The hot air balloons!

After much anticipation, Today arrived.

The first day of the hot air balloon festival.

My favourite day of the year - 

the mass ascension one block from our house.

The stars aligned, and it was nothing short of magical.

Perfect still blue skies, not a cloud to be seen.

The sun rose as the balloons did....

they seemed to linger above us for the longest time,

before gently floating over the town.

It was out of this world.  

Amazing.

I am still grinning.

I cannot wait to spend time editing the photos I took, 

but of course I had to play with some taken on my phone!

 

The weather looks set to shine beautifully over the next 3 days,

so we will be soaking up as much of the balloons as we can.

It really was, a brilliant day for a balloon ride.

Why I love where I live #4

Why I love where I live #4.

The stunning views every time we drive over the hill to the city.

The sky, the hills, the country colours,

are quite simply, 

breathtaking.

I hope you are enjoying the final days of 2012.

I Love Carterton - The Simple Things

A year ago (really, a year???)  I started to post about why I love where we live so much.  I have a whole list of reasons in my head, but I only got to #2 here on the blog.  I am not the world's best blogger am I? 

Here in this blog, this is where I like to share little tidbits about my days, but this space is also my reminder of steps in my journey.  And in amidst the busy-ness that is life at this time of the year, I am all about enjoying the simple things.

So #3 on the list of 'why I love where we live' is The Vegie Garden.  Back in our rentals in Melbourne we would daydream endlessly about what our backyard would be like when we moved and had our own home.  All daydreams involved a vegie garden.  I want to learn how to garden ~ how to not only grow pretty flowers that I can bring in and put in old milk bottle vases on the windowsills, but together with the kids how to grow our own vegies.  And finally, this past week, we have our vegie garden.  Nothing extravagent, just a few lettuces, tomatoes, peas, strawberries and marigolds to start with.  I am in love with this garden.  It represents so much to me, for our family.  Every time I look at it out the kitchen window, I smile.

What simple things are you enjoying right now, as life gets busier?

I love Carterton

and so the 'why I love where I live' list continues...

#2.  I love that most places we need to go to are within walking distance - kindy, family, friends, supermarket, train (Shannon commutes - more on that another time), post office, parks, swimming pool - you get the idea.  And if we do need to drive, then within 5 minutes of leaving home, we are surrounded by country and quaint little towns.  So every drive feels like we are taking a 'Sunday country drive'.  And I do love a country drive....all the farm animals, the sky, the clouds, the hills, the trees, the fields...in every season it is beautiful...

I Love Carterton.

I really love where we live.  When people hear we've just moved from Melbourne, the reaction is always - wow, from Melbourne to Carterton, why??  And you know, it is a huge change, from big city to small town.  But we are LOVING it.  I honestly believe we live in one of the most beautiful regions in the world.
So I am going to do a few posts to share with you why we love it so much.

#1.  The wide open sky. 

No tall buildings.  No concrete.  No bus and tram lines overhead. 

No jungle of power lines.  Just sky. 

And in the distance, rugged mountain ranges to the west, gently rolling hills to the east,

coast to the south, and country to the north. 

In between, all this sky. 

Sky sky sky. 

I do love the sky.