Category: Uncategorized

kezia went early to school with me and didn’t finish until 8pm this evening due to music rehearsals.

esther went to get the normal school bus which didn’t turn up so she ended up getting a different bus which arrived at school a bit late.  i phoned the bus company to complain that the bus didn’t run and the man said “yes it did”.  And i said “no it didn’t” and he said “yes it did, it now goes half an hour earlier”.    nice of them to tell anyone about that!

jane had school

and i had work and lunch with Buzz.

no photos today. sorry about that

i got to mention yesterday that the rest of the pictures of our midwinter christmas can be found here:

http://funkypancake.pixieset.com/150718midwinterchristmas/

jane was singing at church this morning so was there from early.  esther and i rearranged the furniture so everything was back in the correct room

festive remains for lunch for some (that’s a sprout floating in the soup)

this afternoon i went to Muriwai and then Takapuna with an ex-colleague from 16 years ago who is now travelling the world for 20 years with his wife!   they live an interesting existence.

everyone else has been doing school work/preparation for the rest of the day

today was mostly about preparing for our mid winter christmas party where 14 of us had a full scale british christmas dinner

i went to the doctors first thing as my stomach seems to have gotten worse these last two weeks.  not sure i came away any the wiser, but was good to have gone

jane had her hair done ready for the new school term and the rest of the day was spent getting christmas decorations out, cooking (jane) and setting up some photoing lights (kez and me)

no one took me up on my mistletoe opportunity

work for me and a walk down the waterfront after work

girls did various things with friends/big band.  last day of school holidays for everyone

jane is busy doing school preps and tonight we skyped jane’s parents to wish them a happy 50th wedding anniversary and were joined by jane’s sister and our nephew in person, and jane’s aunt and uncle by three way skype.  magic!

work for me.  madly busy again after three days away !

jane and kezia picked up pearl and did shopping and did some preparations for our christmas party on saturday

esther had a big band workshop then went in to town with some friends before heading back in to Takapuna to have lazer shooting fun with the band for team building

jane has gone out to a church music practice and i’ve been playing with my birthday flashes in preparation for Christmas shooting.  so far i’ve managed to dazzle and confuse myself.

i’ve updated the last few days of holiday posts with better pictures and more words.  read back to see. 

here’s a video for you to watch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVRSEFFk7YE

it was chucking it down with rain and sideways rain today so after a walk round Whitianga we slowly made our way home

stopping for an in the car picnic at this very popular spot!

we did think of walking down to Cathedral Cover or Hot Water beach but it would have been pretty cold!

(republished with edited photos and more words)

so, we drove up the coast to find New Chums beach

as the sign says, getting there is half the experience

you start by crossing a river, so low tide is a good time to go

then you have to scramble over these rocks

and at some point

you find a pathway which takes you up and over the cliff down to the New Chums beach.  these are the wobbly wet rocks we climbed over

and eventually we got to the beach

which was well worth the trip

we walked from one end of the beach to the other and back

and then it was back up the path and over the rocks

by then the river was a bit wider and deeper and everyone got wet shoes and they couldn’t jump as far as i could.  because i am amazing.

and here’s the beach where we stared which scrubbed up quite nice too!

and we had fun stepping on seaweed pods

Republished with better words and pictures

so, after lunch we got the little 2 minute ferry ride over to the whitianga rocks

the boat trip was quick but the walk was more strenuous than expected.   we went from sea level up to this rock

then all the way back down to sea level and up again to the top of these rocks

via this little bay

we got a nice view of our holiday house though

then we walked back down to a different beach, then up to the road so we could walk back down to the ferry back home

 

in the evening we went out for $16 steak night.