Dawes Family in New Zealand

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A Reward For Our Hard Work
2007-10-04 09:31:00
We've been in New Zealand for just over a year, and have had from day one every intention of staying. When we arrived we had not yet applied for residency, it was a process we were yet to begin.I secured a contract job quickly, which was later made permanent. It was at this point in January that we started down the road for residency. Our route was via the Skilled Migrant Category, and if you have not looked into this, the process although long and drawn out, is relatively simple.Stage 1: Check to see if you would be eligible. Use the online points calculator to see if you will qualify.Stage 2: The Expression of Interest is entry into a pool of potential applicants. If you have over 100 points, your expression is entered and selections based on the amount of points are made every 2 weeks. We qualified for 155 points so were selected immediately.Stage 3: Invitation to Apply - At this stage, you have been selected from the pool and your EOI has been reviewed. If NZ Immigration that y...
More About: Work , Hard , Reward

Another Day - Another Earthquake
2007-10-03 21:49:00
I was sat at my desk about half an hour ago. The desk and my chair started to wobble, followed by my tea! It wasn't a big quake by NZ standards, but possibly the biggest one I've sat through.Taken from the Geonet Earthquake Monitoring site:Information about this earthquake:Reference Number 2802756/G Universal Time October 3 2007 at 19:15 NZ Daylight Time Thursday, October 4 2007 at 8:15 am Latitude, Longitude 42.16°S, 172.88°E Focal Depth 70 km Richter magnitude 5.6 Region Marlborough Location: 40 km north of Hanmer Springs - 40 km south of St Arnaud - 100 km south of Nelson - 150 km north of Christchurch.You can see the list of recent quakes here: GeoNet and the news story from today: Stuff.co.nzIt's not every day you can sit and do your work while sitting through an earthquake!

Up North
2007-10-03 09:33:00
Tuesday was a busy day. I had an early flight up to Auckland to do some infrastructure upgrades to one of the national offices, and hoped the new SAN switches I'd shipped on Friday had already made it - otherwise it was going to be a short trip. Luckily, they arrived about 15 mins before we did!The Air New Zealand flight out was fine, bit bumpy in parts but quite tame in comparison to others I've seen! The weather was good though, sun was out and it was about 13C. After a couple of hours of unracking the 1st switch, racking and configuring the replacement it was time for lunch. We headed off in one of the company pool cars to good old McDonald's and took in some fresh air playing Pirate Mini Golf.Back at the office, the 2nd switch was racked and setup without a hitch, and then it was off to the airport for some food before the night time flight home.The weather turned just before we left, and the storm clouds and rain set in.I can honestly say that the noodle bar at Auckland airp...
More About: North , Up North

RIP: Kitt
2007-10-03 03:58:00
We have had a casualty, poor Kitt has passed away. I noticed him yesterday just sitting there in the tank, and then he turned onto his side and just floated there. I grabbed the net and put him a separate bowl, poor thing then just laid on his side and flapped around. However he died needlessly I will add.I called Animates (where we bought him from) and the woman told me he has Bloated Stomach which is something that happens when his breed of fish only has dry food. He swims at the surface and gasps too much air and then this happens. I actually was quite upset with the woman as this isn't the first time I have lost fish through bad advice from that store. I purposely asked when buying him if he would need special food (as he is a Black Moor) to the other two goldfish and was told no. Now the lady tells me on the phone I killed him slowly because I didn't feed him any sinking food! I'm heading down there over the next few days and I will ask to see the manager, it's cruel and sa...

Final Countdown
2007-10-02 22:45:00
On the 12th October Grandad Steve arrives in Wellington! Bethany is soooo excited and obviously can't wait. She has created a list of things to do (I have written them down as she has said them) and the top 3 funny things are:1. Get Grandad to sleep on her fairy pillow2. Have fish and chips in her play house3. Take Grandad to see some graffiti!Fantastic, Grandad is going to have a great time! Daddy created a countdown chart so she knows that when it gets to number 12 he will be arriving, funny enough I came upstairs this morning to it on number 10...cheeky little monkey!
More About: Final , Countdown

Arrgh, Me Hearties!
2007-10-01 08:03:00
Yesterday was Edward and Victoria's birthday party, Edward was 6 and Victoria was 3.It was an excited hour in our house before the big party where Bethany got dressed up as a pirate. She looked absolutely gorgeous, and she was really into character by shouting 'aarrgghh'!Jenny and Mark designed and created a wonderful pirate party for the kids. It was a fantastic time for all the children but especially for the birthday boy and girl who were overwhelmed by all of their friends and all of the presents!But the best surprise for them was the special guest - Zappo the magician! (Who was brilliant!). The children loved the chance to interact as pirates and play pirate games, it always makes me smile to see children meet for the first time and play happily, then say goodbye without a thought of them again! A fantastic time had by all, but now the pressure really is on to come up with something new and exciting for Bethany's birthday party in December, its a good job we have had our ma...

Set Sail For The New World
2007-09-30 07:05:00
After just over a year of being in NZ, all our stuff from the UK is now on it's way. We had quotes from 3 of Teesside's major removal firms: Devereux, Richardson and Pearson, and were surprised by the difference in both the price and the actual service offered. In the end we opted for Pearson, as they gave a competitive quote and a comprehensive door-to-door service.The team arrived as scheduled on Friday morning to our storage facility (also known as my Mam's house!), and began the arduous task of packing for export, inventorying for customs and insurance purposes and loading on the van. One of the guys even recognised me from a picture in the kitchen, and I had worked with him over 12 years ago, whilst I worked in removals during my college years.So now the journey begins for all our belongings. They'll go back to the removals depot, and into a container, then off to the docks for loading. After that, it's a few weeks at sea as it makes its way around the world to Wellington....
More About: World , Sail , New World

People, People, Everywhere!
2007-09-28 09:42:00
Well its been a horrible weather week this week, what I would describe as 'English weather', completely unpredictable. But by Friday Mother Nature pulled her act together and we were blessed with a day like this:So you can imagine that everyone and their dog headed out to soak up the sunshine. I was to meet Susan , Jo and Joan at the Botanical Gardens but after 10 minutes of driving round trying to find a parking space I had to give up and call Susan. Luckily she was also driving around so I dumped my car miles up the road and we all jumped into one car, after 5 minutes we found a space. The gardens were heaving, and when I say heaving, I mean like more than 10 people (which is a lot for Wellington standards). We walked through the gorgeous greenery and up towards the play area where we were meeting Jo and Joan. The children all headed off to play and it was chance for us ladies to lay out in the sunshine and catch up on some gossip. After a good laze in the sunshine we headed ba...
More About: People

Birthday Fun
2007-09-26 11:29:00
It's been a quiet few days, the weather changed on Monday after that wonderful weekend and it's been so cold, with the southerly wind and rain. It is Jo's birthday tomorrow and so we all got together at Joan's house to surprise her with a little party. It was so funny for us all to be hiding behind the furniture waiting to jump out with a SURPRISE! We had a great afternoon, the children played fantastically and us ladies divulged in the most amazing cake and some bubbly (not for me though!) and we had a lovely relaxing time. Have a fantastic day tomorrow Jo, I think I might have to celebrate again and go buy some more of that cake!
More About: Birthday

Getting Creative
2007-09-24 09:49:00
After the blistering weekend, today wasn't so good weather wise, rainy with a chill in the air made it perfect weather for mammy and Bethany to spend the day at home together. Bethany loves the one on one attention and comes up with the most amazing and interesting things to do. She is quite creative really and today was no surprise when she asked if we could make some animal masks. So with cardboard, pens and a bit of mammy's help she was happy. I drew and cut out the actual animal faces and left Bethany to get creative...We had a lovely day together doing this, drawing, painting and making an art scrap book and we had numerous fantastic kisses and cuddles. Our little girl is a stunning little creative creation.
More About: Creative

One Year On...
2007-09-22 10:25:00
That's right, its been exactly one year since we arrived in Wellington to start our new life. This was probably one of the most heart breaking and yet joyous weeks we have ever endured, but here we are one year later, older, wiser and having one hell of a good story. Lets take a little trip down memory lane...Monday, 18th September 2006 was the hardest day, one which we will probably never recover from! It was the day we said our goodbyes to our nearest and dearest, one which we spent in floods of tears, the day we last got to cuddle those we loved without the knowledge of when we would meet again. Tuesday, 19th September was the day we started on our amazing life journey. We spent the night before in a hotel in Manchester, there was no way we could face saying goodbye and getting onto an airplane the same day. We had a sad night, mixed with tears of sadness and tears of excitement and joy that we were finally 'on our way'. Wednesday, 20th September we arrived in Singapore. We we...
More About: Year

A Meating Place
2007-09-22 01:49:00
One of the greatest things we've discovered since we arrived in NZ is Island Bay Butchery. Being an avid BBQ'er and meat eater, finding a place like this was nothing short of a dream come true!Last summer we spent a fortune in here on steaks, burgers, bacon and of course sausages. As you can see from the picture and following list, they do a huge variety and we are still working our way around them.List of Don Andrew's locally made sausages: BoereworsChickenItalianChorizoTraditional ItalianToulouseLoukanikaDon-a-CiniContine ntal GarlicGerman BratwurstMoroccanPork & SageHot American SpicedKielbasaLamb & RosmaryVenison, Herbs & GarlicIndianBeefy BaconThai PorkChampagne Veal & TruffleBeefOld EnglishPure PorkTraditional GarlicVenisonCumberlandLamb & MintMexicanVegetarianSo as BBQ season is most definately upon us, they can expect to see more of us as we stock up and enjoy!
More About: Place

Busy Beautiful Friday
2007-09-21 10:30:00
It's been such a busy day today, Friday s always are and it has proved it today with me just waking now from 2 hours in bed! Again the weather has been stunning, beautiful blue skies and the sun was blazing hot by 10am. I just love mornings like this, you wake feeling cheery and all summery. I rush upstairs to get the windows open and welcome the fresh morning air in. So with the smell of the beautiful day already circulating our house Bethany and I took a walk over the road to the nature reserve. We are so lucky to have this amazing area literally right over the road from our house. As we walked we listened to birds, saw butterflies and the one thing that signifies summer here - crickets! That wonderful over-powering noise is back! As we reached the gully Bethany asked where the Weta was...the Weta she was referring to was the one we found with Grandma and Grandad when they visited in February, talk about an amazing memory, she even knew which rock we left it on! Bethany picked flo...
More About: Beautiful , Busy

This Is The Life
2007-09-20 09:37:00
Phew! The last few days have been scorchers, with temperatures reaching 25 degrees yesterday and 21 today, it's just gorgeous! Fantastic reminders of the summer crept over us, so as soon as Michael finished work we headed to Island Bay beach with fish and chips in hand.We had a gorgeous tea at the beach, Bethany made sandcastles and even attempted a paddle in the sea with only a few shrieks of how cold it was!I laid back on the blanket and stared up at the crystal clear blue skies, a huge smile on my face and the words 'this is the life' were in my thoughts. And the life it really was too.
More About: Life