Meri Kirihimeti

The flight itself was packed and uncomfortable after I made the rookie error of not changing my window seat for an aisle seat so ended up not getting up and about anywhere near as often as I normally do so after landing pretty tired in Auckland at 4am the trip took a very unexpected turn for the better when I was greeted at arrival by Joan and the girls in their matching jammies with an amazing Welcome Home Daddy sign, which got the happy tears flowing early. Frankie then held my hand all the way to the car which was super cute as well.

After getting my arrival day wrong and actually landing a day later that I thought I was going to, we then had no choice but to get in the ute and head straight to Mum and Dad’s place in Clive after dropping Bella at the kennels for her holidays. It was so awesome to see Mum and Dad again and to see the new house for the first time. The new house is awesome and is a little bit like the tardis in that it looks a little small, compared the what we have been used to, from the outside but once you get inside its not small at all and has everything you would ever need. Loved it.

Managed to sneak in 18 holes the next day back at the home course Maraenui with Rocket, Ennor and Cosmo which was brilliant. No golf whatsoever for almost 4 months meant expectations were very low but I actually managed to play a decent round and scraped together a respectable 85 which I was really happy with. So great to be back playing the course where it all started for me with a group of my best mates – hard to beat. Only dampened very slightly by the fact that inexplicably the bar was closed 2 days before Christmas, when everyone was on holiday. Go figure.

After a BBQ dinner out at the beach, getting Santa’s Guinness and cookie and the reindeer’s carrot ready and the now standard Christmas Eve present wrapping marathon it was on to the main event – Christmas Day !!!! As expected things kicked off bright and early with Scarlett bursting into our room massively stoked that Santa had come and that there were loads of presents to open. Once Frankie had finally decided to wake up we had a fairly leisurely start to the day opening presents, talking to everyone in Fermanagh and Texas and getting food prepared for the big Christmas lunch out at Chris and Michelle’s place at Waimarama. Seeing how much the girls get excited about Christmas is one of my absolute favourite things in the whole world, and I think we are right in the sweet spot now where they are both old enough to get really excited about Santa’s visit and they are both 100% into everything about it. We have something special planned for the girls next Christmas when we will be in Europe, so that will hopefully only galvanise their love of Christmas, and maybe some day they will love Christmas as much as their Mum does – ha ha.

Chris and Michelle’s place out at Waimarama was so awesome and we had such a chilled lovely afternoon and evening with Mum, Dad, Hud, Taz, Carys, Oti, Chris, Michelle, Ethan, Dom, Maureen, Claire, Phillip, Audrey, Randy and a couple from Canada who work with Michelle. We just all hung out, ate an incredible feed – special shout out to Muka’s brisket and Peb’s smoked fish dip .. stand outs in a table of amazing food, listened to music, went down to the beach for a couple of swims, video called Mike, Liz and the girls down south, rode the scooters, kicked the football around and just generally had an awesome Christmas Day. After being a little unsure how the day was going to go this year after everything that has happened lately I honestly don’t think it could have gone better – 10 out of 10. Can’t wait to do another one out there, next time with Mike, Liz and the girls hopefully too.

My birthday was pretty chilled, as it always is these days – a great day with Joan and the girls followed by an outstanding meal at Madame Social in Napier – highly highly recommended. After a lovely relaxed day we packed up, said our goodbyes to everyone and headed back to Auckland, slightly delayed by my bloody ute deciding it didn’t want to start. The delay meant we had to postpone our surprise for the girls back in Auckland but we got that rebooked and headed home to Maraetai.Read more