niques is going on a mission!

oh. my. gosh. it is finally happening!! after over a year of preparing and trying her butt off to get there, niques got her mission call today!

dear sister kendall... you are hereby called to serve as a missionary for the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, labouring in the hamilton, new zealand mission, reporting to the auckland missionary training centre, april 23rd 2015.

new zealand! how exciting. we are stoked, she is excited... and it's all go go go.

good things come to those who do!

drive up to clackers

we drove up to clackers today to get the bassinet for baby k2. i was thinking the other day that we pretty much have everything sorted (except i haven't packed the baby bag, better get on to that...) and then suddenly realised that we didn't have a bed for the poor baby! maddie will be staying in her room a little longer (until aunty niques leaves on her mission - more on that in just a moment!!) and so the little man will be bunking with us, in what exactly? oops. off to clackline we go to collect the bassinet from mum and dads. we had a nice visit with the gorgeous family who are renting their house and then attacked the dusty cobwebby shed for the cot. thankfully it was easy to find and easy to remove so we got on the road and headed over to visit aunty jenny and uncle mat, who had a lovely roast waiting for us for lunch! yummm. 

this was definitely the highlight of the day for maddie, thus the appeal of this post. jen bought mat a freaking ride on esky for christmas and it's pretty much the greatest thing i have ever seen in my life. he and maddie rode up and down the deck out the front of their house, her squealing with laughter and calling "more more more!" as well as climbing on it everytime it was left unattended. oh uncle mat. always the apple of maddie's eye. (ps. if your husband has to have one, you can order it here...)

we got this wonderful snapchat from niques on our way up to clackers, saying that her mision papers are finally complete and being processed. so excited for her! we of course will be bummed to have her leave, but we are so excited for what is in store. it's about 4 or so weeks from here to hear where she will be off to, so watch this space, more news on that to come.

maddie will be moving down one room into the big girl bed when she departs and babyk2 will be taking up residence in maddies room... but there's no rush. i am happy to keep her for as long as she needs to stay. there's more than enough room in our cosy little house. 

mission calls!

yep - you guessed it! the parents mission call has finally arrived and my oh my are they excited! they went to their house in clackline to collect it - where they were met with this blackboard and the envelope... last week they made the brave step of moving out of their stripped house and selling their car to the people that moved in... and playing the waiting game, just knowing that everything was going to be fine.

so the call arrived and guess where they are going? western samoa!!!!!!! this has amazingly special significance to us, as that is where doug was born! all those years ago, dougs dad was working in western samoa, met his mum and the rest is history - but doug was actually born there and moved to new zealand with his family when he was less than a year old. its is so especially exciting to us though, as it gives us the chance to visit while they are there, so doug can explore his roots and... drumroll please... hang out with his uncle and aunt who are also there and who actually have something to do with the school that mum and dad are assisting at! how exciting!! for all of us. they are due to go may 14 and are now looking for ways to fill in the time... 

but wait... there's more!! our 'little brother' clark got his the same day! it was crazy town... he is off to the olongapo, philippines mission leaving may 10. what an exciting day for all of us. 

lele's last sunday

it was our leigh's last sunday with us before she heads off for her mission in temple square on thursday :( so in true style, we had a fabulous farewell for her in youth today - combined with the young men and young women and for some reason about 15 or so youth that aren't in our ward... random... they must have heard about the pizza on the grapevine

so - from the vault of northam branch comes a story - of a youth sunday school class with no teacher, who managed to keep this fact a secret for a little over a year. every sunday without fail, we would watch the never-gets-old movie, which every ex-northam kid knows off by heart...

johnny lingo

and that my friends is what happened today... :)
best. lesson. ever.

but... it must be the old version (none of this new rubbish) and must be on vhs - so that the first half of the lesson is wasted looking for said movie on the tape.

we will miss you soo so sooo much leigh!
xxxx