It's been awhile

 Hi friends,

Happy winter from the Southern Hemisphere! It’s getting chilly here- this past Monday it was 0 C and there was frost all over the ground. It was beautiful but very chilly! 

I went onto maternity leave at 33 weeks and it's been lovely to be home! Just after finishing work Stephen and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary early. It was so nice to reconnect and focus on each other for two days (our first time without Ralph)! Our Airbnb was on a beautiful farm, with a log fire and lots of beautiful homemade treats. Our very kind and dear friends the Ennions watched Ralph for two nights and he did so well, which also made it extra special! 

Ralph is talking more and more all the time which is really fun. We're really enjoying this stage with him! He loves playing duplo and playing "ball"- especially with his daddy! He is also a pretty good dancer :)  

We haven't had any more overnight adventures but we took another trip to Raglan beach & town, which were really fun! We enjoyed some bagels from a local guy who makes them (Raglan Bagels). That's one of the foods NZ doesn't really have too much of, so Stephen usually makes his own and we share them at breakfast. Stephen's bagels are delicious and I told him he could open a bakery too :)

Digging in the sand at the beach at Raglan

When it wasn't raining, it was a beautiful day!

A couple weekends ago Stephen went with some guys from church to a men's training day. The training course was live streamed from the Reformed Theological Collage in Melbourne/ Geelong in Australia to the church in Pukekohe (near Auckland). He really enjoyed it. While he was there, Ralph and I, along with our friends Jo and Kiera, went to Zealong Tea Estate for their open day. It was the first time they had done an open day and we had a really nice time, even though the weather was a bit drizzly. Ralph loved trying the different kinds of tea and thought the tractor was really cool until we went on ride on it and then was PETRIFIED. We all enjoyed the tour of their glass house where they make all of the tea, as well as enjoying a delicious lunch box. It's the only tea estate in NZ and is only 4 minutes down the road from us. 

Ralph with Kiera taking a tour of the glass house where the tea is processed

Ralph loved trying all the different tea samples

The infamous tractor ride

We're looking forward to having our first visitors in a few weeks - the first of which will be Stephen's parents, who are coming for three weeks. Our guest room is finally set up in preparation for their visit. We've been here almost a year (it'll be our 1 year anniversary in NZ on 15 July) and haven't had any visitors, a big reason for that being Covid :-/ But the next 5 months, we have quite a few visitors (mainly family) planning to come.We're really looking forward to that! We're hoping also to get a passport for Pebble so that we can all (or at least me, Ralph and Pebble) go to Australia at the end of the year.

The past few weeks have been spent preparing for Pebble's arrival. We brought a lot of infant things from the US, but have also had many offers from friends to have or borrow things. We're also so thankful to have friends willing to help look after Ralph while we're at the birth center. We have different people who can help at different times: middle of the night, morning, overnight, etc. I am 39 weeks pregnant but feeling more relaxed about when Pebble will come and am thinking he/she might not come until 41 weeks (hopefully not 12 days over like I was with Ralph!). Please pray Pebble doesn't decide to come really quickly next Friday, during the day, when Stephen is doing field work 2.5 hrs away with no phone reception. That wouldn't be ideal...but we're trusting God to work out all the timing of everything. 

Cheers friends. Thanks for reading :) 
- Tamara (for the 4 of us)