Yesterday J and I drove to Rotorua, where we’re staying for a week on vacation. We’ve been looking forward to this since we started planning back in March and now we’re here! So far it’s been lovely and the resort we’re staying at is situated on a gorgeous lake.

Here are some photos from my phone. I’ll share photos from my dSLR when I get home (along with others).

On the drive here:

Tonight at our villa after dinner:

We have a view of the lake from our place and a little veranda. It’s the best, really. There’s two bedrooms upstairs with a shared full bathroom and downstairs there’s a full kitchen, lounge/dining area and small bathroom with toilet and shower. It’s big for just the to of us, but it’s nice to have space actually! It’s like a trial-run for when he and I move in together early January.

Yesterday we visited the town centre, played tennis, swam in the hotel pool and had a sauna (my first ever – God, it’s so boiling in there). Today we’ve gone kayaking (also a first for me but I enjoyed it), attempted to use the resort’s peddle boats which suck, played Cluedo and Monopoly, and hung about.

Now it’s time for dessert and then I’m off for another swim/spa/sauna!

Josh and I got back from our week-long trip down south yesterday. Overall we had a great time and got hang out with his family, the highlight, of course, being meeting baby Riley! She is a precious, perfect little dumpling and we are both smitten. Ski-jump button nose, round cheeks, long fingers and toes, and very dainty. She makes the sweetest faces while sleeping and often purses her lips or scrunches them up into a pouty ‘O’ which is so heart-melting. Oh my goodness, I could gush on and on!

Yep, boyfriend + baby photos is dangerously heart-melting stuff.

George, Riley’s fuzzy big brother.

By Saturday night was starting to get a bit sick. Started with sneezing and coughing along the sinusitis lines, then progressively got worse and hit me so hard on Sunday I spent most of it in bed, same with Monday! It was a bit of disappointing end to our stay since I really wasn’t up to doing much. Today I went to the doctor and diagnosed with the obvious sinus infection and also Bronchitis, which I haven’t had a very long time. Let me tell you, I really dislike privet hedges at the moment. They are evil, evil foliage with evil, evil flowers!

At least I have been feeling a bit better today. Good enough, in fact, to finish the last couple of things off on my blog design overhaul which I couldn’t finish on Saturday. It feels good to finally have that marked off my to-do list!

Time for me to work on my giant blog subscription list. Nearly 500 posts, people (from only 3 days of not reading)! You all obviously have a lot to say (which is good because blogs surpass magazines for me so it means I have reading material coming out my ears).

I love looking at luggage and have been on the search for the perfect (yet affordable) weekender/carry on for quite some time now. These are just some of my favourites!

1. Everett Essential Tote by Tumi.
2. Geneva Carry All by Tumi.
3. Voyager Suitcase by Couverture.
4. Explorer series by Streamline.
5. Tripp Large Tote by Orla Kiely.
6. Tripp Upright Cabin by Orla Kiely.
7. Yellow 8-piece set by Dorothy Perkins.
8. Luxury Leather set by Claire Chase.

As I men tioned briefly yesterday, The Boyfriend and I went to his mum’s place for the weekend to visit with her and his sisters. They live in a dinky town called Te Aroha that is about two hours south of Auckland. A very dinky town. The shopping area/where everything is is a whopping two blocks long. They have one supermarket, several banks and the whole highlight is the thermal pools which we didn’t end up going to.

We left my house on Friday evening, grabbed some fish and chips from a rubbish place in Clevedon then went the back way through Hunua to miss out the Friday night motorway traffic. Driving through the Hauraki Planes (after having been blasted with rain while driving through winding, tight roads) we followed a double rainbow!

On Saturday there was a baby shower and a birthday party, but we snuck away for a bit to grab some food. I had a hot dog and Josh had a burger and chips. Nummy!

We ate out lunch outside the takeaway shop and watched the foot and road traffic.

Then we walked down the road to get DVDs (Whip It is awesome) and candy!

On Sunday we spent the morning hanging out before grabbing some lunch, then hung out with the family a bit more before heading back home. It was a very hot drive back (no photos because my phone memory was full) but quite fun. We like gabbling about whatever and then we lapse into a comfortable silence and then gab again. It’s nice, just us, the windows down and the journey.

Today I opened up a new bank account to start saving for my overseas trip. I have nice, though little, chunk of money in there, now, and it’s such a good feeling.

I am beginning to allow myself to go beyond daydreaming about this and start planning where I want to go, what I want to do, and everything else. At this point I am going to focus on Europe, since I’ve wanted to go for so long, though I have no idea what kind of turns I will make as time goes by.