It's Soooo Hot!!!

Oh oh - it's hard to cool down today - we're cooking under the sun, hot hot hot - must have ice cream!!

Ron Mueck Exhibition

Hiya Folks - we've just been to an amazing exhibition of Ron Mueck's work at the Art Gallery - he does ultra real sculptures at various scales - either bigger or smaller than life.  The attention to detail is staggering, all the hairs, veins, moles, stretch marks, beads of sweat etc. are in the sculptures - definitely quite spooky, but completely fascinating and powerful to behold... here's some piccys of his work we saw

Stellas Xmas

It's boxing day - or maybe the day after - don't you loose track of time during the holidays too.  We made a special visit to the pet shop to go and get Stella something for her Xmas pressie & birthday, which was forgotten - sound familiar those with birthdays near Xmas.

Well Stella is now 2 years old - her birthday is on the 5th of December

 Guess what she had for a pressie then - wot a ball, how could you tell, you must be psychic or something...

 Oooh yes - her old collar was getting a bit stinky - so we also got her a beautiful red fabric collar - most smart - and a name tag too - she was proud as punch with all the attention and new ball

 Even when she wanted a nap she just didn't want to be far away from her giant red rubber ball - check out the collar, it's even got glow in the dark stripes - oooooh wot a lucky pup...

We had to laugh - look at her gob - she played with her tough new rubber ball so much, biting and chewing it that the muscles in her jaw got over tired to the point where she couldn't close her mouth properly so her front teeth were sticking out - it made her look so comical, the more we laughed the more she stared at us like this - most funny - we call this her 'Scooby Doo' look.

Xmas Day at Autumns House

 The four generations - Great Gran, Marie - Nana, Alexia - Mum, Autumn - Baby, Jackson

Melanie has given Jackson a special bauble she made for the Xmas tree - here they are hanging it in the tree together - aaaahhhh

 

 Jackson's Santa sack - of course we couldn't resist sticking him in it - so cute

 All the Martins together - what a picture post card aye

 The pavlova with strawberries and kiwi fruit - yumm - of course we were all too full to even think about deserts until an hour or so after the main courses.  This year we had ham on the bone - Moroccan lamb and beef meat balls - and roast chicken with loads of salads and new potatoes

Oooh yes Alexia also made a delicious mango triffle  - here she is putting on the finishing touches of shaved chocolate - yum yum

One more Xmas Photo

 [click on photo for the big one]

Ok one more Xmas photo from the Grotto... it was like a mini Las Vegas, or something you'd find in Disneyland, but with a Kiwi Country 'DIY' twist - it got us the Xmas mood ;O)

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 
AND HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR

Love Stew & Alexia

Happy Xmas form Us

 [click on photo for full effect!!]


Ok - very corny piccy but the grotto was a complete surprise out in the country near Autumn and Marks farm.  The displays were huge, and they had lots of people come and visit - thousands coming for days - of course it doesn't get dark til around 10pm which was the best time to come.

Santas Say Hello

Some Santas in the Xmas Grotto we went to on Xmas Eve - they had collected sooo many of 'em it was almost spooky - and most of them were moving too