Christmas in Auckland

Christmas for 2009 has proved to be one to be remembered. We are blessed to have Bradley & Shamini (Cam's brother & his wife) come over from Australia and spend time with us. After spending last Christmas without family we really are grateful to have them around. And because we haven't seen them in 6 months it was quite an excruciating wait, counting down the days and nights until Christmas eve when they arrived. And even more so when their flight was delayed.

When they got in though, it was like we had never been apart...



Once we got home we could finally put our Star on the Christmas tree... Cameron was adamant we would not put it up before Brad arrived because he wanted it to be a special time, where we could enjoy it as a family. Once the star was on we could put on the lights and finally get to enjoy our Christmas tree.







We then partied the night away, opened gifts at mignight and just enjoyed our first night together. Brad particularly was thrilled about our new 42" LCD TV and well Cameron couldn't get over the fact that Bradley & Shamini had got him the Tekken 6 XBox game....





We had to have an early morning on Christmas day because there was so much to prepare. But no matter how early I got up, nothing went as planned. The oven decided that it would not work so all my preparation went out the door and panic set in... Then brainstorm... either Cam or Brad decided that we could get the BBQ going and put the roasts in there... so Brad got going with the lamb prep and got that in there... meanwhile I decided to try the oven again, but this time only put on the "Lower Oven" and viola it was hot and in went the rest of the food. My mum handed down her famous Stuffing recipe so my Christmas was complete!!! On the menu was roast lamb with gravy, roast Chicken (cos we don't enjoy Turkey too much) with stuffing, roast potatoes, Lasagne, Steak & Mushroom pie and salads. For dessert Brad was going to make his famous peppermint tart but I forgot to get the cream so luckily we had some Sara Lee desserts in the freezer and some ice-cream... at the end of the day, we had the Christmas dinner we were hoping to have.







One of Cam's work friends, Matt, joined us for Christmas as well so Cam had fun entertaining "Sagren style". Cameron is his father's son through & through. He loves having a good time and entertaining people and giving everyone a good time.





After all the cooking and eating, we just sat around the table and enjoyed each others company.



I can't wait for next Christmas where we will have the whole family together and will hopefully be in South Africa with all our friends and loved ones...

Merry Christmas Everyone...

Fletchers 100 Year celebration

Saturday night was Fletchers 100 year celebration. Fletchers is the conglomerate Cameron works for, I say conglomerate because there is no company here in NZ that Fletchers does not have a hand in.

Anyway, it was a fun evening with Dave Dobbyn (if you've lived or are living in NZ or know anything about NZ music you'll know who this guy is) as the entertainment. And all the beautiful people from Fletchers. All in all it was a good night with great food, great wine and good company.




Well done Flecthers, here's to another 100 years

Moving house

When Cameron & I finally got out on our own in New Zealand we found this really cute 1 bedroom flat that we fell in love with from the moment we walked in. We've lived there for a year, and during this year we saw God's hand over our lives and the blessings he has bestowed on us (Thanks Aunty Syl & Uncle Sam, and everyone else who has been a blessing to us over this year). Slowly but surely we filled our little flat with everything a home needs, both physically and emotionally. We couldn't really entertain because of the space limitations but we enjoyed ourselves with everyone who happened to pop by.

Here are some views from our flat, taken the morning of the day we moved:

Beautiful sunrise...








(a peak of Mission Bay from our balcony)

Sadly after a year we have to move on. The space has become very restricted and with most of our stuff finally having come from SA we just cannot manage anymore. So we went on a search to find a bigger place and what a stressful time that was. I was two weeks out from the start of exams and with Christmas coming we just had to find somewhere nice, fast.

So a week out of me writing exams, we found a 2 bedroom house and within two weeks were ready to move. Finally on Saturday we moved out of our beautiful Parnell flat and into our new home.







Thanks to my darling husband we moved in without a problem. Cameron slogged along with friends of his to get us all moved in while I worked. (Thanks Felix, Kiri & Dan.)

We had to say goodbye to the era of our lives and I know that God has plans for our good, that will see us prosper and be a success. Here's to the future...

Ode to Family

You know the hardest part about being away from home is being away from family.

Our family is not only our parents and siblings, aunts or uncles, nieces or nephews. Our family includes all those people who mean something to us, people who have played a pivotal role in our lives. So to all those people (and you know who you are and what you mean to us) we just want to say that WE MISS YOU and although we are far away you are never far from our thoughts and always in our hearts.

70's Disco

This weekend a friend of our's had a birthday party and the theme was 70's Disco.

It was quite fun getting dressed up. Luckily we were able to rummage outfits together and we just bought some afro's and voila, instant 70's disco stars...




Everyone looked so cool in their get-up... All in all it was a fun night.