So........

....... last weekend, we finished work midday on Friday and jumped on a plane to Christchurch for the weekend.

We didn't really have any firm plans, except to catch up with SIL, and to catch our plan home!

We had a good ride down, and got to our hotel, before deciding to head out for early dinner, as we'd hardly had any lunch to due flight times. After a really nice meal, (with some interesting entertainment, some sort of party meeting place, pirates, and all sorts of costumes, a P party we think) we went for a wander, and ended up at the casino. We had some luck on the roulette table, so left while we were ahead, and watched the last half of the Warriors game over a drink.

We were lucky to snap a great deal for accomodation at the Grand Chancellor, including breakfast, so we enjoyed breakfast in the hotel, and then wandered downtown. We went to the Arts Market, (didn't buy much,) and then down to Scrapbook Art, again, didn't buy much, and then wandered back into town. We found TimeZone, and spent awhile there, just chilling, it was lots of fun.We then met SIL for a late lunch, and then back to the hotel for a snooze. We walked down (up???) town, and bought movie tickets, to see Stepbrothers. I was a little hesitant to see it, as the last movie that Jon had chosen (Tropic Thunder,) really bombed, but it was OK, not the funniest, but watchable. We had a little to eat, remember we were still full from late lunch. I was quite keen to go out, in town, but Jon was feeling a bit grandpa-ish so we had an early night (well, it was about 12 by the time we walked home)

In the morning we had breakfast again at the hotel, and then caught a bus out to Riccarton Mall, and met up with Vicki for coffee. It was nice to see you again Vicki, we really got to stop meeting like this (she bumped into Jon while I was in a shop).

We went down to check out Punting, but had a wait for a while, so someone had a nana nap by the river, I couldn't sleep, bit paranoid, but Jon was not worried at all obviously.
We caught our 'boat', with a great guide, young fella on a working holiday, a few snapshots, nothing exciting.
We then wandered back through town, cashed in our tickets at TimeZone, and picked up our bags from the hotel. We were in a predicament, too early to head out to the airport, yet not enough time to do anything else. We ended up heading out to the airport, grabbing a magazine, and just chilling for an hour.

Our flight home was quite horrible, lots of turbulence, our attendant said in her 6 years of travelling it was the worst she had experienced. The take off and landing were fine, and there was nothing the pilot could do, but it gave me grief with my ears, and was quite uncomfortable for a couple of hours. We got home about 11pm, and crashed quite quickly.

We were so tired, but put it down to all the walking we did, it didn't seem like much at the time, (it must have been the good company, LOL) but when we looked at the map, and put it in perspective, it was quite a bit, (and we were quite tired before we even got there, it had been a busy few weeks)

Anyway, we had a great weekend, even though we were tired, would still do it again.

OK, Ok, I'm still here

...... after a not so gentle hint from a secret lurker, I'm here to say I'm still around.

Not too much happening.

A full day of 5 aside soccer, on Fathers Day of all days. Very tiring, especially as we had to drive nearly an hour there, and then we stayed and took my Dad out for dinner, and home again. Our team didn't do very well, not for want of trying though, I thought they'd done so well.A couple of weekends ago we had soccer prizegiving. Before the actual prizegiving, there is a parents vs child game, which Dad participated in. The day before we had helped do the fertilizer drive with the Lions, as fundraising for the soccer club, and I had hurt my back, so I was out of soccer.We were very proud to see (and.... the bloody batteries died right at the wrong time) Braden receive 'Most Improved Player'. We'd just had a conversation the night before, prepping him for the fact that not everyone would get a medal, etc, so you should have seen his face when he heard his name.

Last weekend I got out into the vege garden, had prepped it earlier, so planted some seeds, and they've come away well, in fact I was quite surprised to see how well. My niece was also staying, so we planted some sunflower seeds too, and then she can have some at home.

I'll be back to write about our weekend away!