Today Ants and I got up early to pack and get everything organised to go to Auckland. The morning went very quickly as we raced around, and it wasn’t helped by lots of phone calls. The excitement of last night still hadn’t worn off! I hope it doesn’t for some time.

Before we left, I also had to ring TomBoy as it is his 6th birthday today. Gosh, I still remember when he was 6 months old, and I would lie on the Nursery floor on my back, and he would lie on top of me, face up, and we’d cuddle in, and watch the colours and the painted bee’s that dangled from the roof, and he’d say “Beee! Buzzzz”. Oh I love him so much!

On our way to the airport we had to stop off at Queensgate to put a pin on Ants’s new credit card, and hurry down to the camera shop to buy an external charger for the battery in my camera ($100 and its for NZ/Australia and USA), and of course stop by my gym to tell them my news. We then rushed back to the car, stopped up in Korokoro to drop our key off at the Landlords, and then down to Ant’s Mum’s so she could take us to the airport. Despite running late, we were on time, and had plenty of time to wait for the plane.

We flew with PacificBlue ($138 return each!) and we were surprised to see that they weren’t very organised and didn’t have proper gates sorted. There had also been confusion with flight times and we had to wait on the plane an extra 20mins before takeoff. The flight was quick and smooth. My favourite part was flying over the Naki, bu it was too cloudy to see Mum and Dads place. It was also weird because we’d only been in the air for 20mins or so when we got to the Naki, and they told us to prepare for desent.

We got into a cloudy Auckland and waited for my brother Nick to pick us up. After some confusion over where the terminal was, they found us, with Lorien and Liam running to hug me so hard I lost my balance and fell over the curb, luggage kids and all! They hadn’t had lunch, neither had we, so we had one of the healthier options from McD’s (the first time in over 9months or so for me!). Nick then drove us to our hotel, Ants and him sat in the front talking work, and the children and I amused ourselves in the back sticking yellow dots on each other.

We got to the hotel, and after 15 mins of waiting, and being told our room wasn’t ready we dropped off our gear while they made the room and went for a quick walk around town. Nick then realised he had to get the kids back to their mum, so had to go. We organised to meet up with him that night, when he text us, and he was gonna come out for brunch with my other brother Brendan, Keri-Ann and Emily.

We went back to our hotel utterly exhausted so we had a doze and watched TV before deciding to go get some groceries and dinner. We wandered off back downtown and found a Foodtown we brought yogurt and milk, fruit, and for dinner we got some bread rolls, coleslaw, chicken slices and sundried tomato. Oh, and Oero cookies We went down the foreshore and found somewhere to sit and eat. Dinner was yum, and we watched the ferries come in from Waiheke Island. We were sitting outside a gelato shop, and we decided that we would like to try some. After much humming and harring, and trying a couple of flavours, we finally settled on Chocolate and Hokey Pokey. We shared a cup, and boy, were we glad that we shared. It was so rich! Really nice, but I think I like normal ice-cream better.

After our tummies were filled, and our sweet-tooths were satisfied, we went back to the hotel, changed and got ready for a night on the town. Nothing special happened. We went up to the Casino and played on a few of the pokies. We put in $30, got $40 back and put the extra $10 back in. After that, we wandered around to another bar and had a few drinks. Nick didn’t end up calling us, so we went back to the hotel about 3am!

Tags: Anthony, Auckland, Engagement, Family