Latest News from Steve and Ruth

Ruth Brooks - 07.07.05

Well, hello to you all from Steve and Ruth Brooks. We hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year. Here’s a Christmas newsletter (a little late!) to catch you up on our news. Also see the new photo album - "Best of 2006" on the cool pics page.

It’s been a fairly busy year with a lot of small changes, but no major upheavals. I’ll start with the girls.

Star is now 4 and has really settled well into morning kindy – she’s doing better there than she ever did at afternoon kindy. She is still our energetic whirlwind who loves to talk and perform – this is more noticeable to others as she has really come out of her shell. She loves to take her small ribbons or stickers with her whenever we go out and she will give them away to anyone we meet (the lady behind us in the supermarket queue, anyone who smiles at her, anyone in her vicinity!). I’ve had to discourage her from sitting at the gate and giving things out to people who walk by! She is amazingly agile and I’ll definitely be taking her back to gym class next term. She has an affinity with anything that moves with speed, and can jump on any sort of moving contraption and make it work almost instantly. Needless to say she is riding her bike with no trainer wheels. Making mess is something else she is extremely good at – particularly when it involves sand, water, playdough, etc. We try not to mix the elements, but it’s amazing how she can do it anyway! She sings a lot and has a good memory for songs, and in fact a good memory for anything at all. If I’ve mislaid something, I often ask her where it is, and she’ll recall where she’s seen it. Her hair is still white-blond and curly, and she is very patient while I create beautiful hairstyles (on the mornings when I have the time!). She loves anything pretty, but still prefers track pants and t-shirts for general wear.

Star and Vienna have enormous fun together. Favourite games involve chasing around the house (inside and out), playing beds (she puts Vienna to bed either in her cot or in a made up bed – it takes a long time with songs, extra cushions and all sorts of games!). they both love their dolls and role play a lot with their large collection. Vienna loves it when Star pulls her round the house on her little truck – she’s getting better at steering! Part of the reason Star and Vienna get on so well is that Vienna does what she’s told and does things the way Star wants – Vienna absolutely adores Star and they do such funny things together. If Star has hurt herself or is upset, Vienna will run to cuddle her. If Vienna is upset, sometimes I am pushed away as she wants Star to cuddle her. I enjoy it so much!

Vienna is at the age (almost two) where she is developing so much you can hardly keep pace with her. Her language has been a lot slower to develop than Star’s was but now she is trying so many new words every day – she said her first “sentence” just before Christmas when Steve brought some fish back from a fishing trip (the first trip in a while). She had never said Fish before, but “ish” was pretty clear. We looked at the fish, but on getting inside again, she was most agitated and finally (after much mental effort) said “ish (pause) more”. “More” would be the most used word at the moment, and “me”. Her language may have been slow, but her ability to communicate is pretty good. She had threaded some beads the other day and wanted me to do something, so I stopped and asked. She held the string of beads up to her neck, then put the beads down and “rolly-pollied” her hands – tie a knot and make me a necklace. She is still drop-dead cute (so I’m assured by people who aren’t biased like me), and her hair gets lighter by the week. It’s very light brown with blonde streaks – a far cry from the black hair she was born with. She is extremely loving, extremely giving and quite capable of having a paddy when she doesn’t get her way. She doesn’t often insist on what she wants, but you sure know when she does. Vienna still sucks her thumb and has her favourite toy (the world would end if we lost it), but she is growing up so fast and as much as I’m enjoying it, there’s not much of my baby left. Unlike Star (who loves her veggies and salads), Vienna won’t touch most veggies or salads. If it’s not meat or starch (potato is the best), then don’t even bother - her theory. I am very sneaky and manage to get the veggies in without her knowing! It’s amazing what mince can hide! She has suffered badly from teeth coming thru – she has quite a high pain tolerance, so when she makes a fuss, you know it’s for real. She loves to laugh, and often laughs at herself when she does something silly or makes a mistake. She loves to make us laugh too, and can be very cheeky – she is cute and adorable!

Now for Steve. He has worked incredibly hard this year at his trading business. He has been buying stuff at auction and selling it on Trademe (online website selling anything and everything – bit like e-Bay, but HUGE in NZ). He has really got this down to a fine art (knowing the right things to buy and how to market them), but it is fairly time consuming. The fishing has suffered. He gives a lot of time to family, and takes Star with him to his storage area, or down to the auctions rooms when it’s appropriate. She loves it! He particularly likes to deal with catering equipment – funny that! He has had a small but increasing amount of work with his IT business, which he also enjoys. At the beginning of December, he got his first paid catering job through a friend – he catered for 60 people for a corporate Christmas function with nibbles followed by bbq dinner. The guests were unaware of his lack of qualifications and were asking what catering company he was from – everyone absolutely raved about the food (not normal for a bunch of technical geeks!). I know because I went along as waitress/food preparer! Mad panic preparing everything in our kitchen at home, then transporting into town, but heaps of fun! He occasionally gets a longing for a bit of “normal” work (usually the pay is the drawcard!), but looking at the long hours, time spent inside a stuffy office and amount of time away from the family, this doesn’t last long. It is a very different life both working from home, but it is well worth the sacrifices we make.

Now for me. I(have continued with my Mary Kay Cosmetics business. I have a small but regular base of customers, and have managed to keep this ticking. The winter was a fairly low point for us all as everyone other than me was fairly sick. Star and Vienna had the normal run of colds, but Steve was hit with a severe ear infection (I don’t think he has fully got his hearing back yet) which the strongest antibiotics could not shift. This was several months before it improved. The end of winter was also when we finally diagnosed Vienna’s intolerances: she had been up significant amounts at nights all year and I was running on empty from sleep deprivation (she is intolerant to soy as well as dairy and anything acidic like fruit/tomato/vinegar, and we have to avoid or limit onion/garlic). Figuring out all those things took some while. She now sleeps much better (other than when teething) and I feel much more human. Needless to say, my business has not grown a lot as my brain was too tired to handle anything other than survival and I had to cut down commitments. I’d like to see my business improve next year, and have some plans in place to achieve this. The rest of my time disappears on the exciting components of cooking, cleaning, washing etc, but I do spend a lot of time doing things with and for my girls, whom I absolutely adore. I’m also involved with the Toy Library committee, plus try to do a few social things with the girls. I’m very lucky having Steve working from home as we usually manage to work things so that I can get away to visit customers as needed, or occasionally even something for me during the day.

We still entertain a lot, and although I now do most of the daily cooking, Steve gets cravings to cook if he’s been working too hard, so we invite people around and let him go for it. We are blessed with fantastic friends and have two families in our close vicinity whom we have around regularly, as well as the many others that we try to keep up with.

Steve and I have spent the last couple of months (since Vienna has started sleeping more) in trying to tidyup and remove junk from the house. Most visitors would not be aware of how much was not done around the house as we were pretty good at hiding it, but it’s been quite a job to catch up. We’re not there yet, but it’s nice to see things moving forward. It’s hard to keep our house clear of junk as Steve is constantly acquiring stuff!!! Steve did surprise me at the end of winter: I had dived up to Hamilton to visit my parents with the girls (I’m a keen rugby fan and the NZ final was Wellington (my town now) vs Waikato (my home town) in Waikato, so I bought rugby tickets for me and my Dad and flew up – we had a lovely week long visit catching up with family and friends up there). On my return, I was flabbergasted to be greeted by a garden that had been transformed from an urban overgrown jungle into an easy-care tidy REAL garden!! Despite the weather (Steve was out there working in the freezing pouring rain my neighbours told me) and the most severe flooding of the winter, Steve achieved an absolute miracle including new paving which meant the girls can now ride right around the house. He did have one trick up his sleeve: hire the youthgroup from church for a few hours!! But he did most of it himself, and I’m still enjoying it.

We haven’t spent much time at our caravan at Lake Ferry in the last few months, but are planning on getting over there a lot more during the summer holidays. Currently we have Steve’s Mum and Dad with us – they’ve been staying since the beginning of December helping Steve’s sister Sue and her kids pack up the house ready for their move to Beijing. Sue left Boxing Day, (which is when I finally had time to sit at the computer and type this email)! We will miss them all greatly – we’ve had a lot of extra time with them over the last couple of weeks, and have got to know the kids better than we ever have – they are just lovely. Rohan is 12 going on 16, Nikhita is 9. And Sue: well, she’s more like a sister than a sister-in-law to me. I was expecting to be a sobbing mess at the airport, but in the end it was all delay delay, then rush to rebook as their flight was cancelled, and suddenly they were paged urgently, then off on a more direct flight that was about to leave and was waiting for them. Fast goodbye’s with them running around frantically had us all laughing – we were pleased they got on the direct flight as their travel agent was extremely poor and had them going via this that and the other. Ravi has already started his diplomatic job with Immigration in Beijing – a huge promotion and we are really thrilled for them on their big adventure.

Next year is looking likely to bring a few more changes with Steve looking to change his business focus away from the time consuming side of trading – he’s looking at a couple of other options that will enable him to continue to work from home.

I need to apologise for my lack of communication: I have not been good at keeping in touch, hence this email newsletter to lots of you. Thank you for those of you who have continued to keep in contact despite this. We do love you and think of you, but have not been good at showing this. We’ll try to do better next year! With Sue and Ravi overseas, we might even shock you and update our website occasionally! www.star.net.nz

I need to go to bed as Star has just come down with chickenpox (Vienna has just got over them). The joys of children!

Love to all and God’s blessings. Ruth