Well, it has been such a long time since my last real post – I almost have nothing to blog about.  Sounds weird, but truth is – this place can make you so busy, that you actually forget what you have done.  So, a quick rundown:

Corporate 9’s – well….  where do I start, we ended up finishing in 7th spot out of 16 teams, which was quite amazing as all the other teams had a few extra weeks to prepare and we just got dumped into it.  Then we played in the finals where we were beaten in all our finals matches…  General attrition meant that we lost a few players on the way through injury, and others through lack of commitment.  Pretty standard stuff really…  So whilst the top teams finished off the season, I hosted a BBQ at my place where we all had a few beers, some kai kai, a swim, and many laughs.  Every member of the team received an award (verbal of course) but our MVP got a bottle of Scotch to take home.  It was a nice afternoon and all the boys are keen on other comps that we can get stuck into.

I then had a couple of weeks by myself in Port Moresby with Jacinta and the kids heading off back to NZ for a bit of R&R and an escape from the impending heat and humidity as the wet season approached.  I hung back, worked my butt off since there was no one around, and left just before Christmas.  My father – who works in PNG too (FIFO) ended up staying with me for the last couple of days and we both flew out together on the same plane – although he stops at Brisbane 🙂

We spent Christmas down in the deep south of NZ with my other family, before heading back up to the far north to spend time with Jacinta’s.  I actually ended up buying a $2000 car in Auckland as it was just as cheap to buy one and leave it at the in-laws, than hire one all the time.

Flying around from PNG to NZ – I fly Virgin Australia as there is a connection in Brisbane on the day, so it is a pretty painless process.  Plus, we get to pool all our airpoints and status credits into one persons account, so Jacinta is a velocity silver and I am velocity gold – soon to be platinum…  yes – we do a fair bit of flying now 🙂  this means we get some extra perks like good seat selection, Priority checkin, priority boarding, free baggage, priority baggage, but best of all Koru Lounge access in Brisbane and anywhere in NZ if I am traveling.  Koru access allows me to take in Jacinta and the kids into the lounge, which is bloody handy and a far better way to travel if you can 🙂

Coming back to PNG, I had the place to myself again – and no money.  It seems my wages got stuffed up and didn’t go through.  Lucky I had some spare cash hanging around, got the bank issues sorted and got paid.  A week later – the bank took all my cash out of my account for no reason…  pretty damn stressful and frustrating, but lucky we have great friends who lent us some weekend money and I ended up spending 5 hours in the bank come Monday trying to sort out the mess.  success.

It is stuff like this – that really makes you tired.

Kids finally back at school, and all into our routines again.  Nothing really special happening – although the two older kids have auditioned for The Lion King production being produced by the school, and I am going to get them sailing in the liklik sailing school.  Xavier has a trip to Loloata coming up with school – and I have already booked holidays in June. Brisbane, Singapore then NZ for Jacinta and kids whilst I head back to Port Moresby.  Should be fun 🙂  it’s great to be able to take advantage of where we live to give the kids memories that will last a lifetime…

PNG is really moving ahead now – there is lots of affirmative action and development, which is where our technology revolution will assist in getting information out, for more business tok tok you should have a read of www.businessadvantagepng.com and of course, Kina’s website – which is about to have a new makeover go live www.kina.com.pg

Aaron