Welcome to 2026

 Hello friends, and happy 2026 — even if we’ve some how already arrived at the start of February!

Glenn and I are back at work after our summer break, and Hannah is currently on school camp for a few days. She officially starts her last year of high school, Year 13, on Wednesday. 

So here's bit of a round up from Christmas and New Years before I go onto this year's happenings.

The weather after Christmas was a bit unpredictable.  We had a lot of rain and wind so a few of our summer plans didn’t quite happen, but that was ok — there was plenty to keep us busy at home, and Glenn made great progress on painting more of the house and tackling a few other jobs.

Christmas Day was a lovely day, we headed up to Bayview, just out of Napier, to spend the day with my niece Zoe and her partner Dylan, and Dylan's family.

Zoe loves Christmas like Mum and I,  and she had made their house so festive, it looked awesome!

Even their little dog was dressed up, so cute x

I made our favourite for Christmas dessert, chocolate brownie trifle, and this was a big hit with Dylan's family, not much leftover!

I also had made up some treats -Russian fudge, chocolate salami (pistachio and cranberry), chocolate marsh mellow truffles and rocky road, yum!

(We enjoyed another catch up with Glenn's brother, sister in law and nieces a couple of days after Christmas as they'd been with Jude's family over Christmas). 

Boxing Day we were up bright and early to head up to Hastings to purchase an outdoor furniture setting we'd seen on a previous visit, but first we fueled up on the most delicious breakfast. Eggs Benedict with salmon is always my go to choice if we're out for breakfast. 

Then it was home to unbox our new purchases, and Glenn was able to get this all together in no time. 

The days between Christmas and New Year were filled with house painting, a couple of shopping trips, family catch ups, a bit of decluttering, and plenty of sleep ins after late nights binging tv series, and of course, stitching time.  

After New Year's, we packed up our camper van and then spent a week at one of our local beaches.  The weather was great, sunny and warm, and we had a wonderful week, lots of beach walks, reading, stitching, visits from friends.  

The ice cream truck was out and about, yum, this was just perfect on one of the hot afternoons.

Diesel, as always, was in his element, loving the beach walks and playing in the waves.  He was absolutely worn out by the end of the week. 

Glenn went back to work earlier than me so I had a few days before I returned to work to get on with some house jobs, sort out some stitching stash, and spent a lovely few hours with a friend, catching up over a cuppa with our stitching.

Our vegetable garden is going ok this summer. I have downsized the amount of seedlings I plant, and this summer have chosen to only grow beans, cucumbers, lettuce, a few cabbages, and we have several tomato plants going well in the green house. 

Next time I'll have an update about what I've been stitching over the holiday break, and some stitching plans for 2026.

See you soon x

Happy New Year, & December round up

 Hello friends and Happy New year to you - I hope you've had a great start to the year so far.

Glenn and I are both back at work this week after the summer holidays - but we had such wacko crazy weather (lots of rain), some of our holiday plans didn't eventuate and we ended up having a staycation mostly at home. We did get away in the campervan between Christmas and New Year's and that was a heap of fun, more on that to come!  Hannah still has a few weeks left of her break before the new school year starts in early February, this year she is Year 10.

So here's bit of a round up from later in December as I didn't get back here before the Christmas break.

Annual visit to the local Christmas house - two Santas this year!

End of the year dancing concert - Hannah received all her dance exam certificates - passed with distinction so we were super proud of her.

The super cute ornament she received from Miss Deb, her lovely dancing teacher.

Girls lunch out after we finished the last of Christmas shopping.

Continuing our family tradition of Glenn taking us out for lunch on Christmas eve:

Yes, our Christmas tree was attached to the top of the fire so a certain little doggy couldn't get the ornaments off!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas - we certainly did, filled with family and lots of fun and good food together.  This year we had my aunty, uncle and cousin from Melbourne visit and it was wonderful spending time with them to reconnect as we hadn't seen them in person since our trip to Melbourne back in December 2019.  We also had Zoe and Dylan stay with us Christmas eve so that was super fun having the girls together, opening their presents.

Time for the family photos fun!

This year we had brunch at my parents' house and then dinner at our house, finishing with dessert about 9pm! ha ha.

After Christmas we headed to Te Awanga beach, near Havelock North, for a week's stay in the campervan. Our friends were there too for the week so we had a fab time, lots of walks, swimming in the estuary, fishing (no luck sadly), reading and chilling out, our days were easily filled.

We arrived home on 3rd January and it pretty much rained for the rest of our break, asides from the odd day. I did quite a bit of cleaning and sorting out, even the oven got cleaned, and Glenn pottered around finishing a few jobs too. There was plenty of time for catching up with friends, watching Netflix and reading lol.  

Next time I'll have an update about what I've been stitching, new projects, advent swaps and will share the some Christmas stitching, new stash and gifts. Until then, take care and happy, happy stitching xx