Here are some boats Dave saw. He had a nice day at work.
Us girls skyped some chums and then delivered Kezia’s birthday party invites. Then I mowed the lawn before it chucked it down with rain. Kezia went to play with a friend and Esther and I went out for lunch and then did some shopping kind of chores. They both had a full work out at swimming while I chatted to a mum on the benches. Dinner plus family tv – a David Attenborough, then bed.
Good night
Dave and I went to see te radar’s eating the dog this evening. It was very good. We were encouraged that we knew some of the place names mentioned. Not sure if we were familiar with any of the events, but I don’t think many of the other members of the audience were either.
This morning the girls and I skyped Auntie Barb and Uncle David, who were staying with my parents. Then it was some violin homework before Esther’s friend Sunny and Kezia’s friend Emily arrived. Alex popped round too.
Kezia has been working hard on her party invitations.
See ya
Here is a crystal tree that we grew in a day last week.
Today I had a meeting about Mainly Music. That is the music and singing outreach group run by our church, which I am going to be involved in this year. Then I went for a coffee with my friend Jennifer. The girls read books and played games during these tedious adult activities.
Esther went to her friend’s this afternoon for a get together with a few girls from her class and Kezia and I went in search of her birthday present, which we found, but you will have to wait until her birthday to find out what it is.
Violin lessons started again today and Kezia had swimming. Dave has bought a new computer 5 terrabytes of storage if you are interested.
i drove in to work today as the roads had been quieter. but this morning they weren’t.
i thought i was saw a submarine go across the harbour this morning, but i suspect it wasn’t
i had a busy day at work – a 2 hour phone meeting this morning which i was hosting and later writing my half year performance review personal feedback. except i also had to make up some objectives to be measured about for the last 6 months as my previous boss never got round to it. so that was a strange thing. making up some measures of what i should have done after i’d done what i didn’t know i had to do. needless to say i’ve scored very highly for the last 6 months 🙂
(that’s not quite how it works!)
jane and the girls were mostly home bound today. usual story of guinea pig cuddling and household fun/chores. a bit of shopping and letter writing and school book covering also happened.
it was still nice and sunny when i got home (as it has been all day). so we went for a nice walk round the cemetery which was still very christmassy thanks to all the decorations left around the place. we also did a spot of geocaching
when we got home (at about 8pm) we all went in the pool. i think that’s the first time all four have been in at the same time. it was a bit chillsome so jane and i exited rather sharpish. the girls stayed in until nearly 9 though!
Alarm clocks were set for all this morning as we had a Mariokart race with the cousins booked in for 7.00am! The technology worked very well, racing and skyping all at the same time!
You may already know that in NZ you have to buy your exercise books yourself for the start of term and we have started the huge task of covering them all. Esther’s have been completed today.
Then us girls drove in to the Wynyard quarter in Auckland to meet dave for a picnic lunch.
Then we had a little wander around the Viaduct and looked at the boats and people, including a big cruise ship, which Dave saw later out at sea when he was on a health giving walk with Warren.
After that we came home to go for a swim as it was nice weather. We asked the neighbours’ 3 girls if they wanted to join us. They did.
Violin lessons resume this week so the girls had a mini practice and we cleaned out the guineas’ hutch for the first time.
we skipped church today [naughty or what!] so after skyping jane’s parents we headed northwards.
we had originally planned to go to tawharanui, but the weather forecast was rubbish so we decided to stop at various places we never stop at because we’re on the way somewhere else
our first stop was at a honey centre where we watched bees, tasted honey (according to the strict rules), learnt how they make manuka honey (or at least how they know it is manuka honey rather than anything else), then had our lunch in the cafe
after that we drove past matakana to the pottery place. that was really nice but quite expensive. we’ll got back one day if we ever have enough spare money and buy some lovely things
after that we went to Charlie’s ice cream place. if you’ve visited us, chances are we’ve taken you there. if so, you’ll not recognise this picture as they’ve had a massive extension out the back to make some lovely indoor and outdoor seating in addition to the bit out front. very nice indeed.
then we drove on to scandrett regional park. dreadful name, but a lovely place. we had a look in the historical house and had a walk along the beach to look at the bookable baches. then it started to drizzle and i was really achy from all my wood work yesterday so we drove back home in the rain
back home everything was a lot drier, so i set about finishing off the guinea run. it now has all four side supports, a hinged roof (which makes getting in and out for the girls much easier) and a prototype water bottle holder which we’re not sure how well will work.
somewhere along the way we also managed to pick up some more bits from mitre10 to allow me to complete the tasks above. And we also made it to a photo place to print out some photos of the guineas for kezia to put on her school books.
tea was left overs, ive’ been catching up on a load of admin this evening whilst jane and the girls have been attending to the guineas and playing boggle.
i woke up and spent the entire day buliding the guinea pig run.
here’s how it went:
a much neater approach using screws rather than the vicious nailing things which didn’t bend properly (as recommended by jane’ dad). it took me another hour today to removes some of yesterday’s naily things and save the wood
note the hinges on two of the corner pieces for easy packing away
the opposite corners have some eye hooks
which a peg drops down between to hold it all together (and also to secure the base to the floor)
there was some last minute design changes too as i decided to do the lid in two sections so that too will fit in to the place we’re going to store it
here it is all packed down
and here it with half the roof on (for easy access).
you’ll note below that the side on the right is missing a vertical stick in the middle. that’s because i cut the wood too short. twice. that’ll need another trip to Mitre10 sometime to finish that off 🙁
this evening alex and malcolm came round and we had nearly four hours of laughing, eating and drinking. what more could you want in an evening!
the girls spent the rest of the day doing crafty things, swimming, cuddling the guinea pigs and doing some wiis
an exhausting day but i feel i’ve earned plenty of family brownie points!
i worked from home today. the girls played lots of wii, cuddled their guinea pigs and this evening kezia had her swimming lesson. Debbie came round for morning tea and jane skyped tanya. they were the things i noticed whilst sitting at my desk anyway.
at 4pm i downed tools and went to the local hardware shop to buy some bits to build the guinea pigs a run. i spent a happy hour hammering metal things in to bits of wood to act as corners before realising they weren’t really doing the job properly and were in danger of cutting people. so i then spent the next 90 minutes trying to remove them without wrecking the wood too much.
i’ll revert to a much better method of putting it together (as taught me by jane’s dad).
and then at 7.30pm this evening Thomas arrived followed by Eugene and family. You may remember Eugene from my trips down to Wellington – he used to be in our church life group until he moved to Wellington over a year ago i think
it was great to catch up with their news and the kids played well until 11.15pm (which was when they went, not the point at which they stopped playing nicely together)
Kezia’s skipping her swim training tomorrow morning so we can all have a lie in tomorrow. yay!
This morning we cuddled the guinea pigs and then went to buy Kezia’s school stationery. This afternoon our friends Fleur, Evie and Grace came over for a swim and cuddling with the guineas.
Dave went to work. This evening we went into the Big Smoke to have dinner in a posh restaurant with Dave’s work colleague, Simon and his wife, Mary. We sat outside overlooking the harbour it was very nice.
See ya
Here is the guineas area. It is very nice. The girls and I went to the DIY shop this morning to get a chest thing to put all the guinea equipment in. Then we have to make it. Good job Kezia was there to help.
Here is Esther’s guinea pig, Pumpkin.
My one is called Betty
She has cool hair.
Kezia’s is Cookie
Most of the day was spent cuddling them and making their equipment chest and a little indoor playground for them. Lauren and Amy came round this afternoon for a swim and some guinea pig worship.
Kezia had swimming this evening, so the rest of us went on a stroll at the beach.
Dave went to work and had lunch with Buzz.
