The New Girls…

Hello New Zealand….

Well… we have officially been in the country a week…
Oh what a week it has been!
I have tried to sit a couple of times to update this wee space on our journey, but it has been so busy that interruptions have prevented me finishing…

Initial thoughts upon arrival was the cold… brrrrr!!!
We arrived into the coldest day of the year, and the following night it snowed along all the surrounding hills…
You can just see the tops of them over the garage –

Then the following two days it got down to freezing and we had hard frosts.
The first day of Hannah’s new school I went to take her to school at 9.30am and my windscreen was still frozen!

the lighter of the two days.

Eeek what a shock coming from mild Perth to freezing!!!
But, the days have mostly been sunny and warm and we have acclimatised very quickly.
Now it’s not so bad.

Speaking of Hannah’s new school I’m so proud of how she’s doing!
I was going to wait until today for her to start so that she had plenty of time to get over jetlag, but
“no no no Mum, I want to start nowwwww please…” so last Thursday was her first day…
She went off with hardly a goodbye and hasn’t looked back since!

I’m thrilled with the school really. They have been very informative and I had a meeting with the principal to discuss which class to put her in etc. I only learnt what the principal at her Australian principal looked like in the second term of this year, despite the fact Hannah went to Kindy there all last year, so that was quite a change. With a population of only 1/3rd of her Australian school, it has a much more intimate and close knit community feel about it.
So far she seems to be thriving. Long may that last!!

Abbie and I have already found a few weekday groups to go along to, and we are thoroughly enjoying spending more time with my best friend and her son during the days.

We have also been enjoying plenty of time with “Nanna and Papa” (my parents),  “Great Granny” (my Nana), one of my cousins, her husband and their daughter who is Hannah’s age, Mum’s identical twin sister and her husband, and my brother, sister-in-law and beautiful niece.
PLENTY of family still to catch up with, so we are not short of people to visit.
It’s great.
Especially all the cuddles with my cuddly niece Amelia. At 1 she is just gorgeous and I can’t get enough of her.

Another thing that we are loving is the scenery…
On Friday we took the 25 minute drive over the hills to stay the night with my Nana and the girls were just in awe of the scenery…

“LOOK Mum… HILLS!!”… “LOOK Mum… Sheep… cows… pigs… water…” etc etc…
Every two seconds here the landscape changes and there is something different to see. Vastly different from the Perth lanscape and motorways so it is proving to be quite a novelty to the girls and does make driving a lot more exciting!

And the animals?
Well… Izzy has lived in this house with the cats before we moved her to Australia so I knew she would be fine but I was particularly worried about how “Blinky Billy” our Australian kitty would get on with the 3 cats of the house…
They are all brothers and sisters from the same little and are going on 11 this year, so aren’t terribly big fans of their routine being upset!
But, quite frankly it’s like Billy has always lived here. – They all just pretty much ignore him and pretend he’s not there.
Unless he gets a bit too curious and tries to get them to play chasey with him. Then they’ll give him a little warning hiss and send him on his way.
But he could not seem more relaxed here.

So that’s our news…
After a busy week reshuffling and rejigging the house we have officially unpacked our bags and moved in.
Now the house hunt begins.
I’ll keep you posted how that goes 🙂