Autumn Leaves

We did a fall 'photo' shot in the Esplanade Park this weekend. I admit, I'm become a bit slack with the camera. The first few months of Luca's life was paparazzi central at our house, and thanks to the wonderful technology of digital film I've got hundreds of pics on record. But lately...well we just haven't taken as many, and this weekend I started feeling guilty. These precious cuteness days will be gone before we know it. I swear, (and you all can hold me to this) that if we have another child I won't totally neglect the camera - I'll give him or her just as much paparrazi time as I do Luca. The weather the past few days has been gorgeous, and I just love the crunch, crunch of leaves underfoot. For some reason I feel like I should be getting ready to go back to school, or planning my Halloween costume, or picking apples. Even after 5 years I'm still not used to the southern hemisphere seasons.

My gorgeous boys playing in the leaves :-)

How posed does this pic look? Someday, sweet Luca, you'll be climbing trees all on your own.

The Esplanade is a fantastic park only a 20 min walk away from our house. There's bird averies, duck ponds, playgrounds, walking tracks, and a rose garden all nestled alongside the banks the Manawatu River. It is definitly the 'crown jewel' of Palmerston North Parks.

Luca so cute. Everytime he sees a flower (whether it be in real life, or a picture in a book) he tries to sniff it to see if it smells. I guess he's learned a thing a two from all my floristry study. Ha ha.

Check...honeymoon booked!

We're finally booked our honeymoon! We leave the Sunday after the wedding, and will be spending 5 nights at the Excellance Riveria Cancun resort in Mexico. We're hoping we get some money from wedding guests to help us pay for it.....although we did great an amazing deal....we figure we deserve an awesome honeymoon, and you only get one shot at a honeymoon, so here we go.

5 Star, Adults Only, All inclusive....sounds bliss. We usually like more 'active' vacations, but feel that after the wedding we'll just want to relax somewhere and not have to think too much. There's lots of cool activities to do at the resort and adventure activities nearby (scuba, snorkeling, horseback riding, zip lining, visiting ruins etc)

Oh...did I mention the free 24 hour room service, 8 resturants, 11 bars to choose from...waiters that bring you drinks while on the beach, and the fabulous spa? We've never been to an all inclusive resort before and James has never been to Mexico, so we are totally looking forward to this.

Hen's Night

A bachelorette party is called "Hen's Night" in NZ. Don't ask me why...I have no idea. The Bachelor party is called "Stag Night."

My good friend, Toni is so awesome, because she organized my NZ hen's night for me. She rocks...thank you so much Toni. We decieded a girls trip away to Napier would be just the ticket, but I didn't want to do any of the silly normal hen's night things like get dressed up in a hideous outfit or wear penis shaped things on my head (I know, I know, I'm no fun am I?!) We wanted a chance to get all 'frocked' up in pretty dresses, and have a great night in town....



Here we are at one of the winieries - The Mission....see I played along. I wore a veil. Yumm....NZ wine :-)Toni looking as gorgeous as ever...

Another winery...this one might have been my favourite b/c they had a trampoline. Toni's got some great photos which I'll post on the blog as soon as I get them. After the winieries, we headed back to Toni's parents house for a bit of gossip, more drinks, and nibbles before getting all glamed up to go out to dinner and hit a few bars.

Okay, Toni will kill me for posting this pic, but I just think it's pretty funny. This was taken on the dancefloor. All up, it was a great night away and I met some new girls as well. I must be getting old b/c I can't really allow myself to get raging drunk....it just doesn't happen anymore....no fun in getting sloppy. So although we had a great night, I didn't even have a hangover the next day. Bonus! Many of our friends have just had babies, or are pregnant so we're doing a bridal shower this weekend for those that couldn't go away with us. I can't believe we leave for the States in just a few weeks. Yikes!!!

The Easter Bunny Visits 25 Winchester Street

It's funny how you want to pass down your family traditions to your
own children. Easter reminds me of getting dressed up in the new dress that Grandma bought us (with matching knee socks, and hat of course), waking up to a gift basket from the Easter Bunny, attending church and having more easter egg hunts, and then getting together with family for a big meal. I want to try to pass on at least some of that to our son.

James has to work all day and night on Easter Sunday, so we had our Easter egg hunt today instead. I searched high and low to find those plastic easter eggs. You just can't find them in NZ. For some reason all you can buy is mass qantities of chocolate marshmellow eggs or big giant chocolate eggs. I finally did find those plastic eggs at a craft supply store. I filled them raisins, mini gingernut cookies, and jellybeans. Luca can eat at least 2/3 of those things. The jellybeans were eaten by us!
We didn't get Luca a whole new Easter outfit, but James did pick out this cool orange vest for him today as an easter gift. We won't lose him in this bright thing, and the hunters won't mistake him for a dear....ha ha.

You can only see the plastic eggs in his basket, but this week Luca and I also dyed hard boiled eggs. That's another mission b/c they only have brown eggs in NZ (if they have white ones, someone tell me where to get them for next Easter). So how do you dye a brown easter egg? Yeah, I was puzzled too. I eventually settled on getting the shrink wrap stuff to put the eggs in. They turned out pretty festive, and tomorrow I'll make deviled eggs out all those beauties.

James doing his best impression of the Easter bunny. Ha - if only you could zoom in on this pic you'd see how funny it is. He'd have a fit if he knew I published this photo on the blog, but he rarely looks at this...so that's what he gets! ha ha...

Luca is getting so clever. He really caught onto this Easter egg game. He can follow instructions now, and everyday amazes us by how much he's growing up.

Tomorrow, we might actually go to Church. There's an 8am service, and the church is literally right behind our house. We can hear them singing from our backyard. Luca and I area also planning to go to a coffee group Easter lunch, and then hopefully for a swim out at Linton and to visit James while he's working.

Even though I swore I wasn't going to eat lots of rubbish and candy, I already have, and Easter is not officially till tomorrow....and the wedding is about 1 month away. Bad, Bad Shelly.

Happy Easter Everyone. I miss everyone back in the States. I love you!!!

The Fright of our lives

I said we were all sick in my last post. Well let me clarify. I was REALLY sick and could barely eat for several days (yeah, nice to lose some weight...but don't worry I've gained it all back with the mass quantity of easter eggs I've consumed today). I even had to cancel my 30th bday party. That was depressing. Luca was so sick he took a ride in an ambulance. Here's the story.

Luca got the gastro'whatever-it's called' thing that I had. Vomit, diahreeha etc etc. Poor little man looked bad. We took him to the Dr. twice and she said to just wait it out. That night we got him a lemon popsicle to eat, and we all sat down to watch that animated Bee Movie. (really cute if you haven't seen it). Luca stood up, then collapsed. James went to pick him up and his body got real stiff then he started having a seizure. His eyes rolled back into his head and he turned blue b/c he wasn't breathing. SO SO SCARY. There's was a few moments of shear panic and terror and James and I yelling at each other trying to figure out what to do. We called the ambulance right away, and never have I had so much panic in my voice. Send the ambulance NOW!!!

The seizure lasted about a min and then he just collapsed from exhaustion. Then the ambulance came and we spent the next several hours in the ER room. Turns out everything is okay, and even though I know about feberal seizures (I was EMT for pete's sake) and know that they are very common, no one can prepare you for the fright of your life when YOUR KID has a seizure. The thoughts, "He's going to die" did cross my mind during that minute of terror. Not something I want to expierence again.

Scary Scary Stuff, but rest assured we're all okay now, but just thought I'd share some of the dramas of the Loomis/Deegan household.

I'm B-a-a-a-c-k

Okay, it's been a while. You probably thought I gave up on the old blogspot, didn't you? Well, no I've just been....er....busy. With what? Well with endless wedding planning (yeah, who knew it would be this time consuming or that I would become obsessed with wedding blogs), getting really ill, then Luca getting really ill, then James getting really ill, celebrating a 30th birthday, visiting brand spankin' new babies and just 'stuff' in general.

My friend Karie and Simon are down from Auckland visiting for the long Easter weekend, and she made some references to reading the blog, and was like "I noticed that you haven't posted in a while." OMG...like people actually read this? I'm secretly glad that someone out there reads these posts...makes it all the more worthwhile to think I'm not just doing this for myself. But...then again, I'd probably still blog if it was only me (oh, yeah...and my mom!) reading them. Good historical account of the little man's growing up, and me just growing older. Yuck, that sounds bad doesn't it?

Okay enough text - here's some pics.

Lucas new obsession. James' motorcycle. He LOVES it. Goes Bruuum, Brummm whenever he sees it. Runs to the door when he's hear it, or hears the garage door opening, and demands James takes him out to the garage to see it. He gets so excited when James comes homes from work everyday. Makes me a bit jealous... Dad's get all the cuddles don't they?

Luca's second favourite thing. Dad's motorcycle helmet. He put it on and walks around the house bumping into things and falling over because the helmet is so heavy on top of his little shoulders. It's pretty cute.

And for the record. I DO NOT like motorcyles. Luckily this isn't a super powerful bike and we decieded it was cheaper for James' commute to work. Purely and economical decision. We use the family blue car for everything. James thought the bike was a great idea this summer. I think he might be thinking otherwise about his choice to get a bike now that's turning colder out. Ha ha