Blog

church this morning was a rather different affair with us all together in the sports stadium and then people working their round the various different ‘stations’ (or activities) around the room

the girls sang a song with some of their chums to the backing of the band which was jolly good

here’s the rehearsal.  the score board in the background wasn’t used to see which of the sides was the best

then after church there was tidying away all the stuff we helped put up the day before

then we whizzed home to change our sweaty clothes and then went out for lunch to our lovely friends Gareth and Amanda’s house for lunch

we sat in their garden in the scorching sun, but had to leave eventually to take esther to her last flippa ball games.

and esther’s team won 9-1 !  It was their last match of the season, and also as a team as a few of the players (including Esther) move up to senior school next year.  

And best of all they won against the local private school, Kristin (where jane teaches).  And even funnier is that the Kristin coach is the sun of one of friend’s who are also the people who rented this house before we did !

anyway, as soon as the swimming was over we whizzed in to auckland and parked up by my office.  we then walked along the waterfront to the arena in town

we had seat really high up, but that was ok as we got to enjoy the view

as this was a ‘glow stick’ carol service where all the various thousand people each had glow sticks

so everyone waved their glow sticks with the lights off for the whole concert/service

it really was quite a remarkable sight, which you can’t really visualise from the pictures.  but i have a video i’ll post once it’s uploaded

the girls did some really funky dances in the dark to the various christmas songs which were sung by some local celebrities (or at least i think they were)

here’s kezia looking spooky

then dave dobbyn was a surprise guest.  he’s a modern kiwi icon and a christian

he sang ‘welcome home’ which is a christian song and/or a proud kiwi song (or both). you can watch here if you like mellow songs (or even if you don’t)

we sort of went with ‘the gang’ though we arrived and parked somewhere else as we’d travelled directly from the flippa ball

and then on the way back to the car we drove to look at the christmas lights in franklin road which is famous for its lights.  and we also had ice-creams.

and now’s it’s 10.30pm and we’re all sweltering in our boiling house.  time for bed zebedeee.  boing.

the girls had their orchestra concert this morning. 

unfortunately so did hundreds (so it seemed) or other performers so the proceedings lasted for nearly 2 hours

but we survived and the girls did very well.  this was their last session at the orchestra as they are both ‘retiring’ (mainly because esther is moving up to secondary school and it’s a good opportunity for us to reclaim our saturday mornings)

on the way back from the endurance concert we stopped in at Albany Junior High (esther’s new school and the location of our weekly church meetings) to help dress the sports hall for tomorrow’s service

 

we were there for a couple of hours too and were quite exhausted by the end of it (mainly due to lack of food)

the service tomorrow is in different zones so there were lots of chairs all over the place.

then this evening we were due to go in to town for the big open air christmas concert, but decided we were just too tired to battle in to town with 10s of thousands of others and then do the same in reverse at 10.30pm this evening when we’ve got a full day tomorrow

so we went to the cinema and watched Megamind instead, which was ok (not great, but enjoyable enough)

now we’re all staggering round our hot and humid house in a state of exhaustion and variously heading bedwards

which is where i’ll be heading.  can you spot the mistake on this flag which i was on the wall at the school ?

i started the day with a nice breakfast on the way in to work

 

then at 2pm we headed down to the ferry terminal to do the short hop across to Devonport for our christmas team lunch

 

 

lunch was eaten out in the beer garden of a british pub which sold boddington’s beer which was not quite as nice as it is in the UK

i suspect it doesn’t travel well

so here’s my team

jane also went out for a thank you staff / christmas dinner type thing which involved some ‘farewelling’ of staff etc.

kezia has found out she’s in a composite class for next year which means she’ll be in a class half made of her year and half made up of the year above.  esther’s had that arrangement this year (being the older half) and it seems to have worked ok so that’s all good.

i got a bus back from devonport back to home which took yonks and involved changing at takapuna in case you want to recreate the route in your minds

the girls had their swimming which was good and then we watched a documentary about New Zealand’s longest river (the waikato)

in other news, i won some chocolate from cadbury’s NZ by noticing they were about to do their 1000th tweet.  so that’s not bad.

and we’ve got a fun packed weekend of christmas busyness, so hold on to your hats

see ya

the box above was sent to me in the infernal mail at work.  it was full of big christmas cards for various contacts.  rather than just signing their name people were writing big messages to people.  physical cards and hand written messages are things of history in the modern british office as far as i was aware, so nice to see the tradition lives on in new zealand.

i had a progress meeting with my boss today and she thought i was doing ok which is good.

meanwhile everyone else in the household had good days at school and jane has even been offered a few extra classes next year as someone is off on sabbatical for a few weeks.  so she’s pleased they asked her.

i saw this leaflet for a gun near the house where a police man lives round the corner from us.  not sure if that’s good or bad

here’s my office look.  i live on the top floor of the tower with ‘telecom’

written on it.  i’m somewhere under the ‘m’

after work i went to Christmas drinks on the viaduct with our industry group

is had a good chat with various people which was my purpose for going.  this boat went out just as i arrived

i got the bus home and walked back from the park and ride.  on the way i phoned the fish and chip shop to place an order and the lady said “have you got cash”, i answered yes, and she said “well, walk here quickly as i want to go home”.  so i did.  fish and chips were good but i was quite tired.

the end

it was kezia’s prize giving today and she won a certificate for ‘demonstrating excellence in all areas both academic and outside the classroom’

i attended the prize giving session itself as jane was teaching

 

so i worked form home and popped out 1pm-3pm to attend the ceremony

each class in years 3 and 4 did their own dance or singing activity as well as various group and team songs

some were better than others.  this was the finale:

kezia’s class danced along to an MGMT song which was quite contemporary.  you can read the itinerary here if you like

it being christmas there was no mention of Jesus, although there were a few ‘God’s in the songs they were dancing along to.  but not in a good way !

then this evening we had our end of year dinner with our life group people and their families

this was as christmassy as it got:

here’s layne looking rather strange

we ate cake

 

and the kids played uno inside which was very good (they also ran around a lot too)

so now we’re all exhausted from tidying and entertaining and winning and working.

it was sasha’s birthday today so he made us all a carrot and banana cake, and a chocolate and berry cake.  this was his first (and second) ever cake making attempt and he ‘sort of made up his own recipe’.  no one died but there were a few funny expressions as people ate it !

after that bit of cake i went to a healthy eating seminar for the legal team.  it was attended only by the thin people in the team who are already careful eaters (myself excluded), and the person leading the course was a skinny too.

unfortunately this left me little time to have any lunch so i grabbed a toffee slice on the way back to my desk.  oops

meanwhile jane had a bit of spare time at school today which made a change and the girls had a good day at school.

kezia has her prize giving day tomorrow so i’m working from home so i can pop out in the afternoon.  good luck to her

and finally, here’s something i found on one of the notice boards at work which made me laugh out loud.  i nearly took a strip, but didn’t.

 

nothing much to report from today

everyone very tired.  some shopping done by the girls including some little cubby hole things for the spare room so visitors have something to put their false teeth on at night.

i had a little wander at lunchtime (hence the photos) and then arrived home in time to see kezia ironing handkerchiefs

not every day can be exciting !

 

another nice day today.  church this morning was good

and as is becoming traditional we popped in to the bakery on the way home for sunday lunch breadery.  they’ve got all their decs up

 

then we had some new friends to visit: Mike and Sarah and their 4 kids.  They were introduced to us via email as they are friends of esther’s and kezia’s godparents in the UK as Steve worked with Mike.  They are in NZ for at least a year and have just arrived in auckland.

  

they were really nice and it was funny being old-timers ourselves now !

after lunch we went to Long Bay for a dip in the sea (i watched) and a play on the park

we sat on the grass area next to some people who were having a barbeque on the beach on a warm summer’s day under a pohutukawa tree (the new zealand christmas tree).  You can’t get much more kiwi than that !

as we left some people started drumming on the beach – can you spot them and their rather large drums in the picture ?

 

and here’s some news for you.  our local video store has changed names and is now known as Video Ezy (which we call Ezzy which is one of Esther’s family nicknames).  They heart movies you know. i think someone much have lightbulbed that strap line up.

esther is out doing her last flippa ball of the season and everyone else is exhausted !  Shame we’ve got work tomorrow.

the girls were up and out early this morning as kezia had her piano lesson at 8.30am then they had their orchestra concert

so i headed in to the mall to pick up some photos which because i’d ordered online won’t be ready until the end of next week.  if i’d taken them in to the shop they would be done in an hour.  how silly is that ?  Snapfish hurumph.  whilst out i also got some new shirts and a day back pack (not sure why you can’t use it at night)

we all arrived back home at roughly the same time for lunch.  Then esther went off for an all afternoon party and kezia had a friend round

after some lawn mowage i went off to buy me a new compact camera as my old one is showing signs of stopping working.  i ended up buying it from a ‘grey imports’ place so it’s actually an american one, but seemed to register ok on the Canon website and all is good.  the only real difference is the battery charger which required a plug adapter (which was provided by the shop)

whilst out i stumbled across some kind of regatta at Browns Bay which was accompanied by a sort of village fete around the beach.  this included full sized helicopter rides and at one point a stunt plane which looked huge and highly impressive

but it was in fact small and highly impressive.  except it was still big for a small thing and was quite large when it landed on the beach remote controlly

 

then it was time to pick up esther and take kezia’s friend back home

then our friend john came round and properly put up the sunshade sail.  he’s a proper builder and did a really good job.  it was definitely a good job i didn’t do it as there was real potential to break the house !

then this evening i watched a movie with the girls whilst jane went to her christmas choir concert

she says this about it:  “it was quite good actually” and she felt a bit sad on the way back home that she’d left the choir now.

and i now own my first pair of kiwi jandals.  jane doesn’t like them, but they are proper kiwi clobber.

here’s my new camera (above) and my old one (below)

here’s a giant bill board which makes me chuckle every time i see it

jane had a great time on a school trip to Shakespear Park (where we went a few weekends ago) which involved standing by a pile of ‘metal’ (grit) whilst the kids formed a chain gang and refurbished a public footpath.  The kids then spend the rest of the day mucking about in the sea.  jane said it was her best school trip ever which is good.  she spent most of the day chatting to her school teacher chum and that was jolly good.

i was on in the office for a couple of hours myself as i needed to be home to pick up the girls from school.  then they went for their swimming lessons and this evening we watched some science documentary whilst jane was out at her final choir practice before her big xmas gig tomorrow night.

 

and it’s not all good here weather wise despite our lack of snow.  the current ultraviolet measure is 11 out of 10 which by anyone’s standards is ‘extreme’ !