Goodbye Grandad

Well, I haven't had much time energy or motivation to write a blog this month, but the whole point of this blog is to have a diary record of our lives as we live it- and I would be ommitting a pretty big part of our lives if I DIDNT write this one....

This month our family has had a horrid run of the flu, a cough, worms, tummy bugs and even chicken pox.

Luke & Grandad just last month at Luke's birthday

But the toughest thing we have been faced with this month by far is the sudden and unexpected death of the kids much loved Grandad (Marty's stepdad).  His huge heart attack last Wednesday left us all in a surreal state of shock.  We had just celebrated his 65th birthday a couple of weeks ago and he was a picture of health.  There had been no chance to prepare ourselves or indication of trouble.  One minute he was with us, the next he was not.  God must have called, and he went running.  A lovely way for him to go to heaven - but much much too soon for those he left here.  The whole family have been in lockdown at Granma's house over the last week as we comfort her and each other and come to grips with a new reality.  We took the kids to say goodbye to Grandad and left him with loom bracelets and artwork made by them.  We talked about how Grandad didn't look quite like him, because the part that made him special was in heaven now.  The kids have been amazing through this whole week.

  Marty gave a beautiful Eulogy at the funeral on Monday, that left everyone lining up asking him to do the same for them one day! Here is a little of what he shared:

"I can safely say that we are all very surprised to be sitting here  today.  God in his great wisdom decided that it was the perfect time for David to come home, but for us right now it feels way to early."

...He  was an avid gardener. He has got the complete fruit and vegie section of a supermarket growing in his back yard, which has completely ruined and taken over the famous 501 Hastings Street Backyard cricket wicket! He had also been taking horticulture courses to further his passion for his gardening and he was probably just about to add some cows, sheep and chickens to cover the meat and dairy side of things and then he would have his own supermarket. But David absolutely loved his gardening and something he got much enjoyment out of. (And by the way Paul - your on Lawns!)

David showed his love through his actions rather than his words, but let’s face it was always very hard to get David to say anything (hehehe). But it was through  his practical help that he showed not just his love to Jenny but also to us Kids.  He has helped us all on various projects around our houses.  He would quite often grumble about it but if you asked the right way like “Would you show me how to do this so that I could do this project?”... he would be more than happy to come and show how to do it and then let you have a go. So if you were real clever you would keep stuffing it up - and eventually he would have done the whole project for you because he liked everything perfect! 

..and he ended with these words:

"...So granddad it is with great sadness that we have to say good bye, but we thank you for being a part of our lives and we thank God for the blessing that you were.  We will miss you. We love you."

 I spoke on behalf of Grandad's 8 grandchildren, after gatherings ome thoughts from them.  Here are some of the memories from me and my kiddies.....

"I can’t remember the last time that I called David by name.  He was Grandad first and foremost in my life because he lived the Grandad title so well in in our family.  Grandad just adored his brood, and was pretty proud to boast 8 special grandchildren under his wing.  Grandad was as present in the lives of these children as he possibly could be – attending countless school prizegivings, sports games, productions, recitals, church events, birthday parties – as much as he could cram in.

Jaimee simply smiled and said “He was SO funny” upon my questions.  Like all the kids who had a sleepover, her favourite memory of  Grandad is when the stayed the night.  It was tradition to get up early in the morning and jump into bed for a cuddle with grandma and granddad, before literally PUSHING granddad out of the bed, with great ceremony, lots of giggles and fake grumbling of course.  

Kate giggled as she recalled her 5^th birthday party which started another granddad tradition.   Grandad had joked often in the leadup to her party day that she would have to give him the biggest, yummiest, corner piece of her  cake.  It was his piece he assured her time and time again.  On her birthday, without any prompting or reminding and surrounded by friends eagerly waiting for cake, Kate yelled out: “WAIT.  Grandad HAS to have the corner bit first!”  He laughed and laughed and took great delight in his special treatment.  And Grandad has had every corner piece since! 

Luke is only 3 years old, but when I asked him about Grandad even his face lit up with animation.  He told me a very exciting sounding story, (that I didn’t understand at all) – but I did pick out a big dinosaur “RAAWR”.  I often found Grandad stomping around the house like a dinosaur chasing a giggling Luke.  Don’t you know that “Rawr” means I love you in dinosaur?

...These kids loved their granddad.  They know that Grandad loved them.  They will miss him.  We will miss what he gave our children.   God must have really needed him in heaven to take him from us so soon.  Maybe someone there needed a granddad like ours." 

Grandad's 8 grandchildren will miss him lots

It's hard to push publish on this one.  But we will never let the memory of Grandad fade, and when we read back this blog over the years about 2014 and all that happened, my children will remember afresh just how they loved him at this time.

Mazes and More

I've been a bit of a busy beaver this year.  I'm pretty sure I'm working harder then I ever have before, and part of that means going away a bit more than usual for various training events.  This weekend, I needed to be in Taupo for a Saturday morning safety management training day.  I could have gone alone, and leave Marty to the kids yet again, but that's no fun so we made it into a family holiday instead!  As you may know from previous blogs, we are pretty good at road trip holidays.  The kids have never been on a plane (except with jaimee's starship trips) and we don't go away for weeks every year (excepting a yearly trip to see family in Auckland).  We just can't do it with church weekend commitments and crazy accommodation costs.  So instead we like to do big day trips - to the snow, Rotorua, Palmerston,....and today to Taupo!  We cram as much fun as we can in a day and call it our family vacation for the year.  

The kids had a blast during the training in the morning - they made best buddies with the kids who had also come with parents from Tauranga, playing happily in the church crèche as I discussed child abuse and training policies in the room next door.  The kids were so entertained by their new friends that Marty was able to join us adults! The girls tell me this was a super fun "part of their family holiday" when they were recalling the things they did in their day! 

We had a lovely lunch in a local cafe, where the kids were delighted to get a kids box each,containing juice, sandwich, mini choc and small bag of chips.  Pretty perfect for our kids appetite level.  Then we headed out to "mind junction" (used to be called puzzle world), which we had often driven past but never stopped at before.  There was a whole range of options to do, shooting simulator, flight siimulator, mini golf, a lego display....we let the kids choose one thing each to do as well as the maze.  Luke and Jaimee chose to control the trains, making them go faster and slower as they raced around the track.  

  

Kate chose to join daddy for a turn at the remote control boats, there were lots of giggles as she worked out how to move her boat around the lake! 

Next we all headed outside to do the maze.  You each get given a clipboard, and have to try and find the 5 animals, 5 questions and 5 answers hidden throughout the maze.  This added a lot of fun to the whole maze, even when we found the exit we stayed in the maze until we had found everything and then matched the correct answer to the correct question!  Poor Kate got separated from us right at the end, but other then that it was just heaps of fun.

Next on the agenda was a stop at Huka Falls, another spot we haven't been to with the kids despite driving through the area often.  Kate was a bit nervous of the noise of it, but all three kids (and us) just watched the amazing rapids for ages.  We talked about Gods great power in this creation, wow, it really is a sight to behold.  And what do you know, we even ran into a friend from our church at the falls! NZ just isn't big enough to devour us all huh?! 

We then finally went to De Brett's, which the girls had been waiting for since we left home at 7:45am that morning!  The soak was just lovely, it soothed Luke's cough and totally relaxed us all.  Kate and Luke love soaking in the hotter pools, while Jaimee likes to swim and splash.  The private pool at the end of our time here was a nice way to finish. I felt like I had had 3 wines after all that hot water! It was dinner time, and we all wanted to eat somewhere cozy after being warmed by the pool so we finished our big treat with a trip to Lonestar for dinner.  We very very rarely eat at restaurants, but we knew the meal size meant we could just order sides/starters for us and we got 2 kids meals to split between the kids.  We all ate our full, us adults didn't need pudding and the kids got free drinks and pudding with their meals so it all worked out reasonably, whew! I was impressed with the way get looked after the kids, giving them cool colouring sheets and felts that all worked well (the man handing them out instructed the kids to stay in the lines and use up all the ink!).  Marty did a lovely colouring job.   Hehehe.  The kids were all asleep within 10 minutes of heading home, no doubt dreaming of hot pools, waterfalls and mazes.  

.....Holiday over as we arrived home at 9:30pm, and not even a suitcase to unpack! 

Long weekend top 10

Highlights from our long weekend....

1. Raising $220 for Malawi by doing the 40 hour famine with rice only.  We showed the girls this clip to help them understand why we were doing it: http://youtu.be/jVlcjsFc7Vo.  All of us were stunned as we watched children happily eating a gluggy thick mixture of maize flour and water.  That was all the food these kids knew.  We felt very thankful for our rice after that.  

2.  Using our new year pass to the aquarium for the first time, we took our minds off food by filling out the great fact find sheets available for kids.  This is something we havent done before cause the kids Are normally busy seeing the displays, but having gone just weeks ago it was fun to do something different - and very educational...did you know NZ eels mate in Tonga?!

3. Blobbing out for a change! Saturday afternoon was card making and crossstitch while the kids watched a movie.  On Monday I didn't get dressed until 11:30am...after doing the baking and some gardening (not much gardening when I realised the builder on the roof of the new house over the fence could see me in my flannelette PJs! 

4. Movie nights with Marty.  I love movie nights! This weekend we watched "three days later" and "last Vegas". They were both good...even If the only snack allowed was barley sugars. 

5.  Friends time.  On Sunday afternoon we went to an engagement party.  With lots of our church family in attendance, it was SO NICE to just "be" with our loved ones.  No leadership or planning or schedule.  Just friends time...catching up and hanging out and laughing.  We were all enjoying the time so much we stayed until 7:30, just five hours!!! 

6.  Getting stuff done.  We finally had the time to wash the car, prune back some trees,weed the garden and spread new compost for winter.  The whole family got out there together to do this, it was a real team effort with the kids working hard and loving every minute.  Family time PLUS jobs done. Bonus! 

7.  New friendships.  We were invited over for lunch by the parents of Kate's school friend who lives up the road from us (literally - on our street).  This lovely Indian family used to pastor at Bay City and are so warm and kind, we have had the odd coffee while the girls play but this was a real treat - a full Indian meal to enjoy as families. We chatted for hours about church, school and life. 

8.  Vomit.    I paid little notice to Kate's lack of appetite today, she had been saying her tummy was sore for a couple of days, but had been otherwise totally normalin herself.  I put it down to the 40 hours of rice and figured she would come right. I shouldn't have been surprised when she took her first mouthful of curry at her friends house and proceeded to vomit up everything in her gut.  All over their carpet in front of us all.  I had that awkward moment to deal with - do we leave now after they had slaved over this meal for us or stay and hope for the best? They were so reassuring, cleaning up my daughters vomit without even a blink and brushing away my apologies. They didn't want us to leave, but I was unsure about how Kate was feeling.   We gambled and said we would stay and eat before leaving while Kate sat on the couch watching tv with a bowl.  Well, gamble paid off - half an hour later Kate was laughing and chatting while building block towers with her buddy and siblings like nothing had even happened. This is typical of our Kate who is never knocked down by illness.  She has been fine since, although didn't eat much today.  

9.  Temps.  Our wee Luke fell asleep on our friends couch at the engagement party, something he just doesn't do.  I put it down to a busy week with starting daycare (I'm not very good at taking my kids seriously am I?!).  But when he woke half an hour later he was burning hot.  We took him home and panel saw him right.  But then again in the morning it shot back up high.  Pamol got him through with him being happy and normal.... until later in the afternoon.  Repeat this every 6 hours...I've just tucked him back up after waking still hot and grizzly,  swallowing hard and with a snotty nose. Poor baby, let's hope it's just a virus passing through :( 

10. And finally, family.  We had Marty's mum over for dinner tonight, while her husband had been in Christchurch visiting his son and grandson.  Marty is a good son thinking to invite her over! It was nice to spend time with her, chatting over our needles and sharing wine over dinner (Marty didn't even know his mother drunk wine! Hehe!).  She helped Jaimee finish the first glove of the pair she has been knitting with her slowly ( I can't knit, Jaimee swears she is going to teach me!).  Kate even got her first lesson this evening! 

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