Blog

i got honours for the picture above which jane genius-ly titled ‘Ladies in Waiting’.  the picture below only got acceptance which is the lowest grade which was a shame!

But i only needed one more honours to get in to A grade, which i’ve now done.  so that’s nice.

work was really busy today and every email i opened contained another disaster or disappointment.

the girls went shopping for clothes and went to Janine’s to sort some stuffs for the musical soiree

kezia came with me to camera club so that was nice for me too!

back to work for me. quite a busy day despite lots of people being on holiday taking advantage of the 3 day week to get 10 days off work for just 3 days leave.

jane went grocery shopping, spent ages cleaning the house and washing esther’s clothes from camp

i think they might have done some clothes shopping too

kezia has swimming and esther/jane went for a peal walk.

it’s getting a bit chilly now in the evenings so it might be time to start thinking about a bit of heating.  although we’ll only do that once people move to long trousers rather than shorts and t-shirts.

public holiday so the three of us and pearl headed up to Pakiri Beach to inspect the beach, which i thought was very nice!

we stopped for a quick look around matakana on the way, and managed to dodge some heavy rain showers

then this evening esther came back from her church easter camp with stories of fun and damp tents

it’s good to have the family back together again, although jane’s gone out to the cinema this evening with debbie so we weren’t actually all the same place for long!

that’s all i have to report.

church this morning followed by a wet and windy (but warm) walk on muriwai beach with buzz and his dog abbie

then back to their house for afternoon tea

a good day!

yes, that’s me looking like the legendary ‘stupid owl’ with my 3d glasses on

this morning was spent doing admin and this afternoon kezia and i did some shopping.  kezia got a tiny piece of bacon on a cocktail stick.

then my camera friend mike and his wife carolyn came round for afternoon tea which was nice

this evening the three of us went to see the lego movie

as far as we know esther is having a nice time at camp.  she mentioned a mexican hat party at some point in a text.

i’ve eaten so much chocolate and some brownie that i might actually be sick so will be having an early night!

the day started with some skyping then the three of us went to the anglican cathedral for their good friday service

after that we drove over to the domain to go the auckland museum

but got a bit side-tracked as we discovered there was going to be an easter egg drop for kids

a helicopter arrived and dumped loads of easter eggs on a field (already primed with lots of eggs by some helpers) then there was a massive ‘lolly scramble’ as kids threw themselves in to a pile trying to get them

it was as mad as you might expect

then we went in to the museum itself for lunch (you could take your own food, but you won’t enjoy it)

we looked at some photos by a famous local photographer

and got to go in to a special room on the roof as there was an egg-ibition

then there was an easter egg trial for kezia to do

which took us by the gecko tank where one was busy licking up sugar

on the way out we filled in a survey and got some free chocolate (which made up for the fact that kezia hadn’t got any chocolate in the egg drop)

then this evening we watched some family TV

i had the day off work today to spend the day with my lovely wife.  not all went to plan though as a massive gale force storm whooshed in overnight and most of the morning.

esther ended up late for school due to the traffic jams caused by debris and traffic lights being out to power cuts caused by trees falling on power lines.

so, once we thought the traffic had subsided we drove to a local boutique cinema very slowly (as the queues hadn’t cleared) and when we eventually got there with the wind still blowing, it was closed due to a power cut.  so we drove all the way back and went to the mall cinema instead.   we saw the Grand Budapest Hotel which i loved

this afternoon the weather cleared enough for us to walk pearl before the girls came home

kezia has swimming this evening and esther is off to a church camp with proper camping.  they ended up leaving about 2 hours later than planned as one of the leaders was 2 hours late, and the last we heard was the car esther was in broke down just after harbour bridge, but is now going again.  they were going to be arriving and putting their tents up quite late anyway, but now it’ll be even later (but hopefully less wet/windy). good luck to them.

kezia had swimming

busy day at work followed by team drinks with the lawyers (they kindly included me).

jane went to kezia’s parents evening which went well and this evening she had book club

esther went to her youth club and had a band practice before school.  unfortunately we got in the wrong lane on the way to the park and ride and ended up on the motorway so my journey to work took 1hr15 rather than 25 mins.  d’oh.

i didn’t take any pictures today because i drove to work. the picture above is a reject from monday night’s shoot.

and i won a new phone and a phone for my good friend buzz at work today.  more info when it arrives.

wild weather and storms outside tonight and most of tomorrow which is a shame as i have the day off to go for a long walk with jane before the girls break up for their school holidays.

oh well.

esther had some musical thing this morning and then violin after school then a briefing meeting for parents and pupils going on the european tour.  looks like they are going to have an amazing time.

kezia had school and swimming

my dog in a cafe picture was published in the paper so that was nice and i got lots of nice comments about that picture of the pier i took yesterday (i went out with my amazing photography chum nori for him to show me how to take that kind of picture, which is how i managed to do it)

i had lunch with buzz – i took a photo of him which makes him look about 20 years older than he is, so haven’t put it on the blog.

then this evening i ended up spending an hour chatting to our chatty neighbour about weeds.

jane can tell you what happened today.

My first day of holidays today. I went to the opticians and then to see my friend Alex and her new baby. Then I read a book.

School and music and swimming for other people. And I took pearl for 2 walks.