love, liam: November-- girlfriends

This month was about the ladies, the ladies, the ladies!

LL cool Liam

liam and i were able to visit 2 of his best girls on one weekend road trip. the first part of henry joan's birthday was here in town at every kid's favorite the te papa museum. we all met for coffee and cake in the cafe and then gypsy tom and ann led a storytime variety show for the kids in one of the favorite play areas.

the next weekend liam and i drove to waiterere to join in hj bday part 2 with her friends up there

are those lollies on the cake??

waiting to go


pinata time!

and from there we drove the rest of the 5 hours north to new plymouth to visit our friends Inge and Elise who moved up here from wellington.

mt taranaki- has been used as a mt fuji stand in in films

we had such a great time! we have both missed our girls and it was great to get to know dad vaughn a bit more. he grew up in the area and we visited his parents who have a massive garden that had me green with envy. they gave me some dahlia tubers for next spring and a passion vine! stoked :)

New plymouth has a gorgeous long seaside track we walked to a cute outdoor cafe where we kicked back with some wine while the kids tore down the hill on trikes. summertime fun

have a pea!

nice compost grandpa!

who isn't happy in a garden


aw...

of course i had to bring inge's flowers indoors!

not everyone can capture your essence ;)

we drove all of the way home on the way back but we stopped for you pick strawberries and at a park with ducks and then liam slept the rest of the way while i listened to "serial" so it was as easy a drive as you could hope for. also drive by a farm selling bales of pea straw to spread on the creche's commumity garden plot. score! a great trip all around :)


mmmmmmmmm

t rex attacks!

at the end of the month we hosted a thanksgiving feast for 40. yeah, 40. i brined and baked two huge as we could get 'em turkeys in sharon's commercial kitchen oven down the street ( yes i was running down there to check them. haha). we made a bunch of stuff and had folks bring stuff too. a couple of our friends showed up with margarita ingredients and cranked 'em out; there was a queue around the corner and down the hallway for dinner; we had folks and food everywhere! it was a total success and really fun. i even stood to make a toast. a rarity for me!!