a wild storm came through in the night with big thunders and lightning, but it was dry again by morning and actually quite warm
jane dropped pearl off at her holiday accommodation and went for a walk with pearl and her friend
the girls had school
esther is 17 tomorrow but we’re leaving the house at 5am in the morning so she opened her presents and cards this evening instead
esther spent the day with her big band touring local schools
jane went for a walk with her school chum and their dogs.
kezia had school and bought more charity chocolate then went to a friends house for fun after school
i had work
big winds and rains have arrived which are so big that they are causing rain on both australia and NZ at the same time
here is a video of esther whistling to herself in the boy’s school hall. it’s dark because she doesn’t know where the light switches are
jane had a nice day meeting friends and walking pearl and picking up kezia from school
i had a really busy day at work and smashed loads of Warren’s old hard-drives up so they could go in the e-waste
the girls had school and various musical things
i had the day off work today so jane and i could go out for a walk
jane kindly got up early to take the girls to school then walked pearl
then we drove over to owera for a coffee then on to wenderholme where we walked up and round the cliff
when we were up there i thought i saw a dolphin, or possibly a couple of small whales
they slowly made their way across the light green water area in the foreground above
unfortunately i only had my compact camera so we can’t do a proper identification
after watching them for a bit we wandered along the cliff top, straining to see if we could see them working their way along the coast
we stopped for some selfies
but when we got to the next look out we didn’t see our friends we’d be watching, but did see this pod of dolphins working their way in the other direction
here’s a fantail and rangitoto
we had lunch in the puhoi tavern
then came home via the Wairera hot pools
this evening i’ve been out with kezia at her parents evening. everyone thought she was brilliant 
and then debbie came round this evening for dinner, bringing ith produce from the british aisles!
so it turns out both esther and kezia’s choirs got in to the Big Sing finale down in Dunedin next month. the choirs will be singing at Christchurch and Timaru on the way too so are making a little tour of it. Kezia’s already working on plans for raising money to cover some of the costs!
jane is on school holidays now. she met up with a work colleague this morning and then went to see debbie’s new flat this afternoon
i had a busy day at work and then a work call to the UK this evening
i met up with buzz at lunch while some local school kids did an excellent haka and cultural performance in the background
and the day was very reflecty and sunny
church this morning, jane and i went for a walk this afternoon and esther went to a big band practice then met up with her friends for a birthday party
kezia spent the afternoon at home and applied various household items to her face in the name of beauty. i then edited last night’s concert photos
lots of busy-ness for a saturday
i finished organising my bits of the office and spent many many hours failing to record a little video for our photo club
jane went shopping with kezia and esther went in to town
i went out in the evening to photo some bands. the headline band was called Sal Valentine and the Babyshakes who are an upbeat jazz band. you can watch a video of them here:
here are some of the other bands
work for me. been a really busy week again, but got plenty done so that’s good
jane and the girls had school
esther has gone out for a korean evening at a local school
kezia and i moved her old desk in to the office and so there’s various amounts of chaos downstairs at the moment
nice and sunny today
i worked from home today and had a really busy day. a also man came along to talk about decking so that was exciting. then a frog came along
jane and the girls had school
this evening jane has gone out to eat chocolate
school, work
esther parents evening (good) and career fair (university brochures)
kezia youth group
weather: today contained the wettest June hour in history !