Just a few photos

Derrick and Josie having xmas lunch in the sun

The kids eating theirs, not sure who Jess is telling off

A trip to the mount hot pools.

Jess and josie in the hot pools

We had a day trip to the Coromandel, jess is on the beach in Whangamata

Joe not wanting to be on the beach at Whangamata - clearly not having as much fun

as Jess!

Jess went for the hat trick, Each year the teacher picks out 3 children who she thinks deserves recognition in the year. Jess received and award for academic excellence in Maths, Reading and Art.

She now has one for Years 1,2 & 3. How good is that.

Sam got his first this year for Excellence in his Year 7 Maths, he was so excited.

Joe got this award for Year 6 Maths last year.

Joe has been involved with Enviro Team and have set up veggie gardens

in the school grounds, so the team each got a certificate for that.

So the Millards were stars at the year end awards. We were very proud to have had them all

up on stage getting an award.

We went to the carol concert in Bethlehem, it was amazing, there was a live band performing on stage

singing christmas carols, there were 2000 people singing along, waving candles. It all finished with some fantastic fireworks. Our Bethlehem certainly knows how to put on a great christmas show.

I think thats all of our news for now.

Hope you all have had a very lovely christmas and best wishes for 2012.

love to you all

xxxx

I have found Martin's phone pics!

Sam kind of helping in the garden!

Sam and jess falling in the fence post holes!

View from our Auckland apartment

Jess freezing outside the apartment and Martin"s birthday present!!

This week, Sam and Joe have been in the school concert and played really well.

Sam doing his solo

Joe playing his guitar.

I have some pictures of Jess's sports day too but they are on my phone and I have no

idea how to get them off! Not good with technology.

We have lots of things happening this week as its the last week of the year. So will make sure I have the camera ready.

Love to allxxx



I have not posted for awhile as my PC hasnt been working too well. So I have got lots of photos to share. Dad asked me to put a photo on of our house from the front so here it is.

This is from the back of the he house.

Martin and Joe builing the fence between the garages.

This is a new build just in front of ours, How to make you feel small!!

Suggled up on bonfire night, we were all waiting for it to go dark so we could see the fireworks.

Sam and Joe stuffing their faces! The yellow coat is our neighbour Karen.

 

We have just been to Auckland for a long weekend. This is Jess and Sam watching TV

in the apartment. We stayed on the Princes Wharf which was lovely.

Sam and Joe sat on a cannon in Devonport, auckland on Mount Victoria.

One of the main reasons for the trip was Kelly Tarltons aquarium.

Jess loved the bus.

And the penguins, the Sweatshirt she chose specially for the day!

Me holding Jess on a stool as the we stood on a moving platform under the sharks.

Sam as the sharks dinner!

Jess not quite so brave.

I am sure there are lots more photos on Martins phone so I should be able to post some more later.

We are fence building and painting all this weekend.  The kids are just having a water fight outside. Luckily both sets of neighbours are away so the screams are causing concern apart from to Martin!

Things are getting back to normal here in the Bay just in time for Summer, the beaches have all been reopened, the ship wreck has been pumped clean of the 1700 tonnes of oil. They are now working on the 1000+ containers balancing precariously over the sides. 40 are still missing at sea so watch ou for those of you who are sailing over here!! The captain and his second are still in jail and face trial on the 20th December. Not sure how they are going to get the $15 million dollars back that the clean up as cost.

4 weeks left at school and then its the summer holidays. This year has flown, Sam and Joe will go back to Year 8 their final year before college and Jess will go back to school as a year 4.

Looking to forward to our visitors arriving on the 18th Dec.

love to all xxxx

Well at last we have grass, now its started growing we cant stop it!

Jess helping dad stack the tops of the fence posts.

and enjoying being allowed on to the grass again.

This is our lounge with our lovely view.

Sam in the family room

Martin and Scott took the boys to the Wellington Pheonix match. Its the first time they

have played in Tauranga. The lost 2 nil to the Aussies.

The weather is lovely here, spring has sprung and the nights are lighter. We are hopefully going to start on the gardens and fences now.  Just need to find lots of plants that dont need any looking after due to the lack of green fingers in our house. We have quite a few cuttings in pots on the patio ready to plant.

One more week at school and then term 3 ends, time seems to be flying by, once they are back at school the next term is only 8 weeks then its the christmas holiday.

Joe was in a Maths competition for the Bay of Plenty schools last night, there were kids from about 25 different schools there. Each school had 2 or 3 teams in each group. OPS didnt fare too well, Joe said he was too hungry and tired to think!!

Not much else to report at the moment.

Love to you all

xxxx

Well this about sums up how we have all been over the last few weeks, dont tell Joe I have posted this picture!

 

Here is Jess getting ready to be a turtle at school.

We helped suprise Campbell for his 50th birthday party. He had no idea about it at all.

Martin took him to the boat club for a couple of drinks and then he thought he was going out for a meal.

He was gobsmacked when everyone jumped out shouting surprise, you could see all of the pennies dropping for him. It was a great night with plenty of laughs. No-one noticed Sam sitting quietly at the party filming everything. It should make interesting watching.

Omokoroa Rangers team photo at todays match. It was a beautiful day and an absolutely amazing match. They played so skillfully but lost 4-3. Five of the goals were scored by Omokoroa!!

We were all loosing our voices we were cheering that much. There is only 3 or 4 matches left to the end of the season. I think Sam and Joe will sign up for KatiKati next season as that is the college they will be going to, so this way they can make some friends before they start.

We have been to the market at Bethlehem today. Sam entered a competition to draw a poster for 'world peace'. He was presented with a certificate for it and they were all on display.

This week we have had our grass sprayed on. Its blue at the moment but we have been promised we should have some green grass within a couple of weeks.  We will be very suprised as the birds have been having a birthday eating all the seed.

It snowed this week for the first time in 50 years. Martin saw a flurry in town, we didnt get any here in Omokoroa, much to the kids disappointment. We are going to complain to the people who wrote the emigration brochures - they said that the bay of plenty was the winterless north - and it snowed.

Well thats all for now. I have been asked to put some photos on of the house, I will try to take some this week for those nosey Yorkshire folk!!!(chris).  Only joking.

Love to you all

xxxx

 We are still busy with lots to do on the house and garden which has not been helped by

plenty of winter ailments.

Martin took this photo of our house whilst we were walking back from football on Saturday.

The boys lost 3-2 at football, they didnt deserve to loose at all, they had all the play and so many shots. Never mind we have 2 weeks off now for the school holidays before the next match.

We have had the school production this week. It was called The Seahorse Cafe. A great performance by the whole school, it was a very bright, happy and musical night.

Jess was a seasnail, she was giving her daddy the dead eye for embarrasing her by taking photos!

Sam was a cool dude in the band

and Joe managed to get himself right at the back of the stage so no one could see him!!

We have been having some beautiful winter sunshine, today we have been to Memorial Park in town.

Jess is wearing her new Next shirt  and has not taken it off since it arrived.

Here is Sam and Joe ripsticking through the park 

Just for grandma to say a big thank you for our new tshirts!

Joe looking cool - not a good photographer as I a managed to cut his head off!

We are trying to thinks of lots of things to do over the holidays. Just hope the lovely weather keeps up.

We have still managed to have the fire on though and Martin had to scrape the ice of his car yesterday morning - thats a first since we have arrived. Apparently it happens one or two days every winter.

So hopefully we have had winter and spring is on the way.

I will post again soon if I manage to stay sane after 2 weeks with the munchkins!

Love to all

xxxx

This is tonights sky from our back garden. We had a really lovely sunset and hopefully if the shepherds are right we should have another lovely sunny day tomorrow.

Jess getting in on the action.

Here is Joe sweeping the loft- Martin is training him so he can go out and start chimney sweeping!!

We are considering putting Joe's bedroom up in the loft - much quieter for all of us.

Other news - Sam made student of the week - he was picked out of the whole school for his positive attitude and consistent progress in his learning.

We have had cross country this week. Jess came 4th in hers.

The boys ran up in the hills of Whaka, it was raining really hard and they had to run 3.5k. Lots of other local schools ran too. Sam came 10th out of 60 and Joe came 37th. They did really well, the weather was awful. The top 7 go to the next round for the county, that is Sam's aim for next year.

Football has been good, we have 5-1 win, 5-0 win and 2-2 draw since last time I posted. We are playing at home this weekend which is great as its just across the road so we dont have to go far.

We are planning a weekend at home so we can start to get organised and find a few things. Will put some photos of the house on as soon as we find the floor!

Love to you all

xxx