More photos of the House

All of these rooms are down in the basement which we have tried to make into another level of the house.

This is the girls room. It was meant to be the study and is covered in shelves. Great for all their stuff.

The area under the stairs.

The boys spacious room.

The boys temporary wardrobe. In the background is the laundry.

A Few Pictures of the New Home

Our house in the snow from the outside. We are so blessed to be here. I am enjoying the large kitchen and the children having room to play without it being under our feet. I will post more photos later but here is a few for now.

Our lovely living room. Guess what my favourite part is? Anyone who knows me well knows that it is the fireplace!!

Ben and Chelsea's cat, Spurgeon. The children are really enjoying the fact that we are also sharing a cat.

Moving House

I'm afraid any posts in the next few weeks will be void of photos. Mark and Anna-Marie have the camera in Israel. Another excuse for not contacting people to let you know of our trip home is because we have been extremely busy. On the Saturday before Christmas we found out that we were able to rent a house that we have been praying about for some time that is right next to seminary. The house needed finishing though so we have been cleaning and painting till all hours of the night and at the same time packing and cleaning at the apartment and Mark and Anna-Marie had 94 pages of work to do before they left for Israel. This all made for a very busy time. We are very blessed to be in this home. It has been made affordable to us as we are moving in with a wonderful couple from church who are also here for seminary. They have really blessed us with being willing to live with a family and share the rent.

They will have upstairs, which has two bedrooms and a bathroom and we have the main floor, two bedrooms and bathroom and we will share the living areas. The girls are downstairs in the very spacious basement and we hope to build a room for the boys down there too to free up the room they are in now for a study. I will post photos when I have the camera. We managed to find everything we needed for Mark and Anna-Marie to pack for Israel. They left on Sunday, just two days after the move. I am busy painting the basement to make it feel less like a basement and hope to have it done before Mark and Anna-Marie come home.

We are meant to be getting some snow today. I really hope so, we have not had any yet.
Happy New Year!

We're Coming Home to New Zealand to Visit!!!

For Christmas the children got a great surprise. Mark and I spent quite a while setting up a treasure hunt for them. They all only had one gift under the tree but each gift had an envelope with the beginning of the hunt. The end result was diaries and stuck to the front page was "You're going to New Zealand". With the help of Mum and Dad the children and I are coming home to attend my sisters wedding in March. We are staying eight weeks until May when Mark is able to come for two weeks. I apologise to family and friends who are only now finding this out but we worked VERY hard to keep it a secret. It was not easy in a little apartment where every conversation is heard and with children who have access to the email. We managed to surprise them though which was great. We are very excited! These are some pictures of the treasure hunt and a video of them trying to piece some clues together.

Merry Christmas

We spent a wonderful Christmas lunch with three families. We were a mix of New Zealanders, Australians and Americans so we had a lot of fun playing Catch Phrase. It made for a lovely day and spending time with friends helped us to not miss home so much.