Family & Friends

We're just recovering (that makes it sound like we've been through an ordeal - we haven't at all, it's just we're shattered!) from a 10 day visit by family and friends. Neil's brother Alastair, his wife Helen and daughter Emma arrived on the Wednesday and then their friends, Benji, Nicole and Jake, arrived from Adelaide on the Friday.
It started off pretty gently with a chilled couple of days; Matthew had his first experience in a swing, Helen and I ventured into Christchurch on the bus (more like a coach so the buggies had to be stowed underneath and apparantly the timetable is an estimate and they're "long gone" by the time quoted - very helpful - good job the bus driver knew us and waited as we ran down the street!) and had a picnic in the botanical gardens and Neil and Alastair had a ball skiing @ Mount Hutt.

Then the real fun began. 'Carnage' was the word most frequently used over the last week to describe our home with the presence of 6 adults and 3 babies. Great fun and lots of laughs; from food across children's faces/clothes/floor, an abundance of smelly nappies, to a pancake 'bake off' with different types of beer batter, mini golf and competition verging on the ridiculous (Neil and I being the main culprits) over the game of 'Cranium'. There was also the lovely Hanmer Springs with it's stunning mountains, hot pools and mini golf and Akaroa with the best fudge I've ever tasted. Everyone agreed that holidays are very different with children - it took us hours to get out the house and any plan we made rarely got seen to completion; if two of the children were ready the other would need a sleep, nappy change or feeding and then there's their parents too...
Anyway, it was "all good" and the house was strangely quiet when they left (though Benji, Nicole & Jake did return for a night at the end of their NZ jaunt so that let us down gently - and must have meant the whole experience can't have been too bad if they came back for more!).