Blog

hello.  my dad and marjorie are in there somewhere, or were this morning.  that’s their tour bus out front.

i had a busy day at work with a three hour workshop on transfer processes (i won’t bore you)

kezia sent more texts from camp, but is still there

seems yesterday’s update didn’t upload.  will try again this evening (NZ time)

kezia went off on her school camp today.  she’s not the happiest camper, so our thoughts are with her over the next two days.

i drove esther in to school early for her orchestra lesson.  she also had a trombone lesson today so she had violin, trombone and her usual school bag. it meant i drove the rest of the way in to work so i got to see this can of lemon drink on a skate board park.  interesting.

jane took dad and marjorie to their hotel mid morning. they were going to spend the day site seeing round auckland before having their welcome dinner this evening.  jane then drove over to my office and we went for a coffee which was very nice

 

jane met up with her friend Helen today and this evening esther and i watched a dvd whilst jane went to the gym

we had pancakes this evening as we’d missed them earlier in the week with the usual mad rush of family life

jane was first with a good clean toss. kezia was next and did a low gentle throw

esther did her usual ‘all or nothing’ high chuck

marjorie was a beginner at pancake tossing and had a little accident the first time (as she wanted to avoid hitting the ceiling)

no pancakes were harmed during the making of the pancakes (mostly)

my dad did the cleanest flip of us all and was so efficient he outspeeded my photographical moves

i stuck my tongue out as i do each year (do a search for ‘pancakes’ on the side bar to see previous years)

marjorie came back for a second go and was much better

she threw it towards herself using a technique we hadn’t seen before

 

esther had the final go doing another high shot (see first picture today)

and then there was just a little more left for kezia so she had the final final final go

 

everyone is now packed for tomorrow.  me for work, esther with her musical instruments for orchestra at 7.30am, kezia for school camp and of course dad and marjorie for their tiki tour which starts tomorrow

today we went to the rain forest

it’s also jane and my 17th wedding anniversary and we celebrated by walking pearl up to church so kezia and i could help with setting up the sound equipment

we were all back and ready to head out mid morning and drove over to the Arataki visitor centre

here we all are look

first we visited the visitor centre which involved some sitting around

before walking up to a view point for some more photoing

 

then a walk which was enjoyed by all despite being a bit skiddy underfoot due to the lack of water

 

here are some pictures of the tops of trees

 

 

 

when we got home there was some shoe cleaning, washing and general milling around as the girls prepared for going back to school

here’s a dead cricket

today we went to waiheke island to look at the sculpture trail

We got this small and bouncy ferry from downtown auckland

we took pearl with us on the boat which was exciting for her.  in fact the whole day was exciting for her

it took us about half an hour to walk up a load of steps to the start so we had our picnic before we started

here’s some arts and some views

 

 

it was a hot day so pearl had a roll in the sea when we finally made it back to the harbour

we got a bigger and more stable boat back

here i am (below) enjoying the wind in my hair

 

marjorie is getting quite brave with pearl, even being prepared to stand un-protected in the same area as her. (i’m not sure i’m that brave myself yet)

then after some guinea pig outside-putting we had fish and chips at the beach

 

here’s a sign from our favourite fish and chip shop

And thank’s  Very much. to you all.

jane had the pain of the day today as she had to take her car for wheel mending and get someone in to look at our hot water boiler which had given up the ghost. wheels are now repaired (tracking sorted) and the boiler should be mended next week, although we can have hot water thanks to a special electric heater thing we didn’t know we had.

 

 

dad, marjorie and i meanwhile dedicated ourselves to fun and conservation by driving to Gulf Harbour to get a boat to Tiri Tiri Matangi island

this man talked quietly and gave us a tour of some rare and endangered birds

 

although it’s probably a bit (lot) tedious for those of you who weren’t there (everyone but us three), the best way to show you what happened is via pictures of birds you won’t recognise …

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

we then drove over to Shakespeare’s park for a short walk (and watched some kite surfers)

 

after a quick coffee in an old pump house we went to watch kezia’s swimming lesson

 

and then came home for dinner

another day another load of adventures

starting with a massive fat kauri near warkworth (north auckland)

then matakana for some browsing round arty shops

followed by a trip to a local pottery place

and some lunch.  they didn’t have anything i could eat and i wasn’t very well (at all) prepared so could only each chips

the olds had something more decent though 🙂

then it was off to our main destination – tawharanui 

that’s not us on the surfboard (today at least)

there were various natures to be seen

here are the blokes

we didn’t stick around for the rabbit shooting

on the way back we stopped at charlie’s ice cream shop which sells fantastic ice cream.  we had coffees.

we drove back the scenic route and stopped to look at Orewa beach

the girls had school today whilst jane did various domestic stuff.

esther had her first orchestra practice.  she was very pleased to discover she’s a first violin.  we picked her up from school then drove back home for dinner before heading back out again to watch then pick up kezia from her swimming lesson

 

so that’s that.

another fun packed day

 

the girls went off to school and once the bathrooms were cleared the rest of us ventured out

 

after breakfast (outdoors) we drove over to Muriwai for a walk in the bush, up some hills and over to see the Gannet colony

luckily you don’t get the smell in these photos. especially relevant as it was quite windy and we were downwind.

we dodged rain showers

jane joined us for the morning section of the day which was great, but had to leave us alone in the afternoon to do girl school stuff

we had to dodge waves to get back to the car park which was good (and thankfully all visitors reached the other side with dry feet)

we went to a golf course for lunch which was nice

then, after jane left we went to a vineyard for some wine tasting, but then got stage fright so we just had coffees and hot water (cheaper and more sober option – but we did have a glass of matua wine with our evening meal to make up for it)

this is the same place we were at last Saturday for the phoenix foundation concert

then we went cross country back to Albany.  on the way we went past kim dot com’s house for a gawp.  we didn’t see him

here are some brussel sprouts (photo taken by my dad).   we were in the shopping maul (sic) to get dad a mobile broadband dongle thing

we had to pick up esther from tennis so we had a quick walk at mairangi bay

the beach was busy (for new zealand) with a life saving school doing some training

here’s the tennis

this evening esther’s been to her church youth group and kezia had a meet the teacher evening.  the rest of us stayed at home and wrote diaries/played with computer things

here’s pearl the dog who has still not eaten marjorie (thankfully) although marjorie was very brave and gave her a tummy tickle.

and here’s a baby praying mantis which was on a garden chair

dad and marjorie seem to have avoided any jet lag and are completely naturalised.  excellent!  (although dad is sitting alongside me and just said he feels really tired – but it is nearly 10pm on day 2 for them in New Zealand!)

today my dad and marjorie arrived in new zealand for a month. 

their plane arrived early and they got through customs incredibly quickly

here they are fresh off the plane looking !

their first treat was sitting in a rush hour queue on the way back to our house

after lunch we drove down to devonport and went up a couple of old volcanoes (mount victoria – metal mushrooms and north head – hidden tunnels)

there was lots of photoing

 

then we had a look round devonport shops

marjorie enjoyed the urban knitting

and i enjoyed watching some filming across the road which i think we Rhys Darby of Flight of Conchord fame with David Farrier (local TV journalist)

we then sat in another queue on the way up to Browns Bay for a coffee

then we met up with jane and kezia at Waiake beach

where we sat for a bit until it was time to pick up esther from violin

then after dinner jane  and kezia went to dog training (with pearl)

and this evening everyone wrote up their daily diaries, did homework, uploaded photos and generally became quite tired

so great to have dad and marjorie here at last.  and they did amazingly well at staying away and not going to bed until 9pm!  Hopefully meaning minimal jet lag tomorrow