Gene, Kim & Braedyn

Boy racers doing donuts on the golf course + Gene and Kim seeing them = entertainment for Gene & Kim!

 The golf course have been wanting to catch them for a while.  We ran out to our gate to get their plate number as they raced past, but only got a partial.  The silly buggers went back to the golf course though, so Gene went down in the ute.  They tried to tell him they had been given wrong directions for a house – yeah right!  They were stuck in the mud, and asked Gene to pull them out – he said no, but that  he would get someone to help them!  Hahahaha the boys in blue were happy to oblige, and have just been down there talking to them for the last hour or so.

 The scary part is that Gene just heard the hoons stop a bit down from our place, and what sounded like 2 shots from a .22……………I hope they didn’t take too much notice of what Gene was driving and make us a target!

Just a quick update on Braedyn.  He is growing like a mushroom!  He has been pretty crook with a sore tummy for the last week or so, but appears to be a lot brighter tonight.  We are getting some lovely smiles too!

We are making sure he knows early on which team to support.  The hat and jumper are from Braedyn’s Gran (Gene’s Mum), and we got the booties from Pirongia markets a few years ago.

With the temperature falling, Gene has been flat out cutting firewood knowing how freakily cold I get in winter.  We’ve had the fire going for about the past 2 weeks.  It’s been pretty hot in the afternoons with the sun streaming in, but it is well worthwhile with the wetback heating our hot water cylinder so we’ve been able to turn it off.  It has been nice anyway to have open windows and fresh air but still be toasty warm!

One thing we missed in Aussie was the famous Waikato fog (yes, we are strange, we know).  So this morning I tiptoed out in my PJ’s (very brave of me in the cold of the morning) so I didn’t miss a photo opportunity (yes, I know, I think everything is a photo opportunity).  So the new header at the top of our blog is a result of that, are the photos below.

Our new home!  (and Tazz having a mad moment on the lawn this afternoon).  The huge tree next to the house is an avocado – YUM!  We also have 2 orange trees, a lemon, lemonade (really nice), peach, feijoas,  and plums.  John & Carol who we bought the farm from were nice to leave cherry tomatoes, spuds, courgettes, jalapeno peppers, celery, rhubarb, and various herbs in the garden, as well as a heap of seeds so we can plant scarlet runners!

And we have a fantastic view of Pirongia…

It was a sad day today – we had our last visit from our midwife and trainee midwife.  They have been great – not only helpful, but a bundle of laughs as well.  Gene’s bacon, avo, tomato and cheese toasted sandwiches may tempt them back for a visit though!

Life has changed a lot for us recently!  We took over the farm on the 1st of March, a few days after I finished work.  I was kept well occupied unpacking with my preggy belly, and we had our “farmwarming” BBQ on the 10th of March.  I went to a farm discussion group on the 13th and we had friends Shane & Carmel & their kids Cameron & Eden around for dinner that night.  That was the stormy night when all the trees came down - a few minutes after they left we had lightening and a couple of power cuts (our TV blew up), and a few minutes after that – my waters broke!  So Braedyn made his speedy entry into the world 10 days before his EDD, at 4am on the 14th of March.

 Being a parent is awesome.  Braedyn is a pretty easygoing baby, with a strong will and quick temper (yes they can have them this early!) thrown in to make things interesting.  He has already been out heaps, starting with the supermarket at 5 days old, and progressing to the Farm Environment Awards, and of course one of our regular Pizza Hut nights!  Gene looked after him while I helped out one of the Ballance TSR’s with a Dexcel lecture – just so I could see if my brain was still in reasonable working order.

The sleep deprivation isn’t too bad, although some days I have no idea what I just did with the previous couple of hours.  I don’t have naps during the day, but get to sleep really quickly (and sleep deeply) at night between feeds (or sometimes during them too LOL).  I am enjoying the luxury of being able to lie on my stomach again.

The farm is going well, although there is a lot of fencing to be done.  Gene normally finds the cows in several more paddocks than they are supposed to be in, and he has had to play lifeguard and swim in the river to rescue a few cows.  My poor cousin Todd heard some choice words last weekend when he helped Gene move stock, and the golfers on the course next door would have added a few words to their dictionaries too.  But it is great to finally be on our OWN place.

I finally decided to move into the current age and create a blog!  I really have no idea what I am doing, but have been reassured that it is really easy – so watch this space!

Of course there are no prizes for guessing whose mug shot is the first to make it to the blog!  This is Braedyn a couple of days ago snuggled up with Tia.