Home Again

We packed up Wanaka & left at 1:15 on Friday afternoon. It was a very quick ride home, we were home at 5:45. We did have one stop & that was a very brief one in Geraldine.

Saturday both boys had their last swimming lessons for the term. James is starting to really get to grips with swimming by himself.


Brent has mananged to achieve all he needs to to get his stingray certificate.

Next term he will be a shark & having his lessons on a Monday after school.

We went & had dinner with mum on Saturday & she has looked after the boys all this week. Scott has had the last few days off work so he has been painting windowsills & stripping wallpaper in the spare room. I have been doing the housework & trying to declutter wardrobes & toy boxes.

Scott starts back at work tomorrow so I will have the whole house to myself. I'll go for a bike ride do some housework, get into the garden & then maybe I'll do some scrapping. I haven't done any scrapping since I have come home from Wanaka despite not having the boys here. On Friday I have my assessment at the gym & then we'll have dinner with mum & pick the boys back up again.

Next week is the last week of the holidays & we will be shopping for school clothes & new summer clothes for Brent. I would also like to take the boys caching but we'll have to see how it goes. Maybe a picnic might be good too.

Geocaching

We left Invercargill on Tuesday & drove back to Wanaka. Wednesday & Thursday we did geocaching around the area.

On Wednesday we went into Cromwell & found the fruiful cache quite near the fruity sign. The next cache we went to was in the Cromwell cemetry. Unfortunately we didn't have the print off to tell us what we were looking for & couldn't find anything. We then carried on to Bannockburn & found 2 caches up in the sluicings. That is a very interesting place to look at & I want to go back there again & walk to Stewart Town. It was lunchtime by the time we did those so we went & had lunch at a little cafe on the road to Queenstown between Bannockburn & Cromwell. After lunch we drove back to a nasty nor west wind in Wanaka.

On Thursday we went back to the Cromwell cemetry this time we knew exactly what to do so we watered Private Ryan's rosebush. There was no actual cache to be found but it was nice to know we were doing a good deed by watering the rosebush. We then went to Roaring Meg & found one of the caches there. There are 2 in that area but one of them is down by the river & they siggest it is not a good one for children to go to. Scott & I will have to do it one time when it is just us down that way. We then carried on through the gorge & went up the top of the Crown Range where there was another cache which had a travel bug in it. We left the bug in there as apparently the owner wanted to have photos taken of it on a ski field. We knew we were leaving the next day so we left it behind. Jumped back in the car & went back home.

I have been to places I didn't know existed with this cool new hobby & Brent & Scott really enjoy it too. I think James enjoys the finding of the cache rather than the driving to get to them but it takes us to some very interesting places.

I only took a few photos of us caching.

James' Birthday

We opened presents first thing in the morning. Unfortunately we had left james' present at home in our wardrobe. After playing with his lego off shore racing boat we decided to go geocaching. We went off to find the Henry the Tuatara cache. There were a few paople hanging around so we went inside the museum to see the real tuatara. It was a cold bleak day so Henry wasn't actually out of his tunnel but we did get to see a couple of baby tuatara and a couple of older ones.

We went back to the house for lunch & then went out to Edendale to find another cache. This was Brent's first find, no arguements from James because he was sound asleep in the car. We then headed back to Invercargill for afternoon tea at Zookeepers followed by dinner at Robin & Phyllis' place. Phyllis made James' favourite cake for his birthday cake. It was a lolly cake which she very cleverly shaped into a big 5.

Magnus & Danja

We loved getting to see Magnus & Danja. The boys enjoyed the fact that they could really start to play with Danja. Last time they saw her was Christmas time when she was just over a year old. She is closer to 2 years old now & is more able to play with the boys.

I loved holding Magnus, he's such a snuggly little boy.



Scott also got to hold him.


Even Brent wanted a turn at holding him.


I also got to have a few (very few) cuddles from Danja.

Christchurch to Invercargill

We packed up our car on Friday & headed down to Wanaka, leaving home at about 3:30. We had a very pleasant trip down with a stop at Geraldine for a fish & chip dinner which we ate in the car. We arrived in Wanaka at about 8:45 with the boys asleep in the back.

We stayed Saturday night at Wanaka & then on Sunday we had lunch at the Wanaka dinosaur park with Lara & her children & Nik. It was fantastic to meet these scrappers in real life after talking over the internet with them for the past months. Unfortunately Brent decided that he wasn't going fast enough down the slide & decided to sit on his polar fleece & he spun out of control incurring a black eye for his exploits. That ended the lunch & we got in the car to go to Invercargill via the Crown range. James fell asleep at about Frankton & then by Kingston Brent was asleep too & neither really woke up until just short of Invercargill.

I have to say I love this sign on the outskirts of Invercargill, it should go quite nicely with a photo I took at Easter time of the Indian going along the Wanaka runway.



We arrived at Robin & Phyllis' & had time for a cup of coffee before Erin & Neil arrived with Magnus.

Brent's Effort Card

Friday also saw Brent bringing home his effort card for the last part of the term. He was very proud of it, and with very good reason.

You can't ask more of a child than that.

Well done Brent what another fantastic term you've had.

James' last day at Kindy - Fri 15 September

The last day of kindy what a wreck I was that day. I still can't believe that my baby boy is going to school in 2 weeks. He made a playdough cake with 5 candles on it. To my great surprise he wanted us to say the colours in Maori as each candle was lit. He has never even wanted to count to 5 in Maori before but with Ngam & Kirsty's help he was able to say the colours. His profile book was given to him, it had been finished for quite some time because we thought he was going to school a term early.

At the end of mat time we got Joseph, Ammon & Rhianna to stand with James so we did get a photo of his friends before he left kindy.

Brent's Cross Country - Thurs 14 September

It was a beautiful warm sunny day, maybe a bit warm to be running around the course but there was an iceblock for everyone at the end of the prize giving. At this level it is just expected that everyone will participate & everyone gets a certificate of completion. In year 3 & 4 they run around the track 4 times (the young ones only go around twice) & can even win a cup for winning the race.

Brent ran a good race & let people climb up & over the stairs before him. He isn't competitive in this type of thing so was quite happy to come in the middle of his class. He ran well within himself so I think next year he does at least have the stanima to run around the course 4 times.

The Week Coming Up

Well everyone this is James' last week at kindy. He won't be there on Wednesday because he will be having a school visit until after lunch. He has been buddied up with a friend he met at Gymbaroo & he seems to be really starting to find his feet at Medbury. He seems more comfortable there than at kindy now & when i go to pick him up at mat time at kindy he is often not sitting with his kindy friends. he complains to me that they are so loud. It's funny really because I noticed Ronan did the same thing to James before Ronan left for school. I think it is just a sign that he is ready for school.

Scott starts his holidays on Thursday & he has already organised to have the electrician come in & fix our electrical problems on Thursday morning. Brent has his cross country on Thursday so James & I will go & cheer him on at that.

Friday will be an emotional day for me. James will be having his little leaving kindy presentation around midday. I'll be there with camera in my hand, hopefully getting some good photos. The end of my association with kindy isn't really until the end of the year after I hand over the reigns of the library & resign from the kindy committee. After we have picked up Brent we will bring him home, get him changed & then hit the road. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up some fish & chips in Geraldine or Tekapo on our way through.

We'll be heading down to Invercargill after lunch on Sunday & then having James' birthday in Invercargill. James is looking forward to it & we are all looking forward to meeting Magnus.

Keep well everyone & I will probably catch up with all my family some time in the next two weeks.

Geocaching

We gave Scott a handheld GPS unit for fathers day this year. He has had a lot of fun learning a bit about it so as today was such a nice day I asked if he thought we were ready to try geocaching.

Geocaching is like a treasure hunt using a GPS unit to find where the cache is. I found one called Why Maree? on http://www.geocaching.com I guessed that it would be near us & sure enough we headed out to the Groynes to try & find a cache. It really was a lot of fun & took us a good 20 minutes to walk to the cache area & then it took us about 10 minutes to find the cache. Inside the cache there was a notebook that we wrote a message in to say that we had found it. There was also some stuff we could swap if we wanted but we really didn't have anything appropriate to leave in it so we just hid the cache again.

We all enjoyed it although that photo doesn't make it look like James did. He was pretty tired but has decided he wants to try & find more.

I am hoping we can make this a family event once a week, especially in the summer. I have already gone back to the website & found some places to look in Invercargill & Central for our upcoming holiday.

James' Birthday party

We had James' birthday party yesterday. He invited 5 of his best friends from kindy & also Amy & Andrew. Having 8 boys running around certainly made things loud but we were very lucky that it did not run. We started offf with a treasure hunt & then had a pinata. After that energy burn off we played pass the parcel. Around 2:30 I brought out the cake not that James was very interested in eating it. He was more excited to play with his new lego knights. We finally got him up to the table to do the cake thing.

After that the boys went back outside to play rugby until it was pick up time.

We also let james have his birthday dinner last night. His choice was predictable so off to Mcd's we went. Unfortunately we had to go to the Riccarton one (because it is the one near us with a playground)& it is just awful. The playroom stank, the floor was sticky & most of the tables hadn't been cleaned off. I think I really prefer the Papanui one but it doesn't have the play area which is what James wanted.

I think James had a very tiring but happy day.

Latest Layouts

Since being back from Crafting Connection I have been doing some layouts. I have been doing a digital scrapping course through http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com

A couple of these layouts are from that course. The Boy oh buoy one & the Everyday one.

Craft connection 2006

I had a wonderful time at Crafting Connection & was thrilled to have my photo taken with Ali Edwards, Donna Downey & Cathy Zielske. I felt very inspired when I came away from all the classes even if I was a bit exhausted by the end of the weekend. The sad part was missing so many events back at home but that really is Murphy's law, everything exciting will always happen when you aren't able to be there.

I am hoping to be able to share some of my completed layouts/projects from Crafting Connection once they are completed.