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despite the title, a short sharp burst (apt word) of rain and a couple of flashes of lightning we seem to have avoided any adverse weather.  unlike other parts of the country:  http://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/severe-weather-video-thunderstorms-tornado-heavy-rain-risk

anyway, jane went out with some chums to do some window shopping at various nice shops around auckland.  the girls had school.  i had work.

we cancelled life group this evening as people suddenly realised they couldn’t make it and it was only going to be three of us.  so we’ll do double next week instead.

everyone’s having an early night tonight as we all overslept this morning.  me so much so i wouldn’t have been able to get ‘a park’ at my bus station so i drove in to town which was a slow but not totally unpleasant event.

it was mother’s day today in new zealand, which is good!

and there was a boat in the creek earlier

i was on sound at church this morning so got there just after 7.30.  all went well and a few people came up afterwards and said i did a nice mix, so i’m happy with that!

jane picked up esther from her sleep over (good time had by all) and we met up at church

 

our friend Thomas came back to for morning tea after church

 

then this afternoon (after some power napping) we decided to start a new walking project.  we’re going to follow the coast round from our favourite local beach south and see how far we get. 

 

we didn’t have very long today but we got to a nice little bay we’d been to before.

and on the way back we met a ‘famous’ (in north shore at least) author who wrote a little pamphlet on walks around this area.  i think he was trying to sell his little books as he went, but we already had one.  anyway, here he is.

this evening’s flippa ball match was against Kristin school, where jane teaches (although she teaches in the middle school and these were primary school kids).  given the schools are quite close to each other, it was the battle of Albany Highway.

our guys won though.  yay!

it’s mother’s day tomorrow actually, but today is likely to be more mothery day-y than tomorrow as we’re busy with various things tomorrow morning.

today however, jane went to her fitness bike riding at 9am and i took the girls for some speedy shopping and we all rushed back to the house to reunite around 10.30.

then kezia and i drove over to Torbay for kezia’s rescheduled piano lesson (rescheduled because the teacher stuffed up earlier in the week).  unfortunately she’d double booked the lesson time so we came home again.

esther and jane went school shoe shopping again, but once again came home empty handed

we had lunch in Fernielea which was very nice

then this afternoon we took esther to a sleep over party, and Alex and Malcolm came round for afternoon tea.  They bought a ‘mum’ cake.

then this evening kez, jane and i watched TinTin the movie which was good fun.  we even watched the extras to see how it was made and were pleased to see it had a large New Zealand contribution thanks to Peter Jackson and Weta studios.

kezia’s have her own sleep over in our bedroom tonight!

 

i worked from home today as a chap from the fibre trial wanted to come round and do some testing on our line.  he spent most of the morning standing on a stool in the garage balancing his laptop on the top of our fridge freezer.  he seemed quite happy up there.

 

jane had lessons a kristin this morning and afternoon and in between managed to fit in food shopping and picking up some new shoes

esther and kezia had school then their swimming lessons. 

this praying mantis was on our garage window.  lovely little chap, although he only seems to have one antler.

after work i went to the mall with warren for a coffee and this evening we watched a bit of family tv (more te radar in case you were interested). 

i had my weekly tricky meeting today and it seemed the troubles of last week were forgotten / moved on from, so that was good. it was also in a different venue so we could look at the view from a high up floor.

jane had school, kezia took a load of photos as part of a school project and esther had a netball game (they lost)

 

then this evening jane and i went in to auckland to see the kaiser chiefs who were excellent

at one point the singer climbed up the speaks on to the balcony and ran around singing up there for a while just above our heads

 

and we had such a good parking spot we were home less than half an hour after the end of the concert.  yay!

strange day today weather wise. lots of clouds of coming through, some of them rainy,  daytime fog.  quite dramatic at times

jane had a busy day at kristin again.  esther had an early (7.30am) netball practice.

i think there was some music lessons after school, but i met up with everyone at the millennium institute where several very jolly olympians were happy to sign autographs

when i got there they were all sitting at this table without anyone to bother them except me!  i should have taken the opportunity to take some better photos, but i didn’t!  They are mostly swimmers, but the two chaps on the photo below are cyclists.  possibly more of them actually.  who knows.

 

whilst i was waiting for kezia to finish swimming the main NZ TV channel news reporter turned up and did a live interview with loads of kids in the background.  all good fun stuff.

esther is top right on the photo at the top of the page (they’d moved their table round by that stage)

esther had her parent teacher interviews (parents evening) this evening and that was really encouraging.  sounds like she’s doing a good job, especially in maths

 

(sorry about the double posting yesterday – i learnt a few things myself!)

At the Millenium Sports place where Kez has her swimming lessons and Flippa ball  and we have seen various sporting celebrities, they are preparing for some olympic athletes to come along tomorrow. You can meet them between 3 and 7. Dave is in fact the only one in our family who will be able to do this, but that’s quite good as he likes taking photos and he will have an hour to kill while waiting for Kezia. So watch this space.

Kezia had a bike day at school today, it has been raining and Esther’s class went to meet an award winning illustrator at Albany library. I did some more supply teaching and Dave worked from home.

See ya

i worked from home today as i hadn’t any meeting so that was good.  jane spent the day zooming around between her church job and kristin.  seems rather full on at the moment.

mid afternoon i went to pick up the girls from school as it was chucking it down with rain. kezia had a bike safety thing in the morning before the rain really kicked in so we loaded her soggy bike in to my car. then she realised she’d left her phone in the teacher’s desk so we had to drive back again and got caught in the queues of everyone else leaving school.  by then we were late enough to pick esther up on the way back

this evening i took kez to swimming and there was this display set up where i normally sit and read.  it’s for tomorrow i think as the NZ olympic team are all going to be there.  i might get to see them if i’m lucky as kezia has swimming tomorrow evening.

i liked how the photos showed london a bit grubby.  the phone box has stickers half ripped off and the phone box inside looks quite dirty

 

and the underground sign was also quite ‘grubby’ in a printed on type way.  authentic

 

it rained a bit this morning, but not enough to mention.  but i have anyway.    i lunched between rain clouds. good.

jane had a day at kristin and the girls had school.  esther did well in some spanish test.

this evening i raised the seat and handlebars on kezia’s bike as she’s got some safety lesson at school tomorrow

and this evening we had our life group with another good turn out and good chatting.

 

looks like there’s a travel agents for magicians

Last day of holiday boohoo. But our flight wasn’t till the afternoon, so we went down to the Lake again.

And I was introduced to the delights of frisbee golf.

It was very pretty in the park

And then it was time to go. We sat in a new configuration on the plane. Esther and Kezia together and Dave and I together!

[mount cook is down there somewhere alongside some rather impressive glaciers – dave]

Sigh ….