joE And BeliNdA's WeDdinG

June 21st 2008

(Chuck, Pete, Joe and Pita, with Dean,Sam and Mack in the background)

Well it has been a long time since I have made any postings, so I thought that Joe and Belinda's wedding would be the perfect way to get back into it. Everything ran very smoothly and the Bride and Groom had a great day. There were lots of guest and family attending, the only down side was that it was such a busy weekend that I didn't have enough time to spend with everyone.

(Belinda, Joe, Liz, Pete, Mack and Alice)

The ceremony took place in Saint Andrews Presbyterian church, the same one where Belinda's Grandma was married, by the local minister who did a really good job, one of Mums friends played the pipe organ and our friend Josh sang as Belinda walked down the isle (when I noticed a tear in more than one of the groomsman's eyes) and as they signed the register. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the Chapel or ceremony but I am sure someone else will (hopefully Rosie), the above pictures were taken outside, before the bridal party headed down to the River for their professional photos.

After the actual ceremony most of the guests including myself went on to the reception, which was held at the gardens...luckily there were nibbles and drinks for everyone while we waited for the bride and groom, (they were having their photos) because I was very hungry. A few family and friends from both sides of the family had spent the evening before setting everything up, and I think it all looked very nice. Gaylynne added some great finishing touches, and the flower arrangements bought it all together very nicely.

(Luke, Jake, Pita, Belinda, Keri, and Ana) (Me,Pita and Dean)

Pita was the best man and came all the way from Cairo to be their. He did a great job of the speech with just the right amount of humour and sincerity and lots of compliments to the bride and her family etc...Dean and I had a great time just hanging out as did the rest of the family, though we struggled a little bit to get through the last hours of the night as we didn't have the alchohol fuel that most the other guest had, but we enjoyed it to the end. Belinda and Joe stayed until about 11pm and after that things slowly started to wind down. The Irish band providing the music were really good and kept everyone entertained.

(Chucky, Evie, Rose, Sam, Mum, Me, Dean) (Liz, Alice, Izzy, Kashka, Jasmine, Gaylynne, Kevin)

Joe and Belinda did their wedding speeches together thanking everyone and saying nice things about each other. Belinda and her bridesmaids all looked very beautiful as did Joe and his groomsman look hansom.

(The bride and groom cutting their cake)

Well I am hoping that Rosie will post some photos soon as she took alot more than me, and soon i will try and do some post's of other things that have been happening in my life since February (the date of my last post) particularly about my pregnancy and the names we have been thinking about.

(Dean scoping out Stingray Bay)

viSiToRs eQuAl ouTinGs

(Carly and Dean: Cathedral Cove, Coromandel)

Well I knew that Angel was arriving in NZ with her Fiancee Russ at some stage, but after the ETA came and went without hearing from her I was somewhat surprised, pleasnatly, when they turned up at my house one day. They were heading down to Queenstown within the week so we wasted no time in heading out for a bit of a tiki tour around. I don't look too excited in the above photo because it was quite a long and steep walk to get there, and being 7 months pregnant it was a slight mission, but I paced myself.

(Carly and Dean, Sunrise at Waihi Beach)

Conveniently Belinda's family have a bach out at Waihi beach which they were nice enough to let us stay at for a few nights, so using it as our base we explored a bit of the coromandel. Our first morning we got up for the sunset which was beautiful and then over the next couple of days we did some day trips to Cathedral Cove (above) and Hot water Beach amongst other things.

(Carly, Angel, Russ at the Waterfalls) (Carly, Angel, Russ, Raglan Beach)

We also took Russ and Angel on a camping trip to one of our favourite tramping spots, out at te atutu south, which really is in the booneys, while most of the possums had been poisoned off, we still had some fun doing some target practice, of course Dean and Russ wanted to shoot at our gas canisters but they were dissappointed in the lack of explosion. While they were obsessing over finding things to shoot, Angel and I had to set up the camp, light the fire and get the food ready. It was a cool night, literally, I was fine in my fairydown but others were suffering, thats all part of the fun of camping.

(Angel and Russ, Dean, Angel and Russ)

(Russ, Carly, Angel, Dean, Carly, Angel)

So we managed all these things in the space of a week, Angel and Russ even managed a day trip to Rotorua. I learnt that I can't do the sme things as easily now as when I wasn't pregnant and subsequently Dean and I had to re-arange a couple of our future planned trips, ie a 3 day mountain bike trip turned into a 3 day trip to Rotorua in a hotel with our own private spa, which I think Dean was secretly pleased about, but i was a bit dissappointed.

RaGlaN, cOroMaNdEl anD tHe bOoNeY's