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News and Love from Solomon

I have a great time playing in Mum's garden or inside creating things out of whatever is available - cardboard boxes, wood, planks, sticks, pipes and forever asking Dad for string to tie things or sticky tape to stick things.

Both Mum and Dad read me lots of stories. My favourite is Winnie the Pooh. Sometimes Dad gets stories mixed up like Bunyip Bluegum when he means Blinky Bill - but I soon set him straight. Bunyip Bluegum is in "The Magic Pudding". I enjoy Grimm's fairy tales and the Just So stories. I especially enjoyed "One two three ... where's your breakfast?" or "How the Leopard got his Spots".

Mum has introduced me to the Library in Hastings where there is a beaut range of books. Daddy reckons his Dad, my grandfather, would be really pleased with that, because he has the inside of a Public Library in Tanunda in South Australia named after him. I recently got out Pinocchio and Peter Pan. They are really great stories. Both Mummy and Daddy cried when they read the last chapter of Peter Pan.

Just recently I fell over in the garden and cut my knee on a rock and ended up with five stitches in my knee. Then to top that I fell over on a path at Splash Planet -our local swimming pool- and scraped both knees and my elbow. This photo was taken after the first fall and before the second.

Sometimes I get into a quiet space inside me and just sit and listen to music. We have nursery rhymes and French songs. My favourite for a long time is Paul Simon's "50 ways to leave your lover" but in reality I only enjoy it because he says, "Get out the back Jack".

I really enjoyed having Mutti from Australia here for a visit. She still remembers, as I do, me playing with sand at Auntie Jan's when Daddy took me to South Australia for a visit when I was two.

I enjoyed going up to see Daddy's friends in Gisborne and Waipiro Bay too. You can check out Anne and Jimmy's website that Daddy put together for them. It is truly a beautiful place. We went up there with Felix and his Mum and Dad.

I started swimming lessons, but I kept getting colds which stopped me from going as often as I'd liked to have done. Maybe if I'd been more practised I wouldn't have slipped over and hurt my knees and elbows.

One last thing, we've got the best neighbours in the world. Jim and Georgina. Jim loves his garden and he loves it when we go over and work with him in it. He is warm, he is patient, he is fun, he is naughty (he gives Harry and me special treat lollies or fruit or..., which Mummy doesn't really want him too - but we love it. Don't we Harry?)

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News and Love from Harry

I turned three this year and I'm out of my nappies - day and night. 'Bout time too, say both Mummy and Daddy - but I did it in my own time.

One of my favourite pastimes, other than visiting Jim or Laura (more about her in a moment) is pottering around in the garden with Mum weeding and pruning and taking all the rubbish in my truck to the compost. That's for Mum. I really enjoy taking sand out of the sand pit and putting it in my truck and taking it into every corner of the garden I can think of.

Most of the time I haven't minded Solly being away at kindy ' cos most mornings we take him and his friend Isobel there, so I get out of the house and come home and have the whole place to myself including Jim and Laura. I'd like Daddy to take me out with him more often but he goes off to meetings and says, "You'd get bored". I still feel sad about being left, though.

Who's Laura? Well she lives next door - just over our front fence. I love to climb over the fence and go and say hello. They have a black Labrador called Bess and whenever she barks too much I say "Quiet Bess" and she then goes all quiet.

Sometimes Daddy takes us to Tim's place. Tim has got an Australian blue heeler called Dirk who chases sticks that I throw for him and likes being cuddled and patted. You can check out Tim's Arbours website that Daddy put together for him.

I prefer playing with my toys but I'm beginning to like stories. I like it when Daddy reads to me about horses, especially Arabian horses. I really enjoyed our visit to Jimmy's and Anne's cos I got to ride their horses. I like "Henry and his red wagon", "Madeline" and the story about Jemima Puddle-Duck too. I used to get up early and have a quick cuddle with Mummy and Daddy before going out to play with my toys, but I'm starting to stay longer in bed with them now to have a story read to me in the morning.

I love helping Daddy make breakfast - cutting up the fruit and putting the yoghurt on top but really its so I can have something to eat before breakfast. I enjoy feeding Bifu too - I don't eat her food though - it doesn't taste too good.

I love singing and I know the words to lots of songs. I surprised Mummy around my birthday in July, by reciting my evening prayers to her, both English and German.

When Daddy asked me how many days a week I would like to go to kindy next year I replied "Lots and Lots".

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News and Love from Kerry

This year of 2001 has been a good year for me. A year of growth - standing by my wonderful, ever-surprising man; watching Solomon going through his first year of Kindy and thoroughly enjoying having Harry alone at home.

Late last year I did the first two seminars of Holographic Repatterning and this year I did the third and fourth seminars. It has been a year of learning to trust myself as a practitioner in this new form of therapy. Those of us from Hawke's Bay who have done the training have met regularly once weekly and that has been a very satisfying and rewarding experience on this learning curve.

This year I have been a Liaison Parent for Solly's kindergarten group with four other mothers. I have thoroughly enjoyed being involved with them, getting to know other Mums, and creating, with all the families and friend of the attending children this wonderful new kindergarten. It has been established in Havelock North as the fourth and fifth kindergarten classes of the Taikura Rudolf Steiner School in Hastings.

Through a friend of mine (now of regained good health) who came down with chronic arthritis when she gave to birth to her boy who is Solomon's age and in Solomon's kindergarten class, I have been, since about February, on the classic Ayurveda diet of which two guidelines are no eggs, fish or meat and no eating between meals. Mum, Dad and Jen are also on it with me. Our wonderful man Mukesh lives in Wellington and he is contactable by phone 24 hours a day in case of any healing crisis. From day one all my allergies were gone and my energy level slowly but surely climbs.

It has been really great to get into the garden and to change it into our garden. Slowly but surely I am getting to know the different plants and this summer for the first time our garden is really looking quite lovely. So is the house.

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News and Love from Tom

So ... a year it has been? and so much was happening during it. Christmas time a time to reflect, to look back and ponder, digest and wonder what will I/we take forward with us into the New Year.

For me the year is summed up in one word "Brotherhood". I have learnt a lot about this during this year. It has touched every aspect of my life - spiritual, family, work relationships and friendships. Maybe I have watched too much television - "Band of Brothers", Survivor in Australia, Big Brother, September 11 and its aftermath, or maybe I am just part of a world where the relationships we have with each other, with other human beings - family, friends, work colleagues, the person we pass in the street - have come into focus and have become the most important aspect of our lives.

I have found "brotherhood" everywhere - at the kindy, on the Internet, in my paid work, in my voluntary work, in my social life and in my spiritual life. Acquaintances became friends. Friends became allies. Together we became brothers.

I had been warned that 2001 would be a difficult year financially and it was.

Astrologically, yes I consulted an astrologer who said under the influence of Uranus, a lot has been, and will continue to be, stripped away - in preparation for ... She looked at my chart and said if you want wealth and abundance go to Ireland, if you stay in New Zealand you will not find work easily, money will be difficult but family life and spiritual life will be rewarding - you'll grow. How right she has been.

Last year, at the Spiritualist Church I attended, I was given a reading, in which it was stated that my work would fade away and I would become a healer. I joined a White Eagle group and we have met regularly every 2nd and 4th Sundays during the year. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to read from one of White Eagles teachings, it stated that you need to experience brotherhood before you can move on. I have now joined White Eagle and will regularly attend an absent healing group. If you would like your name put forward, feel free to email me.

My consulting work in Gisborne came to an end in June. Most of my work was funded through the BIZ programme, a nationally funded business development programme. During the re tendering process I was caught in the dilemma of what role do I take - active or passive. The community trust, which had been a lead provider, followed the process used two years before and opened the process up to other players. We were greeted with aggression and confusion. Our knowledge and experience was brushed aside and our efforts for cooperative approach floundered. At the end of June, the community group I had been working with closed its doors and my work in Gisborne effectively came to a close.

Finding consulting work in Hawke's Bay proved elusive and I started to apply for jobs in my field of regional economic development. Jobs that I thought I would get interviewed for - I didn't. Jobs I thought were a long shot - I did. I got more interviews over the phone from Australia than I did in New Zealand. I think I've hit the glass ceiling of ageism. There is now a balance of government assistance and consulting work providing the basic necessities. The search and the applications continue.

I have been assisted and boosted through these difficult times by friends old and new, my family and Kerry's family. A friend invited me to his wedding in Australia; I had to reply that I didn't have the money. Within days he emailed me and said "Come, I'll pay". I went. As a result, I enjoyed their wedding and my visits to family and friends in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. My visit encouraged Mum to travel back with me and we visited her brother in Hobart, she came and spent 10 wonderful days with us in NZ meeting her grandchildren on their own ground, in their own space.

My cousin and her husband visited from Tasmania to see their son and we treated them to a day at the Mills family bach on Lake Taupo doing a spot of trout fishing. We weren't successful but we enjoyed ourselves.

A client at the beginning of the year became a friend and at year's end bought us fruit and vegetables when money was really tight. A work colleague has pushed as much work as he can my way and at the same time I find a renewed interest in things community and community development. Conversations, expressions of support, tangible support, financial support, support in kind, words of encouragement. We've had it all. I cannot tell you how humble I feel, how thankful I am to have friends and family such as you.

My interests grow. The Internet -for information, contacts, web page designs, e-marketing. Genealogy- Laing/Nelson/Lyons/Mills Family. The Kindy - helping with management. The Credit Union movement - strategising the future. White Eagle - healing meditation. My interest in multi-level marketing has waned - if indeed it was ever really present.

My health has improved. I changed doctors. I had a few blood tests. The results showed I and 80% of Pacific Islanders, 50% of Maori and 5% Pakeha i.e. European share a propensity for diabetes. He prescribed a new diet - no starches or grains and increase fresh fruit and veges. I could also have increased my meat intake, but chose not to. I lost weight approx 14 kgs. Lost my hypertension - blood pressure reading is now a steady 120 over 80. Reduced medication with the Doctor confident that I will soon be off all medication. Let the good work continue.

The boys - Solomon and Harry - happily (mainly) continue on their journey in life - growing, exploring, reflecting, listening, feeling, experiencing, arguing, fighting, forming, learning, discovering - bringing joy to their parents, family, friends, neighbours and strangers. We are continually amazed by their insights and development.

Throughout, my relationship with Kerry just gets deeper every day. I appreciate her gifts - to me, to our children, to our friends, to our life. This December, we celebrated six years of marriage, seven years of being together. Our naivety, our trust in life, our sharing, our experience in meeting life together - strengthens us.

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News and Love from Bifu

Cute Hey?

Anyone want a kitten for Christmas?"

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