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It's about time...

Farewell, Manila!

It's taken me all day to decide what to write for our final post.
I had written 2 full pages worth, then decided I didn't like it. I still haven't decided how to express our feelings about going. They are very mixed. So my 2-page piece got edited down to half a page. This is what's left:

Tomorrow is our last day in Manila. Our two-year contract is up, and it’s time to go home. Life at home seems to be falling into place, which is great, but I’m sure there will be quite a bit of adjustment to go yet.

What are we looking forward to?

The cold weather.
Working again.
Having a smaller house.
Free things in NZ society – parks, playgrounds, libraries, playgroups, toy libraries, schools!
Automaticity of NZ Society – everything can be done online, or at least in the post!

What will definitely miss is people; Our friends here. Jenalyn.
The expat 'vibe'.
Our church.

Farewell, Manila.
It's been quite an adventure!

Emily's Birthday

Yup. Our eldest has turned 5. Here are a few shots from her party. It was a joint effort for her and a classmate, whose birthday is about a month later. The whole class was invited to an indoor playground, and they had a fabulous time.

Getting Fit

So I’ve been getting fit.
You might remember this entry, where I said I just decided to start running, and kept at it. Well, I kept keeping at it, and I even followed the “Couch Potato to 5Km” programme from Cool Running.com. I downloaded some podcasts that someone put together, to listen to music when I was training, and his voice would come over “start running now” or “you can go back to walking now” all throughout the run. The programme is supposed to take 9 weeks – I did it in about 12. It really is a great programme, and I’ve graduated! I can now officially run 5km. Non stop. Takes me a bit more than 30mins.
I finished about a week and a half ago, and I’ve still just been jogging every 2nd day, to keep it up. I found a fabulous site, called MapMyRun.com where you can plot a run onto a streetmap, and work out distances. So I have a 5km circuit ready to run for when we are staying at mum & dad’s, and I will work out one from our house in Mt. Albert.
It’s great being fit, and I’m now back in some clothes that I haven’t worn for almost 2 years! I’m hoping the increased fitness will help when we hit the ground running in New Zealand!
(Excuse the pun…)

Party party party

It's end of year, here, being Northern Hemisphere schedule.

So people are celebrating.

The end of year School Leavers Ball was at the end of May, and Nigel and I went again. (The previous year, Tessa was a newborn, and it had been our first night out since the birth! I remember texting home every half an hour! This time I never checked in!)

Here's us looking all dressed up ready to go.

And some people are having farewell dos, too. One of Nigel's colleagues was thrown a farewell party by the parent of one of her students. Now this hosting family did not do things by halves - it was a theme party - Middle Eastern - and EVERYTHING had to be 'just right'. In order to get the attendees to dress up, they promised a trip to Hong Kong for the best dressed. That was enough motivation for us to get the sewing gear out! Here we are, all ready to go:

We arrived a bit late, after negotiating Manila traffic for about an hour and a half.

But when we got there, it was full on food, drink, decoration, service, even a Tarot Card reader was in operation for the night.

I even got up the guts (with a little help from the wine, maybe?) to join in the belly dancing later in the night...

It was a night and a half, and at the end of the night, imagine our surprise when Nigel was declared best dressed! He won a trip to Hong Kong!

Unfortunately, we really are unable to use it, so we have given the trip to some dear friends, who we know will appreciate it.

But what a night!

So much to catch up on...

It's been months since I last wrote. For the sake of brevity, here's what's been going on:

1) Final decision - yes, we're going home! (We're leaving next week!)

2) Mulitple job applications - we finally have jobs! I will be working at Unitec Waitakere, and Nigel at AUT. Both of us are fortunate to be working less than full time. Nigel will continue with his psychology study, and I will also do a spot of study. (Just not sure exactly what yet.)

3) Emily turned 5! We had a party. She's all mature now!

4) We've been going to lots of farewell parties. Nigel even won best dressed at one of them!

5) Packing up house has been quite an effort. But it's done. The recent typhoon delayed our shipment, but it should be sailing now.

6) I've been getting fit.

7) Tessa's started talking, and hasn't stopped.

More on all of these points coming very soon.... Watch this space.

ANZAC Day

On the 25th, we celebrated ANZAC day here in Manila. The NZ and AUS embassies put on a very dignified, solemn and actually quite moving service for us expats here. The Philippines helped with the ceremony by providing military salutes and escorts. Nigel and I and the two older girls went to the early morning gathering, but we left Tessa at home, knowing she wouldn’t be able to sit still for any length of time, let alone in the heat! The ceremony included guests from Turkish, British and Canadian embassies, and all attendees were welcome to wear military uniforms. We sat next to a man in his 70s, who was a veteran of WW2. He used to parachute out of airplanes! It was striking to see him, and a Canadian veteran in the row in front, salute each of the national anthems, and stand at full attention as required throughout.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a full breakfast provided for by the two embassies.

It's great to be able to have a piece of NZ away from home.

Triathlon

Although Nigel and Emily only had 2 weeks’ holiday off school, we made our NZ holiday 3 weeks, in order to catch the annual Auckland woman’s triathlon. I did one 2 years ago, just over a year after Zoe’s birth, and the training for it helped me to get rid of the extra weight I had been carrying since pregnancy. I loved how fit I felt, and the race itself was great fun. This time, it was a year since Tessa’s birth, and definitely time to do a repeat.

My training regime this time around wasn’t quite as thorough as the last time, mainly because life in Manila is not as ‘outdoorsy’ as in New Zealand. We weren’t able to enjoy weeks of family bike rides, for example, as we didn’t have our bikes in Manila, and anyway, our new addition means that our family no longer fits on two bikes! Nigel and I did take up regular evening walking, however. On his part, he was training for a hike in the mountains, so it suited us both.

Mum was enrolled in the duathlon version of the event, which excludes the swim and replaces it with another walk. So the two of us also did some training together, on bikes, in the short time that we had in NZ before the event.

On race day, the whole family headed down to Okahu bay. We had a wonderful support crew of Pops, uncle Tony, Nigel and our 3 girls. Zoe and Emily had even made banners to wave which said “Go, Mum! Go, Grandma!” Each time we went through transition, we gave high-5s, and everybody cheered us on.

I caught up with Mum half way through the bike leg, and decided that the event would be much more fun if we stayed together, so we biked back and did the whole walk/run together to the finish line.

It was great fun, and both of us are already looking forward to next year’s event, which we have vowed to complete in under an hour.

Despite taking the training a little bit too ‘easy’, I have found that I am fitter, and have noticeably more energy. I even found myself wanting to go for a run around our village one day last week. So I did, and did again the day after that, and the day after that as well. It has certainly pushed me forward in the right direction.

The littlest's party

… And Tessa turned 1 while we were in New Zealand! She also started walking, and therefore left her ‘babyhood’ behind, and entered the next phase of ‘toddler-hood’. We celebrated her first year by inviting all her aunties and uncles and both sets of grandparents over for a barbeque. Zoe was adamant that no kiddie birthday is complete without a game of “pass the parcel”, so Tessa, her 2 sisters and her 1 year old cousin had a game. While it wasn’t the most sophisticated of parties, we’re glad that Tessa’s photo album will now be able to boast a the obligatory baby sitting in a high chair reaching out to a lone candle.

The shortest Party

“Grandma” turned 60 in March, so we decided to celebrate when we were in town. She decided that rather than having a big bash, she’s like to climb up Rangitoto Island, one of Auckland’s iconic volcanoes, as she’d never done it before.The immediate family all sailed over to the island on the ferry, and then we split up for the ascent. The two younger men (Nigel and Tony) climbed up together, while the grandparents helped me with the 3 girls as we rode up on a covered trailer.

The vehicle wasn’t able to go to the summit, so the last portion of it we had to walk, with backpacks, and carrying our picnic basket. Much to our surprise, the driver informed us that we’d have just 20 minutes at the top to look around and take pictures, and then we’d have to head back down again, so that there would be enough time to make the descent in time for the return ferry. Well, that didn’t deter us – as soon as we got to the top, we laid out our picnic, blew out the obligatory candles, and enjoyed the bottle of blubbly and snacks.

There was even time for a few family photos before we headed back down. Those 20 minutes were definitely the shortest birthday party we’ve ever had!

The Longest party...

The main reason we went back to New Zealand for Easter was to celebrate the 90th birthday party of “Granddad Jack” – Nigel’s grandfather. Every single family member of his – his children, their children and their children – all 47 of us – came to celebrate the occasion,



and we stayed all together for 4 days at a conference centre near the beach. It was a fabulous time of re-connecting, and connecting for the first time, for some. The kids (all cousins of some sort!) had a great time running around together, and often, we didn’t really know where our children were. But we were confident there was someone keeping an eye on them, just as we kept our eyes on the other kids around. Apart from a few formal parts to the programme, we were lucky that Auckland put on an Indian Summer for us, so 3 of the 4 days we were able to enjoy the beach – making sandcastles, chasing waves, and swimming.

It was a great 4 days, and the longest birthday party we’ve ever attended!

Routeburn Track

While we've been in NZ, Nigel went for a tramp with two of his cousins - here are the pics.

Back in New Zealand for Easter!

Long time no Blog.

We've been in NZ for the last 2 weeks, mainly to celebreat Great-Grandad-Jack's 90th Birthday party.

More info (and photos) coming soon...