So this was our Christmas holiday: Christmas eve eve afternoon, Christmas eve, and Christmas morning in Thornton Bay. So after extracting Bee from our luggage, which was packed and repacked to get to an absolute minimum despite having to take food, presents and clothes, we bused on over to Thames. Quite a nice day, and Dad has done a spit load of work on the house.

This was actually 8am Christmas eve, the view from my bed. Wickeds.

This is me annoying the bumbleybees.

While everyone else worked. Actually I did weed for a while, trying to stay out of the sun, drink plenty of water, boring take care of yourself stuff. Obviously it didn’t work too well, as the 20 minutes I spent in the sun at around 10am caused me to get a burned back. About which I am quite POd.

I did get to follow everyone around with the camera though, which is infinitely amusing. Unfortunately however, nobody dropped anything heavy on anyone’s toes. Not even this chunk o concrete. :(

Dad wanted to showcase his Croc tan… guess what he wears for his construction / gardening escapades…

At about 5 I decided it was time to get down to the water before all the summery sunshines disappeared.

To get a photo of this. The absolute reddest Pohutukawa along the coast, just down the hill from dad’s place. While we were down shooting it, car after car pulled over, and about a billion people with cameras did the same exact thing. Seriously impressive tree, and none of the others were anywhere near this colourful.

Fluffy!

The brit guy in the waters. It was actually fairly warm, but I had my spare lens in my pocket so nowais was I going in past my ankles. It’s not swimmy water in the same way the Mount is, but still refreshing after a sweaty burny day in the sun.

On our hike back up to dad’s, we ran into Toes again. Of course, he is a cat, so he didn’t bother to get up and wish us a Merry Christmas.

Garden #1 completed. This was a bank of weeds in the morning, and along with weeded and waterblasted bits and pieces, a major accomplishment for the day.

Dad waaaaaaaay up a hill chopping down a tree for Christmas, so Santa could come and leave us pressies. He made it down safely, cause baby Jebus protects crazy people.

Christmas morning, and good presents from all – and the gremlin got its first. This is of course from Diane, who is a giraffe person. Not the same way as I am a cat person. I love cats, but not cat stuff. Diane looooves giraffe stuff, and so, giraffe baby stuff! Even I have to admit this is cute – the cats are lucky I’m too growed up to stick them in the onesies for humorous photos.

Christmas lunch was at Lisp’s, and the perfect opportunity for more cat pics. This is Bohemian Dave, her latest kitten. It basically slept like a dead person for most of the day, so was kind of disappointing. At least Ms Fizz zips around like she’s demon possessed.

Mother’s dog is basically a cat. This is a planter, or a reeeeally big coffee mug for the bunbun. She’s blue because it was hosing down (if course, it’s Christmas), and we had a tarp up so we didn’t have to shut up the house. Hamilton is a seriously muggy place.

It was a nice couple of days a way, and always good to see the family (cookies were well received!) But I was seriously knackered and REALLY looking forward to coming back and relaxing with my munchkins. Who didn’t eat each other or destroy the house while we were gone, so I call it a win.

I’ll post more of the pics in album format at some point. Probably. >.>