Darren on top of one of our rentals cleaning out the gutters and checking the chimney and roof. Winter weather has been reasonable sofar with cold nights and sunny days.

These are our frenchdoors from the lounge overlooking Lake Rotorua and these are the sunrises you get on a frosty morning, reflecting back in the house.

 Darren picked up a load of river pebbles, i weeded the gardens and put newspaper down, and we put the pebbles in. Should make the maintenance easier and it looks great.

In the school holidays Christopher and Katherine joined us at home and we had heaps off visitors. Here are all the 8 visiting kids on the stairs. Sabine came with Stefan and Isobel, Tanja came with Dina and Luke and Sue came with Liam and Jayna. No husbands to keep Darren company as they were all working..

However we had two friends for Nandy visiting, as well her old mate Tippy as puppy Wags both came with Sue and the kids from Wellington.

We did lots of fun things together.  Christopher had motorcross on Sunday and we all went to watch him, he had three BIG supporters.

After the motorcross we stopped in at Harold and Connies glashouse, were they grow 7000 Gerberas and the kids all got to pick some and take them home, very lucky.

Eating all together was big fun especially when it was spaghetti !!and the dogs were very happy to clean up the 'droppings" 

We all went for a ride on the steam train in Nongotaha. the kids had lots of different modes of transport, cause Darren also took them for a ride on the local bus.

for my birthday Darren took me away for the day and the night. We started off at Waimangu Thermal wonderland and did a three hour hike. We had great weather and it was a very nice walk.

From Waiotapu we continued towards Taupo and stayed in Treetops Lodge one of New Zealands best Lodges, this is our "villa" in which we stayed and the golf cart was our mode of transport to get from the villa to the main lodge. Have a look at their website and be as amazed as we were www.treetops.co.nz.

The inside of our villa, we had a lounge with fireplace and yes we had it going, a huge bedroom and a bathroom with all the bells and whistles.

As my birthday was on a Monday and in the middle of winter we were the only guest that night and had the Chef all to ourselves. He prepared a lovely dinner and next day breakfast using ingredients of the 2500 Treetops farm.

 5 Course Birthday dinner Yummi.

Before we left Treetops our chef took us for a ride over the Farm and we encountered this stag that stood still just long enough for this perfect shot (photo).