Time to say goodbye.. | For Nana

About 2 weeks ago, my Nana passed away. It was a major shock to all of us. Last week we held a funeral service for her. It was such a beautiful day, rather than being sad and full of grief, it became a day of remembering the good times and the funny times, we celebrated her life and who she was and what she meant to all of us.

For the funeral I wrote a speech to share and I thought it would be a nice to post it on here, A special post dedicated to my Nana.

I've written down just a few little memories.

When I think back on my times with Nana, all I can picture are us laughing. During visits and family 
gatherings, whether it was something she said or something she did there was always something to 
laugh at. We could always tease her and make fun at her expense, she always enjoyed it and got us 
quite often in stitches. There are so many memories that send me into laughter thinking back on them
or just make me look goofy with a big grin on my face while I replay them in my mind.

One time that stands out was when Nana tried to get out of my 2 door car. She managed very well to 
get herself wedged between the back seat and the front passengers seat and sitting on the floor.
I still don't know how she managed it, but only my Nana could manage doing something wacky like 
that. A quick trip out was always full of surprises like that.
This was only one of the many times that left mum and I scratching our heads and rolling our eyes in
wonder.

A very regular part of my life was going to Nana's house, I don't know about anyone else but Nana's 
homes always felt so homely and welcoming to me. I will always miss visiting Nana, it was 
something I've done a lot of throughout my life. We always spent our holidays and weekends at 
Nana's house at Port Waikato, where I played outside with Sam and the other kids in the 
neighbourhood until it was dark, Nana used to sit in her garage having a naughty, as she used to call it
- a cigarette for those who don't know, and watch us play backyard cricket, she also couldn't help 
herself but be a rambunctious sideline commentator.

At her house in Henderson Valley, I used to visit her after shopping to show her the new clothes I 
bought, she would quite often turn around and say she wanted them and could I give them to her 
when I'm done with them. Nuh uh Nana, they're mine. That was her way of saying she really liked 
them.
Those were special little visits between me and Nana that I will always cherish, even if i did secretly 
go for the chocolate biscuits and tea.

I have visited Nana so much over the years and have always had a cuppa with her.
I don't know how many cups of tea 25 years of visits equal to, but every single time Nana would ask 
me if I had sugar in my tea. The answer has always, always been no.. Yet the silly moo would still 
ask.
Let's not forget the loud 5 minutes of constant stirring and clanging of the teaspoon in the cups while 
she made the most noisiest tea in the world.

On the occasions that I stayed the night, I used to love getting into bed after it was freshly made, she 
always somehow made it so comfy and cosy like only a Nana could.
At The Port, Nana would hold my hand until I fell asleep like she did when Aunty Leah was little and
would tell me stories about that too.
At Henderson Valley she would sleep in the spare room with me instead of her own room. I always 
asked her to wake me up when she got up in the morning so I could have a cuppa with her, but she 
would sneak out.
She said she wanted to let me enjoy my sleep, but in hind sight she probably wanted a cigarette first. 

Nana always had a big heart, we could never do any wrong in her eyes and she always wanted to be 
part of everything we were doing. Whether that was dancing at a school disco, attending graduation, 
or even just getting a chance to pose in front of the camera, Nana shared every birthday, came to 
every school event, whatever I did Nana insisted on being there.

I love the special relationship Nana and I developed, I could always tease her, pick on her and make 
fun of her and she'd always take it as the joke it was intended as and unsuccessfully try to throw it 
back, I'm sure there were times she deliberately gave me opportunities to tease her too, just so that 
we could have a laugh. She thrived on us making fun of her and she loved to tell everyone we were 
picking on her.

My brothers and I noticed she would laugh along with us even if she didn't get the joke in the first 
place, and sometimes the laughing would cause her false teeth to fall out. She would have us 
laughing at her laughing, and at her not knowing what she was laughing at, if you get what I mean.

I already miss all of these moments, I'm so glad I got to share them and experience them, I didn't 
realize you were such a big part of my life Nana and how much of a part you played, I didn't realise 
how close we were. But I'm so thankful that we were mates.
I didn't appreciate it before, but I am so grateful that I am gifted with your name, I will now and 
forever carry it proudly knowing it came from such a loving, caring Nana. You will always be with 
me in my name and most importantly in my heart. You were the most amazing, loving, caring and 
precious Nana a girl and grandchild could ever ask for. Today is the most painful day of my entire 
life, I'm going to miss you so much. I know you are at peace up there in heaven, probably dancing 
around with granddad and most likely causing chaos and havoc. You are the best, I miss you and I 
love you to the moon and back Nana Ro, love Vicki.

                                 

                               

Hobbiton! | Matamata, New Zealand

Alex and I visited Hobbiton one weekend away a little while back. I thought I would write a little blog post about it!

Hobbiton is a tourist destination located in Matamata, New Zealand.

For those who don't know, Hobbiton is where The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings movies were filmed.

(If you don't want the movie ruined for you, don't read this post..although there aren't really many spoilers.)

I loved that all the windows had little ornaments and flowers and things in the windows! It made them look like real homes, so cute!

I was very impressed with the fact that these hobbit homes made me look tall ;)

So many tiny props!

We were allowed to go inside this one... it is not what you may think!

It just a small wooden frame and mud! :( I was hoping to see a real hobbit home.. but they were all filmed in studios!

Does this tree look real?

It's actually fake! Every single leaf was hand made and attached to the tree and then somehow shipped over to New Zealand. Peter Jackson imagined this particular tree to look a certain way in the movie, so they had to get it hand made!

Does this bench seat look familiar?

See that moss on the gate post?

That's also fake! Made from yoghurt and paint.

Beautifully kept and decorated

Never too old for a swing!

Cheers!

Hehe peek-a-boo

Ofcourse, time for silly posing!.. ahem.. I mean, hard at work!

A view of the entire paddock, those are the houses you walk past. There are 44 hobbit homes!

Alex was pretty pleased with himself for finding a leaf off the fake tree.

At $75 per person for entry PLUS the very long distance you have to travel to get to this place, I really didn't think it was worth it at all.

But hey, for some die-hard fans out there, it may be perfect!

You get a "free" drink at the end and the pub and busses take you to and from the farm to the carpark. 

The tour takes around 2 hours to walk around the park and stop for your drink at the pub. However, depending on where you are coming from, I would allow a full day considering the drive to and from the Hobbiton site.

Hope you liked the pictures :)

Ta ta for now!

xx

Pamper Evening | More Lush!

So on Saturday the BF went off on a family holiday for a couple of weeks! Which meant I had a whole weekend to myself! I decided to fill my Saturday evening with a little pamper sesh!

This also meant I was able try out some more of my Lush things!

Firstly I removed my make up using my camomile cleansing butter from The Body Shop.. sorry internet I hope no one has nightmares after this photo ;) 

The bubble bar I used this time was the Karma one. Ohhh my goodness, this one smelt sooo good!

To me this one smells exactly like a Lush shop, the scent lasted soo long on my skin after the bath, it was amazing! 

Just like the other bubble bars, I crumbled the whole thing under the running water.

I was quite impressed with the amount of bubbles this one created. It lathered up really well and created really nice mounds of bubbles which is what I like to look for in bubble bath things.

The only downside is that the bubbles don't really last long before they all pop and dissolve away. But for this beauty I'm willing to look past that :)

This was the glorious bath bomb I used!

Think Pink

Sunk straight to the bottom! 

Man oh man, was I amazed at this one OR WHAT! This bath bomb turned the bath water soooo pink! It was beautiful!! Absolutely perfect for a girly pamper night, I unfortunately didn't take a picture of the water after it had finished fizzing but it was so so pretty, I really recommend this bath bomb. SO cute!

The information on this bath bomb says that there are supposed to be little confetti hearts that float in the bath water and dissolve, unfortunately I didn't see these at all, but I'm going to say they were hidden under the bubbles. There are also little flowers stuck to the outside of the bath bomb too, I expected those to float up too, but either I missed these as well, or they dissolved with the bath bomb.

I will definitely be repurchasing this one, it was gorgeous AND I want to see those teeny little hearts :)

It also smelt great, as all Lush products do, one way or another.

While the bath bomb was fizzing away doing it's thing. I got my new exciting purchase out

 (I really have gone Lush crazy haven't I.. They should pay me for being such a good advocate..)

My latest fav is the Love Lettuce face mask.

It is a deLUSHious (see what I did there) green colour.

It smooths on really nicely and easily. They say to leave it on for 10-15 minutes, however I left it on for longer as it hadn't quite dried enough for my liking. I am only likely to do this once a week or once every so often, so I wasn't worried too much about doing damage to the natural (good) oils in my skin, if I was going to be doing it more frequently I would probably be a bit more careful about how long I left it on for, I'm a bit weary about putting things on my skin and what it does to the oils and balance etc etc. Once in a while is ok though I'm sure :) 

And there were time for some selfies!

Look how green the mask makes my eyes look!

This masks leaves my skin feel sooo soft and fresh I love it, the first time I used it, I couldn't help stroking my face all the time hehe so soft.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this blog, I really recommend any of the products I've talked about above, I think I will definitely be repurchasing.

Toodles!

xx

Lush Review | Rose Jam Bubbleroon and Twilight Bath Bomb

Hello again!

Today I'm going to do another Lush review. I went on a little Lush spree when I went to Nelson and bought all of the delish items above!

 I decided I wont review them all in one go as that will take me forever to actually get around to using them all up. 

So what I will do, is I will just do a review each time I use them. I don't have baths often so it may take a while to get through them all. But today I do have 2 to review! So enjoy! :)

The lovely girl at Lush gave me a Lush Ballistic, Pillar of Fizz tube for free! I think it was because I had bought 3 bath bombs in one go? Or just so many items? Not entirely sure why I got it for free. 

When I got it, I thought, ew that's a bit ugly, I probably won't be using that!

Howwwever, I did end up putting my bath bombs in it to try and it has actually come in handy.

The Pillar of Fizz is meant to protect your bath bombs from being damaged by the steam in the bathroom, Obviously, if they aren't stored away properly they will start to dissolve a bit over time from the moister and things, so storing them in the tube keeps them nice and dry and away from moisture! And it is a lot tidier keeping them in the tube rather than having paper bags everywhere. 

You can only fit about 3 bath bombs in there, so keep that in mind when you are purchasing them, try and stick to 3 or less at a time if you're planning on using the tube. :)

In the bath I like to have something to watch or read otherwise I get super bored and don't last any more than 30 minutes.

I got out my laptop, an old fav movie that I hadn't seen in years, Sound of Music and had a nice relaxing time. The movie was something like 2 and half hours? I definitely didn't get through the whole thing, only about half maybe. 

I removed my make up using the Body Shops Camomile Cleansing Butter.

This product is amaaazing! I will do a review on that soon :) I want to make sure I've really used it a lot before I do a review.

Rose Jam Bubbleroon and Twilight 

Twilight     $6.70 nzd 

I was super excited for this one, I was told that inside it had some blue that comes out when it's fizzing! Soo cool.

The scent is so nice! It's quite subtle and sweet. It sort of reminded me of fizzy lollies (candy) or sherbet.

deeeeelicious! I just wanted to eat it!

I took some pictures of the progress of is fizzing away in the bath. 

So from other reviews I've read and heard about this bath bomb, I expected the bath water to turn this amazing vibrant pink colour! 

Especially since  it was throwing out a lovely dark pink during the dissolving process. 

It actually just turned out to be more of a baby pink type of colour.

It doesn't show much in the pictures, but we do actually have a big bath, it is quite deep and long so given the amount of water it takes to fill the bath even just half way, that could be why I got quite a diluted colour? :(

The water was left smelling so yummy and sweet. My skin felt sooo soft and supple and moisturised too which was great! I hate getting out of the bath and my skin is left feeling dry and tight and horrible. So that was a real bonus.

Rose Jam Bubbleroon     $8.50 nzd

I bought this one a little while ago as I mentioned in a previous blog review, it smelt soo gorgeous!

 It was an amazing rose scent and just filled the room, I didn't find it over powering which was good, it was seriously delicious.

So with a bubble bath, you break bits off it and crumble it under the running water to activate the bubbles.

I have heard a lot of people saying they used half of the bubbleroon for one bath and saved the rest for another time. I tried to do that too, however half of it didn't produce many bubbles at all so I used the whole thing.

As you can see there isn't a huge amount of bubbles. I like my bubbles to be all piled up high in little mountains that you can hide under and feel more dignified and not feel like everything is all being shown off to the world ;) (yes the door is closed..but you know how a girl thinks.. or maybe just me..)

So for me I wasn't satisfied with the amount of bubbles I got from using an entire bubble bar considering some people can get 2 or 3 uses out of theirs, it was just a thin layer along the top of the water surface and didn't last very long either before they had all popped. 

Again, I'm not sure if it was because of the size of our bath and amount of water, or if this is really just how it's meant to be, but I think if I were to purchase the bubbleroon again, it would purely be for the scent rather than the bubbles... Big kid at heart! :)