Month full of festivities

Ahhh, December, what a special month! It's official beginning of summer in New Zealand, it's time to fully get outdoor, to take part in some barbies ( * the kiwi way of saying bbq : ), to have a proper beach day, to get yourself christmassy, to go away on holidays and to welcome the New Year.

" The way you farewell the old year, is the way you will enter the new one" - that's how I was always been thought. But imagining this saying also works on months, we had a very good start of December actually on the last weekend of November. We went on 29/11 to the GREY LYNN PARK FESTIVAL. It's an event held in one of the Auckland's parks with great music, unique relaxed ambiance, delicious food and some crafty stalls. We absolutely love it and didn't miss it even once since living in New Zealand.

Did you know....we are all born in December? Yes, all 4 of us! Yana's due date was actually in January but somehow she decided to jump out on 31/12. Bruno's due date suppose to be in December but since Yana was born earlier doctors were betting on him coming out around November. Knowing the prognosis I decided to stay focused and try to keep him in belly, as long as I could because I found it sad if he would be the only one not from the same month.

December is a cool month but November somehow has much worser rating, especially in Poland where people are getting depressed because of cold and short day light.

And so now the Vathsan Clan's b.day calnedar looks like this:

2/ 12 - Bruno

9/ 12 - Vathsan

24/12 - Ola

31/12 - Yana

The geeky facts :

a) guys and girls are born exactly 1 week away from each other

b) both Yana and Ola share meaningful date whereas guys are just being born

on a regular day.

On top of all these birthdays we were of course also focused on Christmas. I always found it hard to feel all christmassy, in the middle of summer, surrounded by some ridiculous decorations such as : Santa on surf board. But decided to do my best as kids are growing bigger and I want them to be excited about Christmas the way I was when I was little. And so I went to local op- shops and found some pretty cool, old school decorations. I must admit , I was surprised how Yana managed to dress up tree majority by herself!

Since we live in a very DIY country, on 23/12 Vathsan went on a boat fishing with our friend. They caught few snappers, so we could have the day after, traditional Polish, meat free Christmas eve, with delicious sashimi - let's stay realistic, Japanese people

know how to eat fish.

On 26th, like majority of New Zealand we went on holidays. We were camping - also like majority. Kiwi camping is a whole new concept to me, so I'd rather not start explaining it today. We went out East, not far from Gisbourne. This is quite of Maori area so I finally saw and heard people talking in their very own way. These 10 days were a mixture of sun, wind and rain. Every time there was a beautiful day, the one after was either rainy or cloudy. But, unlike at home, you can't be really bothered by the weather so we were going on walks, swims, paddle board every day.

We also did some recordings so hopefully there is going to be a video to share.

On the way home, we took a little bit smaller road, which turned out to be some times very small. Our journey back to Auckland took us 14hrs in total.

3 hrs of gravel road + Yana's motion sicknes = it's good to be home.

#NewZealand