Blog

 

very little sleep last night due to a single teeny mosquito in our bedroom.  hey ho.  esther said she heard frogs in the creek this morning. and the cicadas are out chirping.  summer’s here.  although it was quite overcast

(casn you spot the security chap in the photo above)

 

i had lunch with buzz today and work was busy.

the girls had their hair cut today but i haven’t got photos, sorry.

esther did a couple of hour’s work in the church office which sounded like moving boxes and emptying the dishwasher.  then she went shopping with jane until they ran out of energy.

they were both in the pool when i got home.  and kezia got a certificate for the singing thing she did a couple of weeks ago.

just so happens all my pictures today are christmassy.  the first two are thanks to a bus stopping outside the giant santa in town.

 

i went to work and had a moan at a bank at lunchtime for being rubbish.

esther went back to school despite finishing last friday as she was playing for the older kids prize giving ceremony in her chamber orchestra.  after that she went to someone else’s house (tracey i think) before coming back here with lauren later for a swim.

kezia went to school.  and so did jane i think

to be honest, someone else in the family would be better writing this blog during the school holidays. i’ve not got much of a clue what goes on most at the best times!

it’s been chucking it down with rain today.  real monsoon kind of thing. 

church this morning was good.  then we came home for a quick bite to eat before heading in to auckland to see a production of The Twits. 

Our exit to the car park took us by the stage door and we spotted David Fane, one of the main actors leaving so we grabbed a quick photo.  He’s a famous kiwi comedian (probably most famously outside of NZ he was in Love Birds as a hapless street labourer – Love Birds also featured in our last weekend’s adventure as a number of scenes were shot in auckland zoo)

after the play we headed back to church – this time to the church centre for a party to celebrate all the excellent young people’s work

we were there for a few hours and finally got home in time for the girls to go to bed!

 

so, a pretty full on day.  it’s now 10 sleeps until we fly off to the UK and we’re just realising how much we need to do before we leave!

jane had a school training thing this afternoon which was a shame.

whilst kezia was at her swimming training at 8am, esther and i went for a long walk through a local kauri glen which was very nice.

then we all came home and skyped my mum.  i decided it would be a good day to clean some of the filters in the pool which i did and then we went to the pool shop to see if they could help us get rid of a horrible rasping noise which comes from the pool when barry the pool cleaner is doing his thing.    they recommended popping a ball in to the filter to stop the whirlpool so we went to a DIY shop and bought an over large tennis ball which seems to have done the trick.

the girls then spent a couple of hours in the pool, and when jane came back k ezia went to a friend’s house for sleep over whilst the rest of us drove across town to the location of my work party which was a big family do in a stadium.  it was nice to catch up with some work chums, but we only stayed for an hour as we had to rush back in time for esther to go to a party.

jane and i were then hoping to go to take advantage of being childless this evening, but the restaurant we booked didn’t have our booking, then we ended up sitting in a loud room full of xmas office party people so we asked for a quieter table.  we ended up sitting outside which got a bit chilly so we just had our main course and left.  bit of a shame, but hey ho.

it was esther’s prize giving today so i worked from home and popped out for nearly three hours (!) to watch.  the event itself was just less than 2 hours but i got there early to reserve some seats.  esther got an ‘excellence certificate’ and then an ‘outstanding achievement’ trophy and medallion for Science.

lots of her friends got prizes too so that was good.  it was a bit of a strange thing though as one particular girls seemed to win most of the prizes and went home with about a dozen trophies (literally) including one about the size of a penny farthing.  still, i suppose that’s teaching kids about life.  or something.

and now esther has finished school for the summer holidays.  jane doesn’t finish for another week.  and kezia doesn’t finish until we arrive in britain (so she’ll leave a day early)

i ended up working until 7.30pm this evening to make up for the time i’d missed earlier and get a piece of work finished.   jane took the girls to swimming. during the day jane was out on some school trip for the day which sounds like fun but probably wasn’t.

this evening we watched some family telly then jane and i watched Secret and Lies to start getting us back in to the spirit of britain.

today was the first day of Telecom (who i work for) being a standalone company separate from Chorus.  We’re going to celebrate being separate by having a party to bring us all back together next week.  i was asked to knock up the invite hence the image above.  That’s our CEO in the bottom right corner.  The two people were in a shopping centre in Scotland back in 2004. 

jane had a rubbish day with her laptop crashing losing her loads of work.  particularly annoying as we were going to back everything up next weekend before she hand the laptop back next week.  then her shoe fell apart.  rubbish

kezia did a kapa haka with her school kapa haka group.  There were 40 of them and they were the cultural entertainment at a drinks reception for a conference at the local university.  all good fun i think.

esther had her tennis lesson and because jane is out at crafty chicks i picked her up.  we had an hour before we had to pick up kezia so we ate fish and chips at the beach.  it was so windy the seagulls were hovering still centimetres above our head (like a child’s mobile said esther) ready to dive.  in the end one of them pooed on me so that was that

whilst we sat there we saw the chinese military satellite tracking ship make it’s way out to sea.  the first two pictures above were from earlier in the week when it was parked up in town.

today was the last day of Telecom being one company.  And to celebrate the split there was a ceremony in the atrium of our building which was very good.  and very glittery

kezia had swimming after school and they both had their violin lessons

     

 

and esther got her end of year report which was really good.

 

here’s some pictures of work

jane did pack ‘n’ save, chores, school (a couple of times i think) and went to a party for a chum. 

the girls were both in the pool for a couple of hours when i got home.  i went in too for a bit.

then this evening i went for a long walk with warren round the grave yard and generally around and about.

 

fibre is coming ever closer down our street, but not quite at our door yet …

this is a slice of the new view from my new seat at work.

unfortunately i’d only been there for 5 minutes before i blew up the power to four desks as there was a dodgy socket under my desk.  it caused a bang and a giant blue spark (not unlike the telecom logo) and then our monitors didn’t work until lunchtime when they repaired it

lunch was a trip to the supermarket for fruit and ham

here’s more view which includes the office of our main rivals, Vodafone!

here’s gavin relaxing by the photocopier

esther meanwhile had a school trip to a local hot pools where they spent the day mucking about in water

jane had a rubbish school day by the sounds of it, but she’s not got many more days left

here’s a big boat coming in to the harbour whilst i was on a conference call

and there are plenty of bargains on rugby world cup merchandise if you want to place any orders for UK delivery

we spent most of the day at the zoo thanks to ‘bird and forest’ (or something like that).  Esther and kezia are members of the young people’s version and esther spotted a guided tour of the new bit of the zoo dedicated to domestic habitats and animals.  that meant we got a guided tour and a special showing of the seals.  we then went for a wander round the main zoo (so not all of these animals are native)

we got back in time for kezia to go to her flippa ball competition where she scored the first two goals (and her team won 4-3 i think)

here’s a load of photos.  some of the photos are kezia’s

seals

 

dotterel

tui

weka

 

elephant chiropody

duckling

zebra

 

 

giraffes

 

hippo

 

under cover orang-utans

meer cats and kezia

red panda

 

kakariki

kiwi in the dark kiwi house (kezia obeyed the rule about no flash photography)

a big eel yucky eel

kezia picnic drink

the queue to get out of town due to the santa parade finishing at the same time we left the zoo

 

and John Key is back as PM after the election yesterday.  every one is happy with the outcome, except the Labour Party which lost lots of support at the expense of the Greens and a few minor parties.  all interesting stuff.