I can’t step into 2013 without saying something.

One of the first things you do when you get to a new year is you compare where you were 12 months previously.  Last year we were in Bath with Gordon and Rhiannon, and if memory serves me well we went out for a cosy lunch in a quaint country pub on New Year’s Day.  This year we are just us four on a beach and a pack of crisps for lunch (yes mother, I really do feed my children crisps for lunch some days).

Then you think about what you have achieved during the last 12 months.  For us this is:

• Leave England, all our friends and family to travel across the other side of the world
• Arrive in Christchurch where we knew three people (Jonnie, Rich and Lucy)
• Gareth starts a new job
• Gareth and I buy a house
• The family joins a church
• We all have birthdays – 36, 35, 3 and 1
• Gareth and I have our 10th wedding anniversary (celebrations still to come)
• Both the children start going to a nursery
• I begin looking for freelance work in the form of a citywide event, here’s hoping!
• We end the year knowing a lot more than 3 people and actually having some fantastic friends in our lives

There are lots more, less significant achievements and events of 2012 but the above kept us busy enough.

Finally you look towards the year ahead and wonder at what might happen.  And at this point I will always remember, that many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.  Still what we are looking forward to at this point is:

• Visits from friends and parents from the UK
• Gareth taking on more challenges and responsibilities at work
• Our children’s lives being filled with love, joy and adventures
• An exciting piece of work for me to do in the city
• Trips to see more of this beautiful country we have moved to (and maybe, just maybe a girls weekend in Sydney with the gorgeous Chloe Young?)
• Health for all and me cycling 100km in Le Race
• Putting our stamp on our house and making it our home
• All of us enjoying special and strong friendships with people who understand us and inspire us

A thought that came to me in the shower today (my only quiet time in the day!) is that this will be the first year in my life that I will not step foot on English soil.  It’s an exciting and yet unnerving thought somehow.  Still the landscape ain’t too shabby here.