Family Holiday - Christmas and New Year

So as I mentioned in our last post we're on holiday in Australia visiting Brads and Sham and little Xavier. The in laws arrived on Christmas Eve. Darian was stunned when he saw his Pa and couldn't believe that Pa was actually here.

Needless to say he hasn't left Pa's side since he arrived, but I don't know who's enjoying it more. We were planning on going to the Christmas lights display, as we did last year, but the in laws were quite jet lagged and we decided to best leave it for another day.

Christmas morning we opened presents and watching Darian open his gifts and of course the amazing gift from his aunty and uncle, a huge train set, was the highlight of the day. He hasn't worried about anything else since it was opened. Cameron and Bradley had to do a bit of a mad dash to find a shop that was opened as we realised once the set was opened, that it needed batteries. Anyway, two trips later they had all the batteries needed to get the train set ready for play. Once that was set up, that was Darian for the rest of Christmas day. He absolutely loves it and they couldn't have bought a better present.

Love this pic of mum & dad with their 4 boys

Cousins

Xavier opening his first Christmas present

Cameron loved his Raiders cap that Brads & Sham bought him. 

It was also so cool to be a part of Xavier's first Christmas. He may not fully understand what all the fuss is about, but having this time with him and Darian, and the family is just so amazing.

We ended the gift opening with a very special gift for Pa and Nana.

Their reactions are priceless. And they are super excited to be grandparents again.

We then got about cooking Christmas dinner. Brad made his yummy Roast lamb, along with creamy chicken and veg pie. I made Italian Chicken Bake, but forgot the olives and needless to say it wasn't as yummy as it normally is. That went with some garlic bread and Sham made some veggies as well. We had intended for it to be Christmas lunch but it turned out to be an early dinner.

Our Christmas Table

We spent the rest of the day just lounging around as it was way too hot to do anything else.

These two cousins watching the Train go round and round

On Boxing Day we decided to go to the beach. A fun idea and a fun time that ended with me doing something totally stupid. In my excitement to get into the water and my dash to not let Darian notice I was leaving him with his grandparents, I ran into the water and dove head first with my specs on. Not the brightest moment but in that one single moment, my glasses were gone forever. A pricey mistake that I'll never repeat! Bradley took pity on me and lent me a pair of his old glasses, better than me being totally without sight for the whole holiday. So anyway, a nice relaxing afternoon ruined by my moment of not thinking!

It's been extremely hot here in Newcastle, I am so not used to this kind of heat anymore. Too acclimatised to New Zealand's cooler weather. Although Auckland does get quite hot in summer, there's always a nice, cool breeze to help you out. We always compare Auckland's summer to Durban's spring. Hot but bearable. So, yeah we haven't been getting out of the house much, as it's just too hot to do anything. Don't want to spend too much time in the sun with the kids so when we do go to the beach we try to go after 4pm, when the UV danger subsides. But looked at the weather the other day and the UV danger was between like 8.15am and 5.45pm! I was gobsmacked! Only in Australia... that's why Aus & NZ have the highest number of skin cancer patients in the world! It's insane. So we've been trying to keep out of the sun most days, thankfully Brads' house has airconditioning. The boys took their parents to Hillsongs in Sydney on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year and left us mums with our baby boys at home. It's a 2 hour drive to Sydney from Newcastle and we didn't want to take 2 cars so we stayed home with the kids. It was quite a treat for Cam's parents.

For New Years we took a drive to Hunter Valley to see the Christmas lights. Darian thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the firework display.

When we got home, Darian was asleep and we got on with our New Years celebrations. Sham battled with Xavier a bit and he eventually slept about 11pm. The boys were busy bbq'ing and of course getting into the New Years spirit. Drinks were up and the music system was set up on the verandah and the party was on. They were having a fabulous time. We eventually ate and waited for the countdown.

We eventually got into bed about 3am. Darian was up by 7am, as usual. Spent New Years Day baking in the Aussie heat. About lunchtime I had to go throw a dirty diaper in the bin outside. On route to said bin, I noticed something in the corner of my eye, low and behold, a red-bellied-black snake was curled up in the shade next to the garage door. Talk about worst nightmares coming to life. The hands on reptile park they took me to last year had nothing on this sighting. It was like looking into the eyes of pure evil. One of the most scariest moments of my life. I slowly backed away before it noticed me and ran into the house saying "snake" over and over! Cameron jumped to it and so did Brad and they were off hunting this snake. It must have been about 70-80cm long so just a baby. So we were quite worried the mother was around and that would be worse, theses snakes can grow up to 2.5m long. I'm not going to google a picture of these things, you can do that at your own risk. But they are ugly! And scary! You do not want to see these things in real life! Everyone was shocked that I was so calm but I wasn't. I felt so yucky and creepy after that and was never going to set foot out of the house and neither was Darian. While Brads & Cam hunted for the snake who had now disappeared, Sham rang animal control. It is illegal to kill snakes in Australia, all you can do is contain them. So we had to ring animal control to come try to capture this snake, but as it was a public holiday, their call out fee was AU$150 so we decided we, I mean the boys, would try to do this on their own. Let me just mention that these snakes are one of the most deadliest snakes in the world, and I think in the top 5 in Australia. They are not to be messed with. Thankfully everytime Cam & Brad would find it, it would make a quick escape. They can flatten themselves to slide under impossible gaps, which they saw for themselves. At one time it even got into strike mode when Cameron approached it, thank God it found an escape before Cameron got too close. Eventually it escaped into the neighbours yard and after that we have no idea where it went. The next day Cameron heard some commotion in one of the big trees down the road and we assumed the snake was in the tree that caused the birds to make such a ruckus. They have yet to find the snake. A few days later Sham showed me a news report of a King Brown Snake (the second or third most deadliest snake in Australia and the most deadliest in New South Wales) that had emerged from sea at a nearby beach, politely slithered to the lifeguard stand and sat in the shade for up to 2 hours and then very casually went back into the surf. Needless to say we did not go back to the beach at all! Gotta love Aus, between the dangerous creatures and the extreme heat, it sure is paradise! LOL! Seriously, how do people survive there I don't know! I love my little New Zealand, with no dangerous creatures, well besides the white tail spider, and cool, bearable summers. Ok, so it rains 9 months a year, so what! LOL!

Eventually we did leave the house. On Sunday we went to Brads and Sham's church, the Newcastle branch of Hillsongs. After church we went and had lunch at a hotel downtown. Later that evening the boys took their folks to the casino for a few hours of fun. And then on Monday, Sham, myself and mother in law took the bus to Charlestown mall. We had such a lovely time, just the 3 of us as we left the babies with their daddies and grandpa. It was the first time the 3 of us had ever been shopping together. In SA I used to go shopping with my mother in law all the time, as we worked together and we used to go to the mall in our lunch breaks, so going with her 2 daughter in laws was something to be cherished. We had a really good time, did some shopping and then had some lunch before catching the bus to get home.

Mother in law really spoiled us all though this holiday with all the yummy food. Every day was something we haven't had in years, including dhal ghos, masala biryani, sugar beans and roti, even braised spinach and other veggies for her pregnant daughter in law who couldn't stand the sight of meat. Brads even made me my favourite food of all, crab curry! It was so yum! And of course my darling father in law made his famous prawn chutney for us too. What a treat, no wonder I look like I'm about 5 months pregnant and I'm only 3 months! LOL!

So far the pregnancy is going well, I'm 12 weeks now and starting to feel a bit more human. The nausea is subsiding and food aversions slowly dissipating. I went for my 12 week blood test this morning and go for a scan in the next week or so. Also visit Renee on Tuesday.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We left for Auckland on Friday the 9th. A very sad departure. Brads & Sham head to SA in April and we don't know when we will see the folks again. We are hoping that they will come to NZ in the next year or so to meet the new addition but we can't rely on that. It's way to expensive a trip to make annually. So we'll see. Cam's dad came along with us for the drive to Sydney and to keep Brads company on the way back. While Sham, mother in law and Xavier stayed home. It was, as usual, a very tearful goodbye. Darian was very excited to get on the plane so couldn't fully understand that he wouldn't see Pa and "uncle Brag-ly" for a long time. He was a champ on the flight home as he was going to Sydney. As he gets older he appreciates the flight more and more. We got into Auckland just after 11pm and eventually got home about 1am. It is quite sad to get home and know our holiday is over but nice to be back in our own space. Very bitter sweet. As it always is.

A lot to look forward to in 2015 with the arrival of our new baby so I'm glad we have that distracting us from the sadness of being away from family. It's times like these that we are hit hard by the sheer fact that we are far away from our family but on the other hand it makes our time together so very good.

So here's to 2015. 2014 was a good year for us and I know 2015 is going to bring even better things to us.

Happy new year!

Too much to catch up on

Ok, so I thought I would back track and update the blog on all that's happened with individual posts but looking back there's way too much to talk about! So I'm doing it all in one, concise little post!

Since my last post, we've been to Sydney over Christmas, our little boy has grown exponentially and we're in the middle of planning a trip back home. Work has also been quite busy for both of Cameron & I and we've been trying to tidy up the house, well Cameron has. He's been water blasting and staining the deck and fence so that it's all neat and tidy. And has done a remarkable job so far.

It's been a beautiful summer in Auckland so far and we're dreading the end of it, with the end of summer comes cold, wet, dreary weather so we have to take advantage of this as much as we can.

To start our wonderful summer holidays we had our annual Ports of Auckland Christmas Family day at ASB Showgrounds and Darian had his face painted for the first time and got to play on bouncy castles which was much to his excitement.

Darian's daycare also had an awesome Christmas party but all the pics are hazy and distorted cos mr didn't stop dancing and had a massive tantrum when it was time to go home!

Over Christmas we headed over the ditch to see Bradley & Shamini. It was a wonderful two weeks of holiday that ended way too quickly. We visited the Australian Reptile Park, where no one took pity on me, who was a blubbering mess looking at all the snakes, reptiles, spider and other dangerous creatures in the Aussie wild.

Darian had a wonderful time playing at the beach, park and other exciting places we visited.

And on Christmas Day we got to spend a relaxing day at home, eating all kinds of yummy food and enjoying each other's company.

New Years was a quiet one for us. For the first time in a long time. We ended 2013 finding out Shamini is pregnant. She had a positive HPT on December 31st and another one on New Years Day. She then had a subsequent appointment with her GP who confirmed her pregnancy that Thursday, the day before we left. So our holiday ended on a massive high!

I promise to blog pics as her pregnancy progresses. 2014 is a baby boom year for the Pillay/Subban Family. Not only will Bead & Sham have their first in late August, but Cam's cousin, Kremalin & his wife Reena are expecting a week before Brads & Sham and Nicole, Cameron's cousin in Cape Town and her hubby are expecting their first at the end of May. Darian will have heaps of cousins by the end of 2014 and won't be the only one in his generation anymore!

On a sad note, at the end of 2013 we also lost the "Father" of our nation, South Africa. Nelson Mandela passed away on December 5th 2013. It was a sad day for all South Africans and was felt all across the globe. I happened to be in the office when the news broke, and one of my colleagues walked out of his office and announced it. I had to then google it to see if it was true. I spent the rest of the day reading up on all the good works and the life of this remarkable man and what he meant to me, as a South African. I also started reading his book, A Long Walk to Freedom.

So far, 2014 has been a busy year for us. Darian is now 22 months old and growing like a weed. He loves daycare and loves helping mum & dad around the house. Whether it be daddy in the garden or mum in the kitchen, he is always around saying, "help, help". He is such a joy and even though we're in the middle of tantrum season, we love every minute of parenthood. He is starting to mimic all we do and repeat all we say. Soon we will have to start censoring our vocab. He loves animals and thoroughly enjoys visiting the zoo. He's favourite animals are the seals and can spend hours just watching them play in the "Ta" (water). He is also loving his stuffed animals at the moment, including the "mama" (monkey - which is not funny that he has the same word for both mum and monkey), the "popo" (Hippo), pig and frog. He is still very much into his musical instruments and we are considering getting him a drumset but weighing up the noise factor against whether he will really enjoy it or not! And have decided once he turns 3 he'll start piano lessons, hoping his interest is still musically inclined by then.

We are planning a trip back to SA in April/May so that we can have Darian's second birthday party there so I'm in planning mode again. Lots to plan for with catching up with family & friends. It's super exciting!

So, I've tried to catch up as much as I can. I need to plan a day every week to update the blog so that I keep to it! Harder than it seems, keeping a blog updated!

So that's it from me for now. See you on the flip side!

Christmas 2011

Well, I've been preparing for this Christmas since December 1st. Christmas CD's have been playing in the car and while I'm at work and the Christmas tree has been up since then as well. I've been desperate to get myself into the Christmas spirit because this is our last Christmas before baby arrives and well, it's only going to get better with each Christmas in the future. So I have to remind myself how to get into the spirit of things and go back to that "Child-like" innocence to get the excitement that comes along with Christmas.

To start our Christmas celebrations we FINALLY got to go pick up Bradley & Shamini from the airport and get our holiday off to a good start. They arrived on Thursday (22nd) evening. Their flight was delayed by an hour and because I couldn't get off work early it worked out quite fine for us. Their flight got in after 6pm so I managed to leave the office come home for Cam as he had the day off and go straight to the airport. We stood around waiting for what seemed like forever and the airport was really packed. We love the arrivals lounge at the airport, especially around Christmas, it's always so exciting and happy and I love watching people's reactions when they see their loved ones. Because I get really stiff and sore if I stand on my feet for too long, as soon as there was a chair available we sat down, so when they finally came through the doors they couldn't see my pregnant belly. But when I stood up, their reactions were priceless... Shamini's jaw dropped to the floor and well, in between Brad's excitement to see his brother his eyes kep diverting to my tummy as if it was a mirage... PRICELESS!!! Shamini reached out to touch it to see if it was real and couldn't pick her jaw froom the ground til at least the next day!

Friday the 23rd was meant to be my first day of leave but because we've been caught up in the recent MV Rena grounding down in the Bay of Plenty I had to wrap up a few things before I officially began my leave. So was back in the office on Friday, thankfully these 3 were still asleep so I didn't miss out on anything!!! We had a quiet Friday as they were up til ungodly hours on their first night (that seemed to be the theme of the entire holiday). Come Christmas Eve we went to Westgate Mall for Brunch and then did last minute shopping for Christmas lunch. Once we were home we got into the kitchen to get our prep done for our big Christmas lunch.

Christmas morning was an early one for me. First things first was to get the ham into the pot to boil and prep the Chicken for roasting. Thankfully Shamini had helped me get the pie filling and the stuffing done the night before so it was just the roasts and sides to be done. While cooking my mum skyped me from SA. It was good talking to her, especially since she hasn't seen the pregnant belly either so she got to see how big I am. Honestly, I don't know if she wanted to cry or laugh when she saw my belly but I know she was happy to see her baby in full pregnancy glow! After chatting to her and after everything was done I quickly got ready for all the guests to arrive. We had invited Premika, Lenny & Kajal as well as our friend Romarlon for lunch so we had a pretty full house. We had to bring two tables together to fit everyone around the table for Christmas lunch and well as our dining room isn't big enough for that we rearranged the whole house to fit the two tables into the lounge. Okay, I have to apologise, I didn't take any pictures on Christmas day. I was exhausted and well, that was the furthest thing from my mind! I know Premika did take a few so will have to try to get some from her. We had an amazing lunch together though, this was our menu:

Roast Chicken with Pork & Sage stuffing
Gravy
Christmas Ham with a apricot and honey glaze
Steak & Mince pie
Salad
Sauteed Asparagus and Green Beans with chive butter
Steamed Carrots
Herb Roasted baby potatoes

The weather held up and we had a good time just sitting outside under the gazebo and enjoying each other's company. We then had Evelyn & Api, Jared and two of their friends join us that evening to continue the Christmas Celebrations. I was the stick in the mud though, by 11pm I called it a night.

On Boxing Day we had a lazy morning and headed off to Lenny & Premika's place for the afternoon. We took all the food over as well because there was still so much left over and had that for dinner that night. The guys enjoyed an evening of playing playstation (FIFA 11 I think it was), while us girls chatted about everything babies! We're all at different stages so it was good to share our stories.

We had planned to go to Hobbiton on the 27th but after the rush of the last few days we decided to just relax on the 27th and plan a full day for the 28th. We headed off early that morning, straight after breakfast and drove the 2 hours to Matamata to see Hobbiton. Anyone who has watched or even heard of the Lord of the Rings movies will understand why we HAD to go see this place. And with the new "The Hobbit" movie coming out we really had to take the opportunity to go. Only thing though, we all signed a confidentiality agreement which prohibits us from sharing any pictures of the actual set (the exciting part really) on any social website or for any personal use, so sorry people I can't share these until the release of "The Hobbit" movie in December 2012... which really sucks... But here are a few of the ones we can actually share...

It was a really long day and was even longer considering we had to drive back to Auckland the same day. So when we got home although we had planned to go out that night we were all really exhausted from the full day and just called it a night and decided we'd go out for supper the following night. The 28th brought the rain and well, it hasn't let up. We went out to Wildfire for dinner and ate til we were almost sick! We haven't been there since my 27th birthday so it was nice to go back and have some really great Brazilian Churrascaria!!!

The last few days have been really full on and I cannot believe we have one more day for 2011.

Christmas in South Africa, 2010

Cameron & I love Christmas and we were so excited to be home for Christmas this year. We knew that Christmas day was sorted and that my mother-in-law had it all covered, and we knew it was going to be fun. As it always is!
So we spent Christmas eve with our "other" family, our friends at our favourite place to be - Aunty Mary's house. This Christmas was hard because we had lost alot of important people in our lives while we have been in NZ, and it was even more hard being at Aunty Mary's place (even just writing "Aunty Mary's place") because it was the first time we'd seen everyone and been home since Uncle Noel passed away. But we were so happy to be back with all the people we hold dear, and it felt like we had never left. Wayne had come to Durban as well, and so the old crew (minus Poovi & Kumaran) were finally back together.
Thiru, Cameron & Niven

Aunty Mary

Cyan

Thiru, Verasha (Vees) and Cyan

Cyan, Aunty Mary & Barthie

Me, Janine, Lloyd & Wayne

the crew


Thiru, Niven & Casper


Our friends Niven & Verasha's little girl Cyan has grown so much from a little toddler to the most beautiful little girl and it was so good seeing her again, and being able to have a conversation with her too. And we got to meet Lloyd's new girlfriend, Janine which was so good. Thiru & Barthie, and their son "Casper" were also there, the last I'd seen them they had made me the best crab curry for my farewell. It really felt like old times and although Uncle Noel wasn't there, he's presence was very near and we missed him sorely!

Uncle Noel (Papa)


The Christmas celebrations shortly begun, and it went pretty much until the next morning. Every moment we spent with our friends made us miss home so much more, and we realised that if we could only take the people we love with us back to NZ, life would be perfect. But even though we live far away from everyone, we didn't want to hold onto the negative, and the what if's, or the shoulda, coulda, woulda's we just enjoyed every moment and held onto every one dearly!

The boys





Cameron, Wayne & aunty Mary


At 6am we finally left Aunty Mary's place and went home. Cameron thought he'd get away with not going to church but his mother was waiting patiently for us and no sooner had we got home, we were off to church. Everyone was so excited to see Cameron and Pastor Tony ever so happily announced our arrival and welcomed us back.
When we got home we decided we'd have a small nap in preparation for the festivities and all the family that was coming over. Durban is usually extremely hot over Christmas and especially on Christmas Day, this year was no exception however this year surpassed all others... I've never felt so hot in all my life. The air was so thick and hot that you could barely breathe. I guess it may not have been as extreme to other as it was to me, but I think I've become to climatised to Auckland weather that I felt so uncomfortable in Durban. Anyway, we managed to stay cool and enjoyed ourselves on Christmas day.

All the family came over and we had a wonderful time. The food was plentiful and ever so yummy and the party started and ended well into the morning.

Amber, Cameron & Quentin

Ricky, Pam, my mum, and the kids

The Boys

The Bonhomme's

Me & Quentin

Lunchtime


The Boys

Cousins - The Pillay's


Dancing the night away



My Father-in-law and his sister, dancing the night away



For Cameron the most special moment for te night was his friend Gordon, who he hasn't seen in probably as long as we've been together, came by and it was so special seeing them reconnect. Cameron was Gordon's best man at his wedding and through circumstances that could not be controlled by either of them, they lost contact and by some stroke of genius, Gordon came by on Christmas Day and made my dear husband's day.


I love Christmas and being home this year, made it even more wonderful! I love being home!