Sailing with Fran and Stewart

When Fran and Poppa Stewart were up for Easter, we took a day out on the boat. It was a beautiful sailing day, with a nice 10-15kt breeze that picked up in the afternoon. Between them, Fran and Stewart did most of the sailing.

Waiheke

Swimming off the back of Finvarra at Waiheke:





Packing...


Unpacking...

Kawau Island

We went away for the first big trip on Finvarra - to Kawau Island. We met up with Hideaway (Murray's boat) and Latitude (George and Hayden's boat). Everything went well, Georgia loved it - especially as there were other toddlers she could run around with - and we had a great few days milling around bon accord harbour, swimming, diving, BBQing, eating scallops, etc.



Hayden, Hayley, Georgia and Andy:



Georgia wanted to swim off the back of the boat. She did pretty well considering the water is much colder than the swimming pool.





On Saturday morning a pod of orca - a mother and 4-5 babies - came into the harbour.





The Soren Larsen anchored near us one night:

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas day at the farm. A hot sunny day, with lunch outside under a tree. The kids had a ball.

To the manor born

On Tuesday we bought a boat.

On Wednesday we bought a house (see here).

On Thursday I had to have a wee lie down.

Finvarra

Yahoo! Papa bought a boat! A 2001 Beneteau 331 named Finvarra.

I'll post some decent photos when I get round to taking them...

Christmas is coming

Now we are three

Georgia turned three on 1 December, and we had the whole Auckland community around for a party. Here's a few shots. The stunning cake was made by Emma and decorated by (ahem!) Tony (or should that be Toni). Great effort team!

November's selection

Bushwalking near Piha (that is, one of us is walking):



Pretending to marshall in aircraft while trying out her new togs (over her pyjamas)




Just to prove that she's not always smiling:

Pohutakawa's at Cooper's Beach

We spent Labour Weekend up north. Papa went up on Hayden's boat, Latitude, in the Coastal Classic. The winning boat, Alfa Romeo, broke all records and arrived in Russell after 6 h 45m. We were a mere 11 hours behind, arriving shortly before 4am. Here you can see Hayden accepting a case of Rum at prizegiving.

Andy and Georgia drove up to Cooper's Beach.






Fish and Chips at Manganui on a very wet Labour Day...