Our Forever Family: Nanny Mamae's Unveiling in Te Haroto

Gosh, what a weekend!!! As I type this, Seth's asleep (going on 3 hours now), the girls are both asleep on the couch (for over an hour), and Daddy Joe's crashed out on Faith's bed (for about 2 hours). Wonderful, cause I've been able to put the house back together after our weekend away, hang out washing, make dinner, do the dishes and do some web-based research as well!

On Friday morning we headed down to Hamilton on our way to Nanny Mamae's unveiling in Te Haroto. We were all excited to go cause it was going to be a special family weekend, seeing everyone, meeting our newest nephew and seeing Grandma and Grandad who'd just arrived earlier that morning from Alice Springs for a month...cool!!!

When we arrived at Fend Street we were greeted by Uncle Mahonri which was a neat surprise. Man is he tall and all grown up now, amazing what a difference 10 or so months makes. We had a good little catch up there and then headed off to have huggles with Baby Tanner. Aunty Bex must have been exhausted cause we snuck into her beautiful room at RiverRidge and she didn't even wake up. So knowing she needed rest, we took a sneaky pic with her and baby and then left her in peace. Will have to wait a little longer for the huggles (as Ella calls hugs/cuddles)

Next stop, a special and unexpected visit to meet Tiger Lilly, our newest niece. She's gorgeous and so are her sisters. I'm sure she'll melt her Daddy's heart when he meets her.

By this time, Seth was tired and the girls were ready for a sleep so we hit the road for Taupo. The rest of our Heke family was coming, but not quite ready so we just had to go for it without them. Dinner in Taupo didn't disappoint, I don't think McDs ever does!

And then onto the last leg of our journey, another hour to Te Haroto. I think we got there about 8:30pm and we got straight into unloading our car packed full with clothes, towels, portacot, blankets, etc. What a job that was! The girls immediately got out of the car and made friends/cousins with other kids and we hardly saw them till we left. Joe got stuck into dinner round 2 and was loving it.

Marae's are pretty ideal for a fun family 'holiday'. The facilities are great, mattresses all over the marae, bikes to ride around the grounds, kai hall with chairs and tables everywhere, a kitchen stocked with everything, bathrooms with hot showers, electricity.

Grandad Sonny and Grandma Yvonne arrived at about 11ish I think and a big catch up began. I snuck off to bed at 12:30 with Seffy and I think the others snuggled in next to me about 2am. There was a team of people getting up at 3am to start making the breakfast and Daddy Joe had said he would help. At 6:15 I woke up and he was still fast asleep next to me. Oh well. We quickly got ready and headed over the road to the unveiling ceremony at 7am. It was a really nice meeting, beautiful singing and the headstone they've designed is really beautiful. I'm sure Nanny Mamae felt so loved with what has been done for her.

And the breakfast back at the Marae was fit for Kings and Queens. I'd seen the menu stuck on the kitchen wall the night before so I knew it would be good, and my goodness was it good or what!

Spaghetti, Eggs, Toast, Bacon, Sausages, Potatoes, Rewana Bread, Pork, Smoked Eel, Museli, Cereal, Fruit, Chocolate Eclairs, Cheesecake, Shortbread, Lamingtons, Apple Pies, Steamed Pudding, Chocolate Mud Cake. MEAN!

Once we packed up and headed out, we gapped it for as far as we could get without the kids going mental, that was about Cambridge. Seffy lost it at that point but because we only had about 15 minutes to go, we kept going and he screamed for the whole 15 minutes of it until he got picked up out of his carseat at Fend Street.

Then I did a fun visit over to Grandma Roses and Lesley's place. Cool catch up there with Grandma, Lesley, Neil and Kawai.

We were going to stay Sunday night at Fend Street but after 2 days of travelling and a very very late night, Daddy Joe said it was best to come home and re-set so we could have a more settled Sabbath Day.

We had such a wonderful time with everyone. It was so cool to see Tanner and TJay and Te Whatanui. They all make Seffy look massive with his chubby legs and 3 teeth. The 4 of them (or 5 with Sonny) are going to be best of mates I'm sure. Now we're excited to see everyone again, maybe for 3 baby blessings in a couple of weeks, and then we get Grandma and Grandad and Uncle Mahonri coming up to our place for a few days before they fly out as well. Yay!

K, this was obviously written last week but I've just gotten round to adding the pics now....

Dad sang us a funny tagalog kids song over and over again...something about a delicious crab

Dinner round 2

After a McDs MacAttack and then boil up he was full to the brim

Our little corner of the marae

Ella was quite taken with this puppy and didn't want to let him curl up for a sleep in his basket. Poor thing, I'm sure he was happy to see the back of us!