Things I'm Loving

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something you can be thankful for..no matter how simple it is.

I am Loving .......

This crazy girl and her crazy outfits, which mostly tend to be her dolls clothes!!!

My beautiful Phoebe. Phoebe is my baby I had before I had babies. She is 12years old and I was a little concerned about her health so took her to the vet. Turns out she is in perfect health but may be going a little senile. The vet called her a dottery old lady!! She is my snuggle bum.

Getting new clothes from amazing local artists!! If you haven't already go check out Jessie Rose who has recently opened a store in Kamo. She is an AMAZING artist and I absolutely love her Rose Red and Boy Black ranges. Riley is modeling a Boy Black T-shirt.

My neighbour, who recently moved out, gave me a heap of wood that was on her property.  We borrowed my uncles chainsaw and my brother chopped it up. This is only half! I don't think I'll have to buy much, if any firewood this winter! Score!!!

Using the long weekend (Northland Anniversary) to take advantage of exploring my hometown!

Visiting Reotahi Marine Reserve

Visiting the Quarry Gardens

Reading LOTS. I have given myself a goal, over at Goodreads, to read 100 books this year. I have so many books that have been given to me that I want to read. My library is overflowing!! I love it! Reading is good for my soul, I want to feed my soul a lot more this year.

Linking up with Megan

I {Heart} Whangarei

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts. I really want to get back into exploring all the wonderful things in Whangarei and crossing some more things off my Hometown bucket list.
What a better way to motivate me than to start up a weekly Linky!!
I am going to start doing a weekly linky about Loving your Hometown and I challenge you to show me how awesome your hometown is by blogging about the wonderful things you can do there!!

Check out my I {Heart} Whangarei  tab to see previous posts about exploring my hometown.

This week I am starting with

Reotahi Marine Reserve

Both of my children have been on snorkeling trips with school to Reotahi. The EMR (Experiencing Marine Reserves) Team came to school for a few visits before hand and gave the children lessons on how to use the snorkeling gear, which they provided, and taught them all about Marine Reserves and the importance of looking after our ocean life.

I thoroughly enjoyed going on both school trips with my kids and had a blast going snorkeling, something I haven't done in many years.

Riley's Reotahi Trip 2011

Abbey's Reotahi Trip 2013

Last week I noticed a Facebook event for a Snorkeling Day out at Reotahi and of course jumped at the chance to go along with the family.

We got up early and headed out first thing Saturday morning, we must have arrived about 10am.  There weren't many people there and we waited for a few minutes to fill out our registration form and read the safety rules and get assigned our guide for our swim.

ALL the gear was supplied, snorkels and masks, flippers, wetsuit and a boogie board with a photo montage of all the different things we might see while we were snorkeling.

We met with our guide, Anton, and he helped us get our gear, showed us how to use it and went over all the safety rules. He also talked a little bit about Reotahi. It was started by a group of Kamo High School students about 6 years ago! Reotahi is the first marine reserve to be started by students ever! Amazing!!!

Then we got to get in the water. The kids were so excited when we saw fish and seaweed. There was a lot to look at and Anton pointed out quite a few things to us as we swam along. We must have spent about 1/2 hour snorkeling around the rocks and bay.

It was AWESOME and ALL free. I definitely recommend you heading out there if you can the next time they do another Fun Day.

Reotahi Trip 2014

So what have you done in your Hometown lately?

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LINK UP HERE

Valentines Swap 2014

Hi!

If you signed up for the Valentines Swap you should have received an email with your swap recipients details today.

If you haven't please let me know so I can make sure you get all the right details.

Don’t forget that packages need to be posted by February 10th

I’d love if you have a blog, if you could send me a link to a blog post about your gifts, if not if you can send me an email with photos and a little written blerb. I then can write up a post for you so your swap partner can see that you have received your gifts and how much you loved them!!

Happy Crafting!!

 

Valentine's Swap 2014

It's been a while and I have a lot of stuff to catch up on but I just wanted to talk about this .....

I am going to host a Valentine's Swap, because lets face it Valentines is all about Love and what do we have in the bloggy word but a whole heap of love!!!! And I know I am not the only one out there without a genuine Valentine to get spoilt by!!

So For this swap you will be putting together:

*A hand crafted Heart of any kind
*Sweets for your Sweet
*A Card/Postcard/Tag which can have your blog details etc on it
*Flowers - use your imagination for this one! Any kind of flower you can think of!!

Sign up by commenting here. Sign up will close on Sunday 19th January and I will get your Secret Admirer details to you by Monday evening giving you plenty of time to get your goodies ready and sent off by FEBRUARY 10th

I will be back soon for a holiday catch up!