Honey Harvest

A little over a year ago Jonathan decided to become a bee-keeper. A swarm of bees landed near his classroom so he gathered them up in a carboard box and brought them home. They now live in a hive down in our back yard. Since then he has accumulated 2 more hives which are kept up the road at a native bush reserve.

I was initially a little nervous about having thousands of bees sharing our garden, but it turns out that if you don't bother them, they don't bother you. I have only been stung once, and that was when I stood on a bee as I ran across the grass. Max has probably been stung the most...but he has now learnt to stay away from the hive and to run for his life if a bee comes buzzing around.

So, February means honey harvest time. It is quite a process to get the honey extracted but after a very hot night of work we managed to extract about 50kgs of golden, runny honey! Its just amazing to me how much honey they can produce. We only take the excess and leave the majority for the bees to eat over the winter.

The sad fact is that it takes a single bee an entire 2 weeks to produce just 1/2 tsp of honey.

"Darling its better, down where its wetter, take it from me..." Sebastian, The Little Mermaid.

Crystal and Sam have this cool camera that takes photos underwater. We went to the Mount last weekend and had a great time taking lots of photos in the pool. It reminded me of that song from The Little Mermaid :-) Here's my favourite family photo. It cracks me up that somehow I managed to smile and pose under water ... Ryan on the other hand needs a little work!

Holiday to Wellington

On New Year's Day we left on a trip to Wellington with Grandma and Papa. Jonathan's Mum had a reunion on and so we went along so that Jonathan could do the driving.

We had a great time seeing all the sights - going to Te Papa - the National Museum, Visiting the Beehive and Parliament buildings, going up Mount Victoria as the sun was setting, going to the movies to see Bedtime Stories, going swimming and going to the beach.

If it didn't take 8 hours to get there it would have been the perfect holiday :-)

Honey Village - Taupo

Huka Falls - Taupo

At TePapa Museum

Outside Te Papa

At the Beach

Ryan and Mum

Best Friends

Up a Pohutukawa Tree

We came across "Ryan Building"

At the swimming pools

Outside The Beehive

At the top of Mount Victoria

Army Museum

Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

After a late night of bottling honey which Jonathan had just extracted from his hive we were woken at 7am by two very excited children!

It always seems a bit disappointing that it takes weeks of hours trapsing the town looking for gifts and they're all opened within 15 minutes! Even so, the kids were very happy with their presents.

Christmas dinner was at 12:30 at our house. We managed to turn our dining room into a banquet hall and made a huge table to sit 20! We had all of our family, the Farthings, Grandmother and K, Sam's parents and the missionaries. It was great having Mum and Dad and Paul home for Christmas.

We had the Warwick Christmas Dinner at Laugharne and Kelly's house at night and as much as I wanted to eat the delicious meal I was so full from lunch I could only manage a few spoonfuls! We had an awesome time playing 'rock band' on the playstation for a few hours after dinner - its great fun! Jonathan was lead singer, I was on bass guitar, Kelly on lead guitar and Laugharne on the drums. I could have played all night but the kids had fallen asleep on the couch so it was time to go!

So that was Christmas for another year. I say this every year but next year I really am going to be more organised!

Relief Society Christmas Activity

We held our annual Relief Society Christmas Activity on Wednesday 3rd December. It was a great night with a huge turn out of sisters which seemed to make all our hard work and effort worth it!

A few months earlier someone had come up with the grand idea of making each sister and apron which the other sisters could sign. They were awesome - Crystals friend Jeremy even designed a cool motif which we ironed on to make them even more special! They took FOREVER to cut, sew, iron and fold but they looked fantastic!

It hardly seems possible that I have been serving as Relief Society President for a whole year now! Time flies when you're super busy I guess :-)

Me and my counsellors Sandy and Carly wearing our aprons.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

We usually put up our tree on the first Monday in December but the Ward Relief Society Activity kept me very busy so we didn't end up getting it until Thursday.

We made our usual trek out to the Christmas Tree Farm to choose a tree and after about 1/2 an hour of searching found a fine speciman to chop down and lug back to the car.

Here's some pictures of the kids decorating it.

Koromatua School Prize-giving

The school year flew by so fast - especially this last term. Elle and Ryan were so excited for the last day of school to finally arrive!

Ryan had his junior prize-giving assembly on Tuesday afternoon and he recieved the top effort award for his class! We were so proud of him because he was struggling with his reading at the beginning of the year but with lots of hard work and perserverance he is now reading well above his age level! When his teacher gave out the award she said "this little boy gives 110% effort in everything he does and gets the results to show it".

The next day was Elle's senior school prizegiving. Not only did she recieve the Leadership award for her class but also Top Numeracy, Top Literacy and Overall Top Academic! Way to go Elle. She is a hard worker and a good student and her teacher said she really deserved everything she got.