March Madness... NZ style

March flew by! While folks in the USA were watching College Basketball Championships we were filling our days with celebrations, school work, after-school activities, World Cup Cricket, Passionate and the Graperide... March was great!

 Anne turned 40 so a whole bunch of us ladies met for lunch to celebrate her! Happy birthday, dear friend!

 We've had another gorgeous March - plenty of sunny days still... and beach walks for Hunter and me while Helena was at Speech & Drama on Wednesday afternoons. He loved building sand castles in the autumn.

 Hunter is so cool... he loves riding his scooter any time he can!

 It was Anne's birthday celebration on Tuesday and Annette's 40th celebration on Saturday night! 'Tis the season! We actually have about 6-7 friends with birthdays all in the first ten days of March... and now we're getting into the 'significant' birthday season as more of us approach 40!

  After a fun Saturday night out - we did a family switch and I had a couple Burrows kids here while Hunter was hanging out with Caleb between church services. Aidan and Helena enjoyed throwing water on each other... and Liberty was pretty stoked to try out her new to her wetsuit which we'd meant to pass on during the summer. 

What made March so 'mad' was the week I spent in bed with some strange flu type thing... during the week I cancelled heaps of things and just rested (though it was hard to do with the builders replacing rotten weatherboards on the other side of the house). Unfortunately for me, I had to miss the Cricket World Cup game, but thankfully for Helena she got to go along with a few school friends...

 And just for fun, Tony took the kids to the tree swing one morning while I was flat out in bed. What a great dad and what a way to start the day!

Passionate Women's Conference came around a bit earlier this year - March 19 & 20!!!!

Julie and I worked out the logistics which meant Tony and the kids got to ride in her tiny car with the fun open roof as they dropped me off in town!

 The whole weekend was absolutely stunning!!! Way to go, Wellington! 

 My highlight for the past three years has been being part of the Prayer Pods and mobilising the Ministry Team... all these faith-filled women are ready to pray for others! I love being part of this team!

 It was fun to bring Celin along this year! She really enjoyed her first PWC!

 The Michael Fowler Centre was jam packed with women of all ages worshipping!

 We hosted two teenagers from Hamilton for the weekend - it was neat to be part of their total experience here! This is what being part of God's family is all about!

 Oh and the other cool thing was that I'd been given a marriage course at the Leadership Session... wow - I am honoured and feel a new sense of responsibility!

 While I was at the conference, Helena lost her first tooth! FUN!!!! And poor Hunter got a fever... which was no good... 

 But the fever didn't stop them from their grand adventures at Dr John's house to look at the Morpho butterfly collection! The kids also enjoyed the cable car ride and the biscuits they got while they were there!

After doing daddy duty Tony had a big day out lined up for Sunday. He woke up to rain,   but that didn't stop him and a group of cyclists from his work who rode from town all the way to Masterton up over the Rimutakas! Over 90km... in the rain... uphill... WOW! 
Well done, Tony!

The bummer in March was that it was Papa Anstiss' 70th birthday the same weekend as Passionate - it was a tough decision, but we decided to stay home as we'd just spent a weekend with them in February and we'd only be going for one night. Happy Birthday Dave! We love you so much and we are honoured to be your family!

Sasha dropped by on a Monday evening while she was down this way for work. After a good chat, fun with kids and a healthy dinner, Tony took her over to his favourite place - Time Zone where he crushed her in fusbol until the last game where "winner takes all" meant she took all! Thanks for dropping by!

March was fully mad for our friend Julie who was moving out and eventually heading back to the USA after over 12 years of living in NZ! WOW... it was really cool to get to know her over the months she lived in our back flat. We will all miss her!

 The end of Term One was just around the corner, so the APT put on a super fun End of Term Dinner - this was probably one of the most fun dinners we've done yet! "Endless Summer" was the theme and everyone was as relaxed as if we were on the beach! Thanks to the team and Gateway Baptist for making it happen!

Tony spent much of March working on a new project and preparing for some changes... lots of hours of work, but we'll be able to say more about that in May!