Merry Christmas from Wellington

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Merry Christmas everyone and thanks for all the lovely cards and presents 😊 We hope everyone at home had a great Christmas with lots of snow!

Our Christmas day was very different to what we are used to...it began with opening presents and our stockings from Santa, then we headed off to the beach for a paddle in the sea. We were planning to have a picnic on the beach but it was very windy, so we ate that in the car instead. In the afternoon we headed home, and spent the rest of the day out in the garden playing frisbee and lounging around, then had a huge barbequed feast thanks to our housemate, Scott.

We both got some great presents, lots of lovely English chocolate (the chocolate here isn't very nice), a book all about New Zealand with huge pictures of everywhere in, a snorkel each for our time in Ozzie, and many other useful things for travelling 😊 Dan got totally spoilt by his work...they gave him a present for each of the 12 days of Christmas. It began with small things like sun cream, a frisbee and lip balm, then worked its way up to a deckchair and finally a freestanding collapsible hammock! What a great job!

As our last blog was some time ago, we'll just fill you in on what we've been up to in the run up to Christmas......

Julia got another part time job in October, working as a nanny for 18-month-old twin boys. It was just a temporary job up until Christmas when she becomes full time in her other job again. She really enjoyed working with the twins and is sad to have had to leave them so soon!

Dan came top in the country for handset sales one day in the run up to Christmas, and won a $50 voucher for a shopping mall.

We have actually managed to have a few days off work together, so have been doing 'touristy things', like going up the cable car to the botanical gardens, visiting the best swimming beach in Wellington (although we just had a paddle), and driving to the lookouts - Mt Victoria and the wind turbine in Brooklyn.

We were very lucky to manage to get tickets to the World Cup qualifier between New Zealand (the All Whites) and Bahrain. The game had an amazing atmosphere because New Zealand has not been in the World cup since 1982, so it was the biggest game for years. The stadium was a sell out and as New Zealand went onto win and qualify it made the atmosphere euphoric.

Last week Julias family arrived in Wellington as they are travelling around New Zealand for a month. We had an action packed day of showing them around, then a great game of mini-golf.

Only one month left in Wellington now 😞 We'll keep you all updated as best we can.

Happy New Year!

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Comments

[eric]

hi just thought i'd check i'm using this right,will try to ad more later.glad you having a nice xmas luv melissa

[Melissa Gilbert & Grand-dad]

Missing you thanks for signing us up to this
Hi Julia and Dan, glad you are still having a great time, just wanted to say , Happy New Year! and hope everything goes right for you in the future, I enjoyed looking at your photo's, Dan seems to be doing great at his new job, and they appreciate him lots, I have some great news, I have passed my grade 4 on the saxophone, with 114 points and 6 points away from a merit! I am hoping to go in for my grade five and work towards my theory after that, we are both missing you lots.Are you still staying there untill May? and are you still going to America we are having plenty of snow now and the tempreture is below freezing, We were sent home from school early at lunch because of the weather on Tuesday 5th Jan 2010,we had a lovley Christmas got up at 6:00 and had lots of presents my best one was my new pink dell laptop, we spent most of the day at Nan and Grand-dads stuffing our faces with Christmas dinner and tea and lots of treats, on New years Eve, Nan and Grand-dad came to our house and my sisters had plenty of friends around we played scatorgries and tennis on the wii and we counted down for the New year I had a glass of wine .. didn't enjoy it much so I slipped in some lemonade while no one was looking,My best friend Courteney Lea has been to Tenerife shes coming back tonight at 12:00 I am making her a wellcome home card and giving her some chocolate :) well I hope to hear from you soon, lots of love Melissa Megan Gilbert and Grand-dad Tams.