Monthly Archives: July 2011

We have been living in Newhall, California for nearly a week now and we are slowly getting settled in.
Not long after arriving, we were determined to work hard to get the family settled as quickly as we could. This meant getting all the furnishings and other household items, which is not normally an easy task in a foreign (and big) city.
What we didn’t count on was how quickly the furnishings would be acquired.

After spending the first couple of nights at a friends house, word soon got around that a family from New Zealand had arrived and were in need of furniture to set up house. In the next day or two, we received offers for furniture and other household items, so we spent 2 days driving around in a van and picking it all up.
This has been a double blessing as not only did we get stuff for the house, but we also got some practice driving on the right-side of the road.

We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity of the people here as we have been given us some fantastic furniture, frozen food and have already been invited out to dinner. The love of Christ has certainly been demonstrated through the people here, even in the midst of a declining economy.

We have been blessed by the apartment block we live in. Our neighbours are nothing short of fantastic, very welcoming and only too pleased to help us settle in in any way they can. This morning we awoke to one of our neighbours knocking on the door with a stack of freshly cooked waffles and maple syrup…and they were great.

There is still a little under 3 weeks before we leave for LA, but we have already secured a place to live.
We are very excited to have this potentially troublesome issue already organized before we even arrive in LA.

 We will be living in a suburb of Santa Clarita, CA called Newhall which is, by all accounts, a family-friendly place to be and which is also very popular with Seminary students.
The 2-bedroom apartment is in a small complex of 18 apartments, but it has a pool, which I think will be a most welcome amenity for the girls, especially during the summer.

We feel absolutely blessed to not only have secured the apartment, but even more so after talking to the wonderful and most helpful apartment manager’s, Ricky and Laurie.
We are looking forward to meeting them and settling in.

We happily invite anyone who wants to come and visit to do so.
We would love to host you (only condition is: you must bring marmite).

For the past nine and a half years, 12 Moana Grove in Lower Hutt has been our ‘Little House on the Prairie’.
This is where our girls grew up and where they had many sleepovers.  This is where we hosted many BBQ’s in the sun-drenched back garden, held weekly bible study groups and spent many hours in fellowship and conversation often deep into the night.
We worked solidly on the house over the past nine years completely renovating throughout, building an extension and a new garage.  We stamped our personality and our flavour throughout the house.
Sadly, this has come to an end.  We have sold and waved good-bye to the house   that holds many memories for us.  We have said good-bye to our Little House on the Prairie.  A new adventure awaits us
On June 17, 2011 we moved out.  It was tough initially. Our girls, especially, struggled and found the first week after we moved out hard.  They wanted back in to the house they knew and called home.
One truth we held firm to during this emotional time was that the house belonged to the Lord (Psalm 24:1) as did the gardens we cultivated and the lawns that we mowed.
We then considered ourselves privileged to have been given the opportunity to occupy the house, to tend to it and to maintain it for the nine years we were there. The Lord has blessed us immensely with this time and the memories that we now have.

Now for the next adventure. We can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for us now.