Weekend fun!

For the first weekend in a while we were all together and just us. The weather was even a little warmer, which meant we could go out and enjoy the sunshine without freezing :)

I was feeling quite homesick on Friday night as I tried to imagine my family all getting ready for Jay and Laura's big day. My friends reported on facebook that it was a stunning summer's day in Invercargill! I went to bed wishing such a thing as teleportation really did exist. But Saturday morning was much better as we skyped in to the reception and could catch up with a lot of family and friends and hear about how the day was going. 

As we were talking to family Eti popped down to the new bakery in the village and bought back croissants and pain-au-chocolats...a first for the girls!

After a morning nap we headed off down the mountain in the direction of IKEA, for which we had some vouchers to spend (the best kind of shopping!). On the way we stopped at the Schilliger Garden Centre & Boutique, which has an amazing Christmas display on at present. It is much more than a Garden Centre - the Boutique is home to all sorts of luxury homewares, linens, candles, gifts, decorative items and much more. We went to enjoy the Christmas display, and the animals, which we had seen a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to show daddy...

Snow Leopards - all of these animals were life-sized and moved!

Polarbears!

This makes me think of Narnia

Saying hi to the donkey!

An amazing poinsettia Christmas Tree, using 250 plants!

 We had a fun, relaxed, family day together and enjoyed our time at IKEA, even though it was packed as usual!

On Sunday afternoon the sun was shining and we decided to make the most of it by going out for a walk. We decided upon Burtigny, a small village about 20 minutes away, where I spent my first 6 months in Switzerland at the YWAM base there. We knew we could find some cows there, which is one of the girls' current favourites, but we were pleasantly surprised to discover more than cows on our walk around the fields and village...

The girls weren't too sure about their up-close encounter with the cows!

But then they felt a little braver

...and even offered one of their much-loved bunny rabbits!

As you can see from the photos it was a beautiful late-afternoon walk, though crispy cold! But it really was fun to come across these different animals, which the girls enjoyed seeing in real-life as opposed to in their storybooks!

Once we had two tired little girls fed, bathed and into bed, and two tired big people fed, we snuggled up on the couch and enjoyed this brand new documentary about the Wells family from Wanaka, whose 4 boys are all extremely talented free-skiiers. It's worth a watch, especially if you have some action-loving family members! You can see the trailer here and rent or buy the full documentary on itunes, which is all very easy to use (on Mac or PC).

And then today, after several days of sunny snow-melting weather, we awoke to rain which gradually became heavier then turned into light, fluffy snowflakes! So here is our lunch-time view today...

I just love showing our girls the snow. The look of wonder on their faces is priceless :)

Have a great week!