Kauri Forest and Kauri Museum

On the way home to Auckland, we took the western coast and paid a visit to Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua Forest- a 2000 year old Kauri Tree which is about 50 metres tall . Its huge, really majestic.

It was difficult to photograph the whole tree and still be in the picture so if you look really really hard, you can see a pin-size Ren at the bottom of the next picture.

Our final stop was the Kauri Museum in Matakohe where we saw some fascinating kauri exhibits.

A cross section of a kauri tree......

Bath tubs were once made of kauri......

Inside a kauri tree trunk...

Boarding house of the 1900s...

Kauri art pieces.....

Kauri home deco and furniture......

and Kauri gum...

oops, Erica almost lost her finger to kauri fish!

Pictures from the Moana Lodge, Paihia

Thought we should do the posy thing before we left this lovely place. Excellent accommodation! Clean, neat, good location, and great outlook!

Russell/ Pompallier Mission - Part 3 of Tan's visit

On the 2nd day of our visit to the Bay of Islands, we dropped by the quaint little seaside village of Russell. We lunched there then went a little tour of the island. Pompallier Mission, NZ's oldest surviving Roman Catholic building was one of the stops. It was originally used as the headquarters of the Catholic mission to Western Oceania. The building is built of rammed earth within a kauri framework. The part of the building we visited was the printery, tannery and storehouse for the Marist mission of Bishop Pompallier. The visit was most interesting for Tim since Bishop Pompallier is often mentioned in school, and the ship on which Bishop Pompallier sailed on appears on his school badge.

There was a school visit on so the guide kept us well entertained with her commentaries and demonstrations. She showed us how cow hide was made into leather in the tannery, a tedious process of soaking the skin in urine and drying and repeating that process many many times.

On the 2nd level was the printery - we saw how a plate was made to print a single page of a book- each alphabet had to hand picked to form a word, sentence and page, run the black ink on the plate and let to dry for a day before you get one printed page. No wonder books were so expensive at that time. Apparently the Marist helped the Maorists print their books for free.

We then lent the lovely lady a hand to print a picture of the Mission.

Paihia - Bay of Islands Cruise

We took the Tans to the resort town of Paihia (Bay of Islands), about 4 hours drive, north of Auckland. On the way there, we stopped at Whangarei for a picnic lunch we had packed that morning. This three hour cruise, for both the Tans and us as well, was one of the best cruises we had ever been on. Not only was it very scenic as you can see in the photos, the highlight of the cruise was spotting the wild dolphins, who swam with and around us for a good ten minutes. Some of the dolphins were even having a race with the cataraman we were on. It was absolutely awesome! The kids were so thrilled! The catamaran also had to manuovre its way through the Hole in the Rock, a 15m wide hole. Pretty spectacular too.
Take note of Mary's very affectionate cuddle for Justin in one of the photos - don't they look lovely there? That didn't come without a price. Justin had to agree to bringing the whole family back to Auckland in 2009.

Tim's First Holy Communion

Tim celebrated his First Holy Communion on 25 November 2007 at St Mark's Parish in Pakuranga, Auckland. We were honoured to have Tim's godparents, Mary and Justin and their 2 1/2 year old son, Ren (Julian) come from Melbourne to join us for the ceremony and to spend a week with us. The ceremony started at noon, celebrated by Parish priest Fr Barry Scannell. It was a beautiful mass - most parts of the mass involved the children - sorry prayers, readings, intentions, offertory and a liturgical dance. Every single child had something special to do. After mass, everyone was invited to the Holy Communion breakfast (actually lunch). The room was beautifully set up - with colour-coordinated balloons, plates, sprinkles, table cloth and individual seatings and name cards for each child. Very impressive! The children had also made posters about their themselves and these were placed on the walls for everyone's viewing pleasure. Very speical and very meaningful as each child wrote or drew about his interests and his family.
I could tell Tim relished all the attention. Asked how it felt, he said "Good but the wine was bitter." My boy is growing up so quickly.

Launch of Blessings

Blessings NZ Ltd was officially launched on 6 October 2007. From the moment the seed of interest was sowed to the picking of the name of our company and the inception of the company, Adelyn and I have seen and felt the Lord's hands guiding us through this partnership. Blessings operates out of St Mark's Parish in Pakuranga, Auckland, New Zealand. We sell Catholic and Christian religious items and gifts - rosaries, bibles, books, holy pictures, medals, statues and other such items. It has been an extremely rewarding experience running this business and we are thoroughly enjoying it. Just as the Lord has blessed us, we pray that each and every one who purchases something from our store will also be blessed! Thank you everyone for your love and support - especially our husbands, Mervin and Vincent and our children, Tim, Erica, Jonathan, Kevin, Nicholas and Alex.

Erica's 5th Birthday