New Zealand....Nana's 80th Birthday

What better way to finish off our holidaying than with a trip home to NZ to celebrate my Nana's 80th birthday and catch up with family.

My mother & Nana spent an entire week leading up to the big party cooking. For those of you who know my grandmother & mother would not be suprised to know they catered the entire event for around 80 people, every type of slice & yummy cakes you can imagine!

The celebrations were held in the Coasters hall (Coasters is a theater group which my parents were heavily involved in all our lives....we have lots of friends and family in this group and many happy memories running around the coasters hall with all the other members children while our parents rehearsed).

During the couse of the afternoon, Coasters put on a little production for Nana which she thoroughly enjoyed. For me, it was like going back in time......all these relations and old family friends I hadn't seen since we left NZ! It was lovely to see them all again and especially to be able to introduce Cheyenne to them. It was fantastic seeing family friends again who we kept in contact with over the years but don't get to see as often as we would like.

Afterwards, we all met at 'Cookies' restaurant for a lovely dinner. Again, it was a lovely night, catching up with everyone. It was especially nice to be together as a family (not something that happens very often at all). Catching up with cousins....my mother had to laugh when I mentioned all of the cousins sitting at the kids table together....she pointed out that we aren't really kids anymore (majority of us have our own children now), but since the last time we were all together, we were children....it is hard to believe we are all grown ups now!

Happy Birthday Nana, you are a wonderful, inspiring woman who I can only hope to become like. We love you so much and miss you now you are back home but you are always in our heart

Mum, Nana & Uncle Murray

Me & my little cousin Tessa (such a beautiful girl)

Uncle Richie & Taylah, Mark & Cheyenne

Nana & her children, my mother Kaye, Uncle Ian & Uncle Murray & Nana's grandchildren (too many to name!!) a photo to cherish.

two of the star performers and close family friends, Uncle John & Aunty Maureen

Grandma Caroline, who played all the music

My beautiful nieces & nephews & daughter.

Chey, Taylah, Kaiya, Aidan & Olivia

Chey & Uncle Ian

My beautiful nephew Aidan

The other highlight of our trip home was catching up with this beautiful woman, Sarah Lloyd! Sarah is the mother of my gorgeous nieces Kaiya & Liv's and I love her to bits! Sarah has been a part of my life since I was a little girl and we have shared many, many fun times together. Now we have to settle for chats over email, so the times we get to see each other are so blessed! I am inspired by this lady who has such a beautiful heart. She is a wonderful mother and friend.

I love you Sezzie. Bless you and keep being you. I can't wait to see you at Christmas xoxo

Check out the t-shirts....:)

Vegas

All in all, we had a wonderful couple of weeks. The kids were so well behaved and at the right age to really enjoy everything! We certainly have some great memories.

Tigers in the MGM Grand's Casino....

We took a trip out to the 'old Vegas Strip' one day to have a look around. This was the Golden Nugget hotel which has a slide going through a fish tank! Not sure I would be so keen on trying that slide out! Kids were though.

The Venetian was another amazing hotel! A canal in the middle of a hotel!

What better way to drink a beer than out of a cowboy boot!

Gilly's was one of our favorite places to eat....or rather Davey's favorite places to eat! A country and western bar and restaurant, right up David's alley.

We managed to get a quick (super quick) shot of Chey sitting on this bar stool which was a saddle! One for daddy who also, is a cowboy at heart!

Planet Holywood had this fantastic rain fall in the middle of the walkway. On the hour and every half hour, this pond filled up with water and it sounded like a rain storm was taking place.

Located in the MGM Grand was a restaurant called "The Rain Forest Cafe" where we dinned for breakfast one morning. This cafe was amazing, with real water falls around the bar and wild animals everywhere complete with real animal noises and nature calls. The ceiling even changed from day to night with the animals becoming louder at night time. Fantastic!

We loved walking the strip and visiting all the hotels. Amazing creativity!

Another hightlight...M&M store, all 4 levels of M&M's.....Mmmmmmm

We stayed at the MGM Grand Signature Hotel, but the best pool to swim in, was the MGM Grands. So whenever we got a chance, we walked over to the MGM for a swim in their rapid pool. The kids loved it and so did the adults. You could hire these tubes for $20 a day, but we did what the poor people do and wait until someone leaves the pool and offers theirs to us! Worked everytime and saved us a fortune!

On the way home, Davey and I got front seats - view was amazing

The highlight of Vegas was definitely flying over the Grand Canyon. We decided to leave the kids with a babysitter as they were not really interested and for the money, it wasn't worth taking them. Was a nice break for us adults.

The kids thought they were royality and demanded everytime we left the hotel that we get a limo!

Vegas was all we imagined it to be and more! We drove from LA to Vegas in style; with 4 adults, 7 kids and more luggage than you could poke a stick at, it was cheaper to hire a limo than it would have been to fly and pay for each piece of luggage as we were informed we would have to do.

California Land

With day 1 at Disneyland down, we still had a day to tackle California Land, located next door to Disneyland. California land was fantastic, I would even go as far as to say, I think I liked it just a little bit more than Disneyland or though it does pain me to say that :)

here are a few pics of our day:

First port of call was the High School Musical parade

Once again, Chey was picked out of the crowd to get up and dance with the High School Musical parade, not only once....but twice! See photo above, Chey in the yellow t-shirt. (above)

Water Rapids...we all got wet on this one, but has to be one of the best rides!

Poppy flew into LA this Friday morning and arrived in Anaheim just as we were about to walk out the door to get to California Land. He decided to come along for a couple of hours before he dropped from Jet lag. As you can probably tell from the photo...he is a little tired! The kids enjoyed having him with them for a short time though!

Check out the big wheel in the background of the picture below. Kell, Breyton, Cai, Poppy & I decided to go for a ride. I am not great at these sorts of rides, I get motion sickness (so does Chey; she decided to watch from the sideline...I should have done the same!). I didn't realise until we were almost in the wheel that there were two different ones...one that swings and one that just goes around slowly....guess which one we were on!

The Pixar parade was nothing on the Disneyland parade, but still alot of fun

After the Pixar parade, we made out way back to the hotel room to wake up a sleepy Poppy and have a quick swim in the pool (by this stage, the weather had really heated up during the day - nights were still cold though), then it was back to Disneyland for the night time events.

Disneyland closed at midnight, but we only made it to 10.30pm. When we booked the trip, I was certain 2 days was going to be more than enough time and I would be all theme parked out! Although I was a little theme parked out, I could really have done with another day at both parks to do all the things we missed....and we did miss alot! Especially at California land. All in all, we went to bed happier for having experienced the magical world of Disney!