Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all our friends and family around the world. We wish you a wonderful start into the Year 2012, it looks like a promising one. May you all stay healthy, happy and may all your dreams come true. We are thinking of you and always carry you in our heart. BIG HUG to all of you!!

Sleepover with friends

Today we had two little friends over for a sleepover and we had lots of fun. Carlos and Katie got into the new Lego Box that Carlos bought today and Julia and Lauren had lots of fun outside playing with Maya the dog. What an awesome time we all had and I do hope that many other sleepovers will follow, it is so much fun to watch them interact with each other.

HO Ho HO HO .....and a very Merry Christmas !

Wow it is this time of the year when family and friends are coming together to join in for some joy, embracing the love and sharing their laughter. This is exactly what we have been doing for the last 4 weeks being back in New Zealand. Sharing our love, laughter and embracing the joy of being together again. I actually cannot believe that we have been back for exactly four weeks; I honestly don’t know where the time has gone.
However let’s start from the beginning. Some of you might know that it was quiet hard for us to settle back on land. The weather of course did not help as it was rainy and no sun in sight for a few days on end. Julia and Carlos on the other hand did not have a problem at all with settling in. Carlos went back to the Mangawhai Beach School on his second day being back in New Zealand and Julia joined him a few days after. They have been happy ever since and have not asked once, when are we going back to live on the boat. In those days, when the kids were at school you could find Sven and me at the Whangarei Harbor looking at sailing boats and dreaming of our past time on the water. However for Julia and Carlos benefits we have made the decision to live back on land and settle down back here in New Zealand. It took quite a while for us to get used to the weather and the energy around us. We have been living with our friends Susan and Tahe and I am more than thankful for that, as their home is very nurturing and loving, just what we needed. However some days I wished we could lift the anchor of our little cabin and sail into the next bay, but no such luck.

Now we are back into the swing. We have been looking at farms to buy and have found a really great one near Whangarei. We both love the location, land and farm area and can visualize ourselves being happy and content on this farm. There is good schooling nearby for Julia and Carlos, enough work for Sven to be busy and great opportunities for me to teach and share my passions.
I have already started teaching Yoga again, here in Mangawhai, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have been fortunate enough to be taken on by North Tec again. They do provide education for the adults in the Community, and therefore my Yoga classes are funded through them. Great stuff, it could not be any better. My next plan is to teach a Yoga course in January 2012 for 21 days to break into a new habit. Yeah….planting a new seed into mind and for the New Year …that is going to be fun. We are celebrating this achievement on the 27th of January with a Kirtan…chanting, dancing and embracing our new habit…our own daily Yoga practice! What a great start for the New Year.
Christmas has been a very quiet time for us and we celebrated this special time with Susan and Tahe. We decorated the red flowering Pohutokawa tree ( the New Zealand Christmas tree) on the front lawn, Julia and Carlos unpacked their presents underneath and afterwards we enjoyed a lamb leg roasted in garlic and rosemary….simply delicious. At 10 pm we went to the church for the Christmas Carols and this was our way to appreciate a kind of tradition away from our German home.
Middle of next week we will put in an offer for the farm….cross your fingers and toes that they will consider and hopefully accept, and this will mean that we can direct our energy towards our new home in the Year 2012. I am so ready to have my own home again, it has been quite a while now and I am craving a routine and to create my own sanctuary for the family. Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a great start into the New Year 2012….it looks like a promising one. Big hug and lots of love and light your way…..Gabi, Sven, Julia and Carlos

A Merry Christmas in New Zealand

Wishing everyone a Happy and wonderful Christmas. May all your wishes and dreams come true. We are experiencing a special time with special friends in a special place. It's wonderful to be back home, back in New Zealand.

Celebrating our 2nd Wedding Anniversary

Searching for the right property

This week we have been quiet busy searching for the right place to live. We went all over Northland and extended our search from Dargaville, Ruawai, Kataia and Whangarei. There are lots of Dairy Farms out there, but I believe we will be expressing interest in the one in Whangarei. In Whangarei we can fullfill everyones need good school for Julia and Carlos, enough work and challenges for Sven and enough opportunities for pursuing my Yoga and Reiki teaching.

It is always astounding what kind of people are trying to act as brookers. One in particular I have to mention. Before meeting him we already named him "Doopey". It took him ages to remember Svens name and to express what he wants to share with us. When we tried to meet him, we asked him where the best place would be to meet and he said, well "on the parking Bay onState Highway I just pass Okaihau", hmmmm.... I wonder how many parking bay there are on State Highway I, but he assured us that he will look out for us. As you can guess, of course we were waiting on a different parking bay as he was, so when we finally manage to meet, he tells us that we should follow him, roughly half an hour gen north. We looked at each other, but nodded and agreed to follow. Little did we know where we were going. "Doopey" jumps into his car and starts racing off. Uiii, he might talk slow, but he is certainly a fast driver. Sven certainly is not a slow driver, but we had a hard time keep up with "Doopey". At some stage Sven and I agreed that he must try to escape from us, we had a good laugh about that. 32 km later and totally out in the wobb wobbs, we stopped and did not even get out of the car, that certainly was not a place we wanted to live.

We keep positive and know that we will be finding the right place for our little family soon.

Long Walks on the beach.....

Long Walks on the beach, sitting with the bush and deep breathing have helped me to ground myself again. I feel much better and are now ready to move into our next adventure. We have been in New Zealand now for a whole week and it has been quiet an exciting week. We will see what next week will bring, what we can achieve and what steps we will need to take in regards of buying our "Dream Farm" that we have found close to Whangarei.

Struggling with life on land

We have been here now for nearly a week and everyone apart from me is happy to be back....I am honestly struggling to turn my sailing legs into land legs again.

It has been an exciting and busy week ....Carlos was so keen to meet his friends again that he went back to school on our second day back in the country. Julia took things a bit easier and was sick for the first three days and went for her first school day on Thursday. Julia and Carlos both love being at school, this morning Carlos mentioned that the Mangawhai School is easier going than my schooling, most of the time they play and have far more breaks then we used to have on the boat. Sven is happy to be back and enjoys zooming around in our new car that we bought via the Internet. The arrangement was that it would be waiting for us at the Airport and it all worked out great. Me....I don't know I am not that easy to please and find it hard to find my place, maybe it did not help much that I was sick the last two days, but no worries I will get my head around things and be happy again. We have gone for long walks on the beach and have been invited for dinner for most of the week....great to see all our friends again....

We have already been in touch with a couple of brookers to have a look at some properties and third time round we already found our dream property, now we only need to convince the bank manager that this is our new home!

Its weekend and I will get the pictures sorted this weekend and will put some new ones on the blog and I was thinking of creating a new blog for our new life back on land in New Zealand.

-