Mini Rambly Update

My sister Emily graduated from Massey University today! My aunt has the photos on her camera, so I'll post those at a later date, just a couple from my phone for now. Dad's face in that last photobooth picture is cracking me up. It was a beauuutiful sunny day, this weather is so ridiculous and amazing for May. The graduation ceremony itself was actually really enjoyable, I suspect it wasn't as long as those some of my friends have attended because it didn't drag on at all. Emily looked beautiful as always, and it was lovely celebrating with the family. Super proud of my little sister!

I ended up coming back to Wellington after dinner tonight rather than going to my parents' house. My birthday on Friday is going to be pretty busy with a couple of medical appointments (lucky me!) and just celebrating with Charlie, so I think I'll do some big time cleaning around home tomorrow and hopefully some drawing once my workspace is tidy again... Busy weekend ahead with another Arthritis New Zealand event on Saturday (I'm speaking on a panel) and a family lunch on Sunday. May is mad.

I'm being really common and listening to this song a lot lately. Those of you overseas may have already heard it after it got some Buzzfeed attention. To be honest I didn't see what the fuss was about when I first listened. And something about her face reminds me of someone from my past I have no good feelings towards. But after that one listen I had it stuck in my head and went crawling back to it again after a couple of days of  repeating 'royyyals... ruuuler' under my breath. I love her hair in this video so much. Super styled I guess, but it still kinda sorta makes me want to stop damaging my hair with straighteners and let the curls go for it... When I was at high school I used to wear it curly a lot, and it formed such nice ringlets. It's so damaged and dry now that no matter how many treatments I try, the curls just frizz apart. This post is going somewhere really boring so just watch the damn video and goodnight. Haha.

 

Family Portraits

Yesterday we had a belated family celebration for Emily's 21st birthday at Devine at Clareville Cafe in the Wairarapa. We had 23 guests in total, and it was so great having people from both sides of the family in one place. Many, many photos were taken, so here are just a few of my immediate family.

Like, so grown up now.

My beautiful little sister turns 21 today! Twenty-one! I still have enough trouble coming to terms with the fact that I'm older than 21, so this is super scary.

I should have been more prepared for this post, but was forced to trawl Facebook for embarrassing photos, as is 21st tradition. She has a couple of almost-embarrassing ones, but they're all with other people so it didn't feel right to steal them. Annoying.

A quest to find poor taste party photos was probably setting the bar slightly too high, considering this is a girl who can make boozed baking look glam.

Hope you're have a wonderful day sister, I love you heaps.

Sister Tag

I convinced my little sister Emily to join me in filming a sister tag today... had to edit out even more giggling! Sorry - I mutter so badly in this video, especially compared to Emily!

1. How old are you?

2. What's your favourite memory together?


3. Describe each other in one word.

4. What's your dream job? 

5. Who's your favourite YouTube beauty guru?


6. What is something that annoys you about the other person?


7. If you could go anywhere in the world together, where would it be and why?

8. Favourite inside joke?


9. Who takes longer to get ready in the morning?

10. Favourite season? 

11. Favourite song?


12. Favourite item of clothing of the other person?


13. Heels or flats?


14. Pants or dresses?

15. Favourite animal? 

16. If your house was burning down and your family was safe, what would you save? 

17. Number one celebrity crush?

18. What is something weird that you eat?

19. Do you guys have anything matching?


20. What's your favorite TV show?

Then

After Caitlin posted about genealogy, I clicked over to ancestry.com and signed up for the two week trial (if you do the same, and don't want to pay for a subscription, ensure you cancel in time!)

I think it would be easy to turn crazy obsessive about researching my family history, so I just stuck to following existing information on the site (from other people's research) and cancelled my subscription on the same day to avoid forgetting about it. And also avoid getting obsessed. It was fun. It was pretty easy to get back to my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather on Dad's side who was born around 1690, but that's as far as the 'hint' prompts took me.

I also found this cute picture which is apparently of my great grandparents on Dad's side, Minnie and Norman, on their wedding day in 1908. So awkward-looking, but awesome.

Manawatu

I've had a great weekend in Palmerston North with my little sister Emily (only clarifying the "little" part due to "twins?" comments on Instagram) I caught the bus up on Friday evening which was actually way nicer than I expected - double decker, air conditioned... seatbelts. Guess I was dreading the kind of buses we used for school trips.

Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day, and hot. Apparently I missed some rare decent weather here in the capital too, but it was nice to be able to wear a floaty dress and have no fears of it blowing around. We went to the Arohanui Hospice Shop in Palmerston North which had some great stuff, and unlike most of Wellington's second hand/charity stores, everything was actually dirt cheap. I bought a few more framed pictures for the hallway, another wooden tray which I may or may not use as a painting surface, and a wooden shelf for spices in the kitchen - finally! Have wanted a spice rack type thing for ages.

After that we went with Emily's friend Nicki to Himitangi beach for typical beach activities - wading, sand dunes, swimming, ice cream, followed by a spa.

We had some dinner at Emily's before dressing up and going to some bars with Nicki and her flatmate for some cocktails and a spot of pool. I hadn't been out in Palmerston North in about four years, and it was fun. Quite different to Wellington from my experience... more sleazy boys, but less messy girls - so I'm not sure which is worse!

How was your weekend?

EDIT

Oh yeah, and that's another goal crossed off the list!

Family Time

There can't be many better ways to eat than outside in the sun with your family. My parents and sister came down this afternoon and we ate an amazing lunch at my aunt's house. We had beautiful smoked fish, salads, and some game meat that, well, I wasn't game enough to try.

This evening I had dinner with my parents at Gasworks in Miramar, so I am seriously stuffed right now! It's been a great day.

I've made a start on packing for the move... packing books is the worst! Why do I have so many again? But we have a good stock of boxes now and the moving company is all booked in so hopefully things will run quite smoothly. Only a week and a bit to go!

I went to my first te reo Maori class on Wednesday evening. I was feeling pretty tired after work but I'm so glad I scraped together the energy to go along because it was really fun! We did a few awkward 'ice breaker' games to start off with, and then went in to basic pronunciation and greeting stuff. Most of it came back to me from primary and intermediate classes but it's definitely good to get a refresher considering that was over ten years ago now (I can't believe it either). It's so nice to be in an environment where everyone's a beginner, and even though I internally groaned at having to speak in front of around 20 strangers, I was far more confident than I am in group work situations where I know everyone. No, I can't work out what goes on in my anxious mind either.

So since I cleverly listed my goal as 'start te reo Maori classes', I guess that means I can officially cross one goal off my list!

Quality Family Time

My sister Emily came to stay at my house for a couple of nights which has been really fun. My parents decided to come down to Wellington today too so we spent a gorgeous sunny afternoon together. It's election day (finally), so I went to vote this morning and then we drove out to Island Bay for lunch. We went to The Bach Cafe and were kept company by a bunch of sparrows out on the deck.

My parents had seen the two cruise ships in the harbour on the way into the city, so we went for a drive around the bays to watch them sail out this evening. I definitely want to go on a cruise ship someday!

Emily and I did some running around in the waves at Breaker Bay which was so much fun- there's something about hanging out with your family that turns you into a kid again! We went on the rope swing at Worser Bay and even Dad had a go.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Photos above taken by Dad.

Hawke's Bay

My great-uncle died last week, so my sister Emily and I drove up with Mum to his funeral in Hawke's Bay yesterday.

We stayed in a motel in Hastings last night, then got up early today and headed to the Hawke's Bay Farmers' Market, which is crazy busy and held in gorgeous grounds. I got a wedge of my faaavourite- cumin cheese.

Cloud factory?

We went to Napier this afternoon and visited Whales Tale Antiques, which I highly recommend for a browse. There's another large antiques store closer to the town centre, but this one was even better. So many nooks and crannies jam packed with beautiful things.

On the way home we stopped for lunch at the Paper Mulberry Cafe. I had the lamb pie which was insanely good.

We had to stop in Waipawa so I could take a picture of this awesome cuckoo clock front on The Clock Shop.

How was your weekend?

Aotearoa.

Check out a bunch of my Dad's gorgeous photos of our beautiful country on his recent blog post here.

Trevor Jones blog.

My Dad takes pictures.

2009

Trevor Jones blog.

Heritage.

I'm home at my parents' house for Easter, only a short visit as I'm working Monday (Easter Monday/ANZAC Day). The above photograph is one my Dad had developed from a slide. It was taken in the early 1960s and features my Dad and his sister as children, their dad (my Granddad), my Dad's other sister's husband, my Dad's grandmother and my Dad's mother, who sadly died long before I was born. Such an adorable photo, those dresses are gorrrgeous!

Last night

Spent some time out in the 'burbs with my parents, extended family and a kitten last night. Thought pictures of a baby and a kitten might appeal to a different kind of blogging audience...

Emily

I miss my little sister, I wish we could hang out more. We fought like insane psycho children when we were little, but she's my best friend now. We make do with long emails, silly Facebook comments and the occasional weekend visit. Hopefully summer will bring us more time to hang out. It's fast approaching, though you wouldn't think it with this weekend's awful weather- freezing cold, windy and a little rainy.

As is typical for my Saturdays, I did very little. Cleaned up a bit, caught up on my Reader and did a little artwork which I'll share later this week.

Hope your weekend is a lot more exciting!