The Christmas letter that isn't...

Once again a Christmas letter was started but not completed... So here it is now for the five of of you read the blog. I will try and mail it to the non-blog readers when we return from our trip...

Firstly, apologies for the lack of a letter last year. Cathy had a good excuse for not helping with its production but I didn't.

Cathy had a broken wrist. While playing soccer with some people from her work, and taking her turn in goal, she stopped a shot which, in hindsight, might have been better not stopped. As the break was so close to the joint, a plate was inserted to line things up correctly and she was off work for quite a while and then in recovery for some months afterwards.

She kept herself busy planning a road trip around the South Island which we did in January. It was a great trip, marred only by a storm which caused a bridge washout. Given it was the only bridge over that river, we had to take a significant detour to get to Queenstown. We did lots of cool stuff - beach days, walking days, glow worm caves, a boat trip in Fiordland, an Albatross colony, the Antarctic centre, swimming with dolphins, whale watching, fishing, kayaking and visiting Weta Workshops and Hobbiton on the way back up the North Island.

Continuing in theme... Cathy got a broken nose at a pre-season soccer practice so started the season a bit late. Luckily, that was the end of injuries for the year and everyone had fairly good seasons. Emma's team (which I coach) managed to win their division. (Having a horrible grading round and ending up in a lower division than we should have has something to do with that though).

Emma had her first year at Intermediate school. Other than the daily battle to get her to the bus on time, it all went pretty well. She is a lot harder to wake up than Zak. He managed to even get in some computer time before he had to leave for the bus but she never had any time to spare. Her end of year report was excellent, full of 'Advanced' and 'Mastered' with great comments about her attitude. Outside of school, she and Cathy put a huge amount of effort into preparing for her Jazz dance exam. She did very well and received a grade of Very Highly Commended.

Zak had his first year at high school. It is walking distance from here so he gets even more screen time than when he was taking the bus to Intermediate school. Minecraft is his game of choice but he is also prone to spending excessive hours on his iPod if he can get away with it. High school was a bit of a step up but he jumped right in and did very well. He has been learning to sail, starting last summer, which he is really enjoying.

We are off on another adventure in January. We are visiting California and Vancouver again.

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