same the week after, so we should have some action shots for the next blog.

Then its all go for the weeks leading up to christmas at school. It will be a busy time for them with all the christmas activities, summer sports and the finish of this school year. Jess will move into year 3 and Sam and Joe into year 7 in January. Jess will have an new teacher who is apparently very bossy so we will look forward to that battle of wills!! The boys will probably stay with the same teacher as he teaches year 6 and 7, there is only small numbers of kids at the school so most classes have pupils from 2 years in.

Martin has 3 weeks off at christmas so we can do some chilling out with hopefully some good walks and nice coffees. The kids finish on the 18th Dec and then go back at the beginning of Feb, very carefully timed with my parents visit, who arrive the week after the terrors are back at school. They will probably find me rocking in a straight jacket somewhere by then!

The photos I have posted on here today with the views of Omokoroa have been taking by a lovely friend Stephanie who is a professional photographer and has been out and about capturing Omokoroa in the spring.

The photos she has taken are amazing, hope she doesnt charge me for using them on our blog!
Will report again soon
love to you allxxx

Well this week we have had bonfire night and halloween. Here is Sam with his sparkler after eating many cupcakes and drinking lots of Milo (hot chocolate for uk translation).

We went to the beach with lots of other families, this was a little chaotic and unsafe to say the least, so due to fear for our own safety we made our way to the other side of the penisular and set our fireworks off with a few fellow brits who recognised what firework safety was all about!

Last week we went to a Halloween zumba party, here is Jess with her friend Mya ready to scare everyone at the dance, Just to scare you all a little more here are the mums!!!

A good night was had by all and we raised $230 for the community centre.

Jess went to her friends birthday party this week at a play centre called Chipmunks, she managed to fall again and hurt her ankle. It was black and very swollen so we ended up at a&e again, luckily it was a bad sprain rather than a brake. Getting her to not put any weight on for 24 hours was impossible.

We have had a beautiful hot summers sunday today. We walked down to the esplanade for coffee and collected a few friends along the way. The beach was packed as there was a school triathalon going on down there. Sam and Joe didnt want to enter as it meant they had to swim in the sea!! They will have to get used to that living here but as the bay is the breeding area for sharks I can see why they are reluctant!

this is the wharf where there was lots of fishing going on.

And just to finish off the strawberry farm are trying to go for the record for the heaviest strawberry. Here was todays pick

Looks rather yummy... i think we should go again to see if we can find any bigger ones.

We are collecting some friends from Auckland airport this week, they came to live here last December but they didnt settle and returned back to the UK in August, and are now on their way back to NZ as they realised they had come to the right place the first time. We hope they will settle quickly this time and find work straight away.
Our plans are with the council awaiting planning permission, so we are hoping to at least have started the build before xmas.
Cant think of anything else for now so am going to put my feet up and have a nice cuppa with a lovely muffin baked by our neighbour Kim.
love to you all
xxxx

We spent today at Julians Berry farm at Whakatane. The strawberries were huge. Think we may have eaten more than we bought. We went some friends Kim, Scott and their kids Sam and Callie.

Joe was searching for the perfect strawberry - shape colour etc, he figured he would only eat the less than perfect ones!!

Eating the pickings!!
There was a lovely playground where the kids had fun whilst we had coffee.

This is callie eating her first strawberry, just shows how big these were!!

This week has been a hot week with the kids back in suncreen and sunhats for school.

I did the breast cancer walk here in tauranga, its a walk here not a run so that was good. We got caught on camera doing the zumba warm up on the strand.

Yes I know I am doing something different to everyone else!! Nothing changes.

We have been to a barbie tonight across at our liverpudlian neighbours. It was great chilling out in the sun drinking wine and beer - perfect bank holiday weekend.

Love to you all in the UK xxx

We have now bought some land. The trailer wasnt part of the deal but if it is still there I am sure  Martin will be happy to take ownership of it. We have the playing fields directly opposite and a lovely sea view. The playing fields are a reserve so we have the views forever.

This one is taken further on the land. We have got the plans for the house drawn up with all of the living area facing this way to maximise the view, it is also a north facing plot so we will have all day sun. We now have to wait for the engineers plans to be drawn and the they have to be passed by the council. We should be starting the build in about 8 weeks.

 

Jess has now learnt to ride without her stabalisers. She is very proud of herself and is constantly going up an down the road practising.

Well we have more player of the days to report. For each player of the day certificate we get a free Macdonalds. We said at the beginning of the season that we would only go when we got 5. The boys between them have now got 9, so we have to face 2 trips there!!

Here is Sam getting the player of the day along with Josh. The soccer season has now finished , they finished 2nd in the league and have been promoted to the premiership. So things are going to get harder next season. The boys have just finished soccer camp as it is school holidays at the moment for 2 weeks. They were both exhausted at the end of the week.

We have had a lovely walk today around the peninsular. The sun was shining and we managed to get most of the way around without getting wet. The kids were spotting the crabs and we saw lots of starfish. It has been a lovely day today and we are hoping that this is the start of the lovely weather.

We are off down the beach on tomorrow with some friends. We are all taking a picnic and lots of different activities to keep the kids happy while we sit on the beach drinking coffee from the cafe.

Martin will sadly be working hard whilst we are chilling out with our 'pomme' friends down on the beach. We have also just received an invitation for christmas dinner - bbq on the beach, with kayaking, sailing, cricket and lots more thrown in. Sounds great.

Will take some more photos over the school holidays and get them posted on here next week.

Love to you all xxx