Hello, Emma.

Christmas and The New Year!

We are now well into 2010 and it seems that Christmas and New Year were such a long time ago! We had rather a hectic Christmas however it was lovely and we did manage to have a lovely Christmas Day just the two of us! I think it will be the last one for a VERY long time!

We worked right up to the end (well Dan took Christmas eve off!) and we celebrated the commencement of the festive period with Becca and Adam and Wen and Ian! Lots of fun and giggles had by all!

Christmas day was lovely, lots of food and just chilling out! We spent the evening watching DVDs and eating chocolate!

Boxing day we spent with my mum and then went onto Dads for the eve and then headed down to London to celebrate a new festival....Dodrews Christmas Day! A Dodson Andrews combination, we had a LOVELY time with Andrew, Rebecca and Isabella before they headed off again! It really was fantastic to see them and to be able to spend a whole day catching up! We ate the most amazing meal too!!! Thanks Boo!

The rest of Christmas was spent travelling and trying to plan our kitchen rennovation! Busy times but all in all a lovely break!

New Years Eve was spent Chez Anne Mac for a joint birthday/Hogmanay party! An absolutely wonderful evening with fantastic people, fine food and culminated in "stripping the willow" in Anne's driveway!

Such a shame to have to finally go back to work :-(!

Busy Year!!

Well it is now Christmas eve eve and we are having what feels like the umpteenth blizzard this week! Am hoping that it isn't too thick as sadly I do want to go to work and we certianly need to make it to the supermarket tomorrow!!! Otherise we might be a little peckish over christmas, though we do have a lot of chocolate!

So we have done so much since we wrote earlier in the year! But these are some of the highlights!

We holidayed in Greece, complete luxury and the most fantastic holiday, it actually has turned out to be our final holiday as just the two of us as we discovered we were having a baby the day after we got home!! It was SO fatastic to spend a week together and we really needed it too! Great times!

We both celebrated our 30th birthdays! Dan in June and me in July! Fun times! We were even joined by the Horinouchi's for my birthday, a wonderful treat! Below are a couple of pictures from our party at Kenwood House organised by my lovely sis!

Later in July our gorgeous niece Isabella Sara arrived! She is utterly adorable! I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her!

We've also been away on holiday with some great friends to France! It was a lovely weekend of good food, good company and fun trips! Very relaxing!

We came back to the UK and went to Isabella's Christening. A lovely afternoon seeing family and friends and celebrating with Rebecca and Andrew!

Back to work and into the race towards Christmas and it certainly has been jam packed with lots of family stuff including my Grans 80th birthday! Celebrated in style with family and friend in Eastbourne!

Work has also dominated life and we are both mega busy! We really can't wait for Christmas to have a bit of a rest! I had a wonderful trip to Lausanne to visit my sister, borhter in law and scrummy niece who is grwoing up fast! I had to squeeze in a trip before I get too big to travel! Though not the most flattering facial picture, it does give an indication ofm y ever expanding waistline!!

So we are now up to date though it was a whistlestop tour! We'll be back with more of the festivities! Have a fantastic Christmas and a wonderful new year!!

Quick Catch up!

We have been a little bit quiet recently, seem to have been completely overtaken by facebook, however we are still here and we are en joying being home in the UK even though we miss NZ SO much!

We have had a summer of weddings, holidays and trying to get our heads round our most exciting news! We are having a baby! I confess that the main reason for not posting at all over the summer was the fact that I spent most of it on the sofa feeling very sick and very sorry for myself! But we are now apparently in the final stages although I am not subscribing to this and still thinking it is miles away!!! Baby Andrews is due to arrive on the 14th March 10 and we can't wait!

Work is rather all cosuming as usual but we are still having fun and trying to relax and enjoy baby freedom as much as possible!

Am sure that we will post more in the coming months and I will try and post some photos soon! In the meantime, hope you are all well!

Much love Em and Dan.xx

Thawing out and other adventures!

Much of February was spent thawing out after the crazy weather! We spent about a week and a half not being able to do much due to the ice that seemed to remain for AGES due to the cold temperatures, it really was quite bizarre! Most shops seemed to sell out of sledges creating numerous waiting lists, and when stock finally arrived it was in time to store away until the snow hits in the next decade! Ho hum! We braved London for my Uncle's 50th birthday! Dan Dad and I spent the day with Becky in London at the new shopping centre......it's a westfield though rather larger than Riccarton! We had an absolute scream! Lots of fun and giggles! Though I think the boys excitement for shopping waned somewhat towards the end of the day!
Life has been busy as usual! We have been to out walking in the Peaks which was fab. We had been meaning to to get out for a proper walk since getting back but life seemed to take over! We met up with Auntie Jo and Ian for a walk which involved lunch at the infamous Grindleford Cafe.....and it was not dissappointing at all! It was a lovely day, great company and an opportunity to natter about NZ! We spent a good hour afterwards drinking tea and eating cake whilst planning their next trip which to NZ which began yesterday! Lucky them!

Baltic Blast!

It has been a little bit chilly over the ast couple of days and we have been treated to a bit of Baltic weather over the last 24 hours! I'm not sure we remember it being like this, we had quite sustained snow showers for most of yesterday. Today we are both working from home, Em in the study, Dan downstairs! We have soon learnt that we can't work in the same room together! Emma as an extrovert and Dan as a introvert...not a good home working combo!

But I managed to take a few photos on my phone yesterday as I walked home so I thought I would post them just to prove the glorious white blanket of snow we have received! If I get round to downloading the pictures from the other camera, I will post the picture of my little snowman! Dan decined coming outside to play in the snow with me....bah humbug!!!!!

In the middle of a blizzard from my office window!

Station Tram stop!!!!

On my walk home from work!

Christmas

Thought we could start with this photo of the sunset that I took from our bedroom window!

The decorating of the tree had to wait until quite late this year due to some house renovations! It worked out beneficial to us in the end though as we managed to get a tree for 5 quid!!!! Unbelievable! Dan wouldn't let me get the 7 footer so had to settle for the 6 footer instead! Good job actually as we had trouble seeing the television past the branches from some chairs!!!!! But once decorated and after a bit of a trim it looked fab!
The reason for the delay though was the wood burning stove and carpet that were finally fitted on 23rd December!!!! Nothing like leaving it to the last minute, having said that we've only had 2 carpets put down and both were on the 23rd December so it must be an Andrews' thing!!
Christmas was quite an event. We started with a christmas dinner dance in Hull with my Dad and Carol and Boo and Andrew, Caz and family friends John and Jean! Then came Christmas wee itself which was mainly focussed on catching up with the christmas shopping that we hadn't managed to do already! We both worked up to Christmas, Dan took Christmas while i worked right up to the deadline, enjoying chip butties for lunch!! Was quite an experience stepping back into a UK chip shop, requesting scraps but kindy declining the offer of the free sherry which for the English out there was being served up in mushy pea/curry sauce pots!!!!
I managed to get home in time to listen Carols from King's on Radio 4 which was something I had been looking forward to since knowing we were coming back to the UK, my sister and her husband came up later in the evening and spent Christmas day with us. It was lovely! It was so fantastic to see them and spend time with them! We managed I think to get through enough food to feed a small army, the turkey was enormous! Though it was lovely to be home, we really missed being in New Zeaand....the saying is so true, you don't realise what you have until you don't have it any more......now we have things we love in two places!!!!!
We spent Boxing Day at the races with my pops and Carol and then came home the following day and Dan's mum came to stay for 5 days! It was pretty full on really, we visited family on the other side of the pennines, Rob, Dan's best man came to stay and we squeezed in a bit of sales shopping! We celebrated New Years eve with friends in Sheffield which was lots of fun! Drinks nibbles games and LOTS of laughs!!! WE stayed with Wen and Ian and enjoyed the most amazing breakfast and a lovely chilled time with the log burner cranked to the max! The weather has been unbelievable! I don't remember being here with the weather being so cold at this time of year! It has been freezing.....well more than freezing on many days!! I think it took most of us more than a couple hours to defrost after our new years day wak! I couldn't feel my nose for hours!!!!

Shipping Arrives!

Have been a little bit slack at updating the old blog and have absolutely no idea who checks this but......I shall continue!

Lots of catching up to do! We have been REALLY busy since getting back and although fab, Christmas wasn't exactly restful! We had visitors a plenty and it was entertainment central but it was lovely!

In early December the shipping arrived! All 17 boxes! 5 weeks early, 2 deliveries and LOTS of packing and sorted, we had it all under control!

Dan managed to squeeze in a trip to Twickenham to watch the ABs v England! Rather a whitewash in the end but from what I gathered it was brilliant! My Dad unfortunately couldn't make it to the game so very kindly gave the us the ticket.

Shan't talk about the resut tho..!!! And don't ask Dan what shirt he wore either!!!! He did enjoy wandering a bit of London before getting the train home though and got to enjoy the newly re-furbished St Pancras in all its christmassy-ness!

Autumn in the UK

Well, it is good to see that moving back to the UK hasn't left us with so much free time that we have been able to update the blog regularly! To be honest we have been crazy mad! After Helen and Paul's wedding we headed back up north to say Goodbye to Jen and Fran who have now ventured backto NZ. We did yet more DIY, more catching up with friend and more hanging out with family!

Em ventured down to London to go to a charity evening at Harvey Nicholls in aid of the charity that her uncle is CE of....Chickenshed. It was fab and was a great opportunity to get dressed up, catch up with Uncle D and Auntie F and to also see my lovely sis and Caz. We had a lovely time hanging out, Boo introduced me to Gavin and Stacey and we shopped in the city which was great! So lovely to be in London and rather less jet lagged than in the summer! Was great to be able to just hop on a train and be in London in no time at all!

Dan came down to meet me at Auntie Jo and Stuarts where we collected yet more of our stuff! He was a little delayed due to a burst pipe when the window fitters were fitting the window but made it down the following morning! Em was a little rough as Auntie Jo and she had stayed up unti goodness knows what time in the morning chatting adn drinking wine....oh yes and eating LOTS of chocolate judging by the wrappers on the floor in the morning!!!

We got to see Holly and Sophie, we even got to support Holly when she played soccer on saturday. We also very sadly said goodbye to Helen and Paul. We had a lovely day together but alas we had to say goodbye at the end. Cannot believe we are no longer in the same country :-(

After a fab time in Marston Mortaine we headed north again for a week in the North. Hanging with Wen for sunday lunch. Mooching in Sheffield. Emma went to Ikea with Wen for a very exciting reunion! Yay Ikea! Then we to the Peaks to visit Chatsworth house and have a bit of an Andrews day out! Chatsworth is Pemberley for those Kiwis sho have enjoyed the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice...the Colin Firth version!!! It was fab! So great to be back in the Peaks and being able to see our local historical house!!! We treated ourselves to a trip into the house and also a trip round the gardens. It was beautiful. The inside of the house was being trimmed ready for Christmas, it was stunning! Extra special for Emma who is SO excited about Christmas in the winter for the first time in 3 years! We also ventured to the Chatsworth Farm shop where we spent as age looking at all the yummy goodies! Dan was reunited with a very yummy Pork Pie! So many yummy treats, think we'll be venturing back before Christmas!

Back in Sheffield we were rapidly heading towards work. We managed another short break to London to see James Bond with Boo and Andy. Lots of fun and Daniel Craig....yummm!But then we had work to do. Dan went back to his commute to Leeds, which surprisingly hasn't been as bad as we expected. He's ordered his new car. Em started back at the NHS the following week working in the same office as she was before NZ but doing a slightly different job which is awesome.

We are busy DIY-ing still and venturing now into the realm of loft insulation, draft reduction, having a log burner installed and then we tackle the shower and kitchen! Oh yay! Actually the log burner is VERY exciting and it shoud be in for Christmas!

It does have to be said that England does go a bit mad for it in terms of Christmas. I had forgotten how busy and crazy it gets! We are finding it rather intimidating being in the shopes at the mo! We just aren't used to the crowds!!!!! Well we'll have to brave it soon....shopping to be done!