Sadness and Happiness all in one day

Abbey cooling off at Hamner Springs

 The title says it all really.  This past week has been unusual.  We go some really sad news that a friend is terminally ill and has very little time left with this world - very very unfair we think.  Sometimes our faith is tested and this situation certainly has!.  On the same day I got news that the photo over won a competition for the local radio station.  It was a wonderfull surprise, made even more glorious when we discovered that it was actually a nationwide competition and that the photo was a winning shot - wow, let me say it again - a winning shot in the whole of NZ, that is my only claim to fame.  It seems a little surreal.  That same day I also came home to discover that another photo entered in the local newspaper photo competition had also won.  This one is the black and white photo posted below.  It was a fluke really, as it wasnt the one intended to be entered.
Amelia is gutted as she was working the day the photo was published and got alot of comments about her lovely smile :) - sorry darling, it really was an accident that that photo was entered.


Sisterly Love  - cooling off at Hamner Springs

Tomorrow the kids all return to school - thanks goodness.  even though it means back to the stress on mornings, school lunchboxes, rushing in the morning, it will mean that we have some sort of family routine again. 
The kids have got very used to sleeping in and doing very little in their day.  Amelia has an early start as she has an accounting class at 7.30 am at the local boys high school.  This is a new initiative where the three high schools share teaching resources.  From what she has said there will be mainly boys - I am worried about that especially after her boy dramas over the last few months. 
This morning I discovered that our littlest child - Abbey had attempted to cut her hair, her beautifull long curly hair - urrgh, she had made a real hash of it and now sports short sides.  Apparently she had cut it becaue she had a tangle in it!  Me thinks that she was trying to be a hairdresser and make a fringe - as she had been nagging me that she wanted a fringe.  Never mind it will grow again.  Ironically I had made a hairdresser appointment today for her to have  a trim. - Well she needed more than a trim as it turns out.  The hairdressor laughed as she has seen it before.
Tonight I attempted to preserve some apricots and make some apricot jam as on my way back from a school visit I got to stop at the orchard up the valley.  YUMMM apricots.
Well its bedtime - the house is quiet as the kids are all in bed soundly sleeping, and my body is telling me that it is time for bed too.