Christchurch Pettys in August 2014

At the Hamilton Gardens; some of the setups look like sets from a computer game like Myst

August is always a busy month in this branch of the family, with many birthdays, and now Seth’s is in August as well. It was even worse this year as I was also planning the Stake Women’s conference.

I had a trip to Whangarei at the start of the month, to give some professional development to teachers from around the area. I was hospitably looked after by one of the teachers, staying with him and his wife, before flying home on the Sunday morning and making it to the last two hours of church. Ram’s a Fijian Indian and I learned a lot from him about the culture and history of his people. He and his wife are practising Hindus, and I was impressed at his attitude to life and service.

On the Sunday evening I went to a girls’ party at Gina’s place, which was great, with five of us stroppy women. Her husband, Nathan, was only allowed to join us if he didn’t speak unless spoken to. He was our ‘wench’.

For William’s birthday I cooked Lasagna and the family came over. Seth had his first birthday party, and I made sushi and cheese penguins and fish. Mark wore his morning suit, in deference to the penguin theme, and I wore black and white. There were a bunch of little kids and parents from Seth’s play group. Jonathan played the music for pass the parcel. It all went really well.

For Jonathan’s birthday we had the family and Charlotte and her boyfriend over, and had a fancy dinner. We have decided that this is the last year of presents. We had a night out at the ten-pin bowling the following week, which was fun as usual.

Jessica found them another house to live in, this time closer to us in Shirley and in our ward boundaries. It is the same price as their previous place was about to be put up to, but much nicer. Moving is always fraught, and we spent one evening helping them out.

William has finished working for us as his contract ran out and we don’t have enough money to keep employing him. We have also finished off all the videos we need for now, and I am tired of writing scripts. He has done a wonderful job of editing.

At the familiar lookout above Jones Landing

Mark invited Nick and William to join us for a Quiz night at the Blind foundation. We won, and took home some lovely mugs and a bottle of wine. The quiz itself was great, but there was a ‘comedian’ who said some terrible jokes that were really, really not acceptable. Unfortunately we knew him, and he’s a nice guy usually, so I’m not sure what happened! I ended up putting on my iPod and listening through the earphones so I didn’t have to hear the torture.

Later in the month it was my mother’s birthday. Her memory is failing a bit, so I got all my family to email me photos, and I got them printed off, put names on the back, and put them in an old video case. She really enjoys looking through them and remembering who everyone is.

The Hamilton Gardens

And at the end of the month, Mark and I went to Hamilton for me to give a Scholarship workshop to about 70 high school kids and their teachers. I’m really glad I did it, as it got me thinking about scholarship level materials for the site. We stayed two nights in Hamilton, then two just out of Matamata, and flew home on Sunday evening. We too enjoyed our day with Ray and Rosemary. Blue Springs are SO beautiful! We went to church in Morrinsville, which was small but nice.

At the Matamata Visitors Centre

Some scenes from the end of an era from Temples View. The feelings of loss are something of what we have been feeling in Christchurch every day for the past three years, and counting.