A New Start

Considering it has been 1 year and 1 month since my last post, I thought I should get my act together and get back on here. So to re-launch my blog I have decided to do a summary of the past year month by month. I will try to be brief but it has been quite a year and there is a lot to tell! Here goes:

April 2009 - I am in my 3rd month of unemployment due to a lack of work visa and I am busy planning a trip back to the UK to

sort it out at the end of August. On the 5th a dashing young man catches my eye at church, by the end of April we are a couple, have spent a very intense 5 days together and we have parted ways at

the airport as he waves me off to England! We will be apart for 10.5 weeks.

May 2009 - Back in Milton Keynes and celebrating my nieces 3rd

birthday and my mums 50th birthday in May. Really enjoying family time and Alastair and I Skype daily, he's definitely a keeper. I tell my family and friends all about him and we start

planning when he can come over to meet them. I also

get granted my permanent residency visa for NZ - no more visa worries! :)

June 2009 Still in the UK, we celebrate fathers day and Sally's birthday, it was great to be around for so many occasions. I prepare for my return to Wellington and dread the goodbyes with family. Al is now in the USA with his barbershop chorus to compete in the internationals.

I get back to Wellington and back to work with conference.

July 2009 - Alastair returns to NZ and we enjoy spending lots of time together. I suddenly find I'm so busy socialising with my

new man that my attendance at the gym is suffering :)

August 2009 - Life is super! Al and I decide to buy a

house!

September 2009 - Alastair gets baptised and proposes, I say yes. We have lots of fun telling friends and family that we are getting married. We have lots of conversations about when that will be, will it be march 2010 or earlier or later? England? NZ? Both? So many questions! We come up with a radical plan to extend our November trip to England and get

married on 19th December. Plans madly get underway!

October 2009 - We get the keys to the house. Preparations continue for the wedding with so much to do and the

addition of getting Al a special visa to enable him to marry me in England.

My whole life is revolving around the weddings!

November 2009 - Work is busy with our second biggest event taking place up the coast, I leave that event early to fly to England! Alastair meets my family for the first time and we have a couple of weeks of time to get to know everyone. We go to

Lincoln Cathedral and then London.

December 2009 - We watch my niece in her first ever school christmas performance. We have an early christmas day on 6th. We get married on the 19th! 2 days later we fly back to NZ for a Holmes family christmas and then flew off to Tonga for our honeymoon.

January 2010 - Enjoyed a tongan new year! We then had to establish what reality meant for us day to day whilst also preparing for our NZ wedding.

At the end of the month, Jenny, Simon, Gracie, Jess, Mum and Dad arrived in time for our NZ Wedding.

February 2010 - We had our NZ wedding - a fabulous day! Spent time with family and then sank back into reality!

March 2010 - Went part time at work due to funding issues.

So as you can see, it has been a fantastic, crazy and busy year. So now you are up to date I will try and keep up with this a bit more regularly!