Greenhithe Santa Parade & Dennis's birthday picnic

We had such lovely NZ summery day to kick of the Greenhithe Santa Parade. Both of Matthew's sisters now live in Greenhithe, on the North Shore side of Auckland. It is very nice we could all get together for their local Christmas event.

Here they come!

Ashley was so happy she was given a candy cane.

All sorts of different groups of people:

And this guy, all the kids were waiting for - Santa!!!

Unfortunately the float the Fenwick boys were on went past before we sat down at our spot. But we managed to find them in the field and checked out their wonderful work. They made a little camping scene on the back of a truck. With a tent, a Christmas tree and a camp fire - very very cool!

Here are the Rose offspring

Very detailed campfire:

Rory even sang a song for us!

I quite enjoyed the bagpipes by the New Zealand Police. 

To finish off the event, Santa came out for a lolly scramble!

After the parade we moved onto another family event, Dennis's birthday picnic in the park. 

Here is Dennis kindly posing in the Japanese way for me :)

Caroline and Richard

Each time we see Corin he is growing so much! He is the oldest of all the cousins. 

Ashley and I with birthday hats :)

Time for a home baked chocolate birthday cake! Happy birthday Dennis!!

Merryn's chocolate cakes are always a great hit! Yum Yum Yum!

We stayed on a little while and the kids played on swings etc. I really loved how gentle Corin was with Ashley. He looked after her very well. 

The weather was just too nice to call it a day. So we went for a bush walk by Caroline & Richard's place. I wish we lived somewhere like theirs, such a perfect location. 

Ashley and Luca did very well considering they had been active all morning and afternoon. 

The bush walk led us to a boat club and a little harbour. It was such a beautiful spot. 

What a great family day we had. We are already looking forward to doing this again next summer!