Packing, cleaning… and moving

The title of this post kind of says it all. I finally recieved confirmation of my provisional registration and enrolment in the PhD program today, the scholarship is sorted, as is accomodation and childcare for Maya. All that remains is to finish one last week at work and to pack and move! It seems quite unreal that in just over a week I will actually be starting a PhD.

What is real is the work we need to do this week. Storage space is limited and the accomodation we are moving to is furnished so there is a lot of sorting to do before we pack- stuff to keep and take to Palmerston North, stuff to keep but store in Wellington, stuff to give away and (a scary amount of) stuff to throw away. This task is complicated bythe fact that Luis has injured his knee and currently has very limted mobility (although keeping him sitting down for long enough to enable to knee to heal is proving a real challenge, especially with an active 2.5 yr old around!).

But we will get there. 3 working days, 5 packing days and 1 cleaning day to go!

(Check out Maya’s blog for some very cute new videos, including her special feature, dancing in the rain).

Holidays

We have recently returned refreshed and slightly more suntunned from a week in Napier. We spent New Years in a tent at a family campground just outside the city, 5 minutes walk from the beach. It was a lot of fun and a great experience for Maya, although I can’t really recommend camping with a toddler at New Years. It’s one thing to be childless and happily see the old year out with good friends and a few drinks, it’s another thing altogether to be trying to put a child to sleep while others see happily and noisily see the year out with friends and lots of drink.

However other than New Years eve itself we had a really good time- animal parks and playgrounds for Maya, the beach for Luis and wineries and gourmet food stops for me. Napier is a great spot for family holidays, as I soon realised after leaving the information centre with a completely different pile of information about attractions and events than I had when we visited as newlyweds 5 years ago!  Check Maya’s Page for her thoughts on the holiday, and our photo album for lots of photos.

And now it is back to reality. We have a very interesting, and quite daunting year ahead. I have the scholarship, we have accomodation and childcare arranged, and in 4 weeks we will finish work here and make the big move. I really really hope it all goes smoothly.