New Toy!

We are now the proud owners of some pretty sweet wind surfing equipment. Yahoo! Dave found some great equipment on trademe (NZ's version of ebay), and then disappeared for several hours on Friday. Nice. The winds were a little lighter on Sunday, but he still had a good time (or at least a great work out), and I can verify that because I couldn't hear him swearing from the beach.

Also, the kids and I had fun helping him rig and then hanging out at the beach, especially when Bryon and Rupertt showed up to teach us how to pass a rugby ball too. I'm still a little bit chicken to get back on the board myself, but I'm working up to it.

Blues Weekend

This is a delayed post about a wonderful weekend we had in August, where Bryon, Amy, Pascal, Helen, Andrew, Chuck, and Amy came over for the "Winter Blues" Festival. Blues, while sipping wine outside on a sunny day at a vineyard?? Doesn't seem right, but it was fun. Later that night, we went to a more appropriate venue (at the the ATV club house). None of my blues pictures turned out, but here we are the next day, hanging out at the beach, not feeling very "bluesy" at all.

Here come the local hoods!

Isaac had his school performance yesterday, where he played one of Jack's friends, a rowdy bunch of rock and roll boys, whose desperate mum gives them some magic beans, just to get them out of the house! Oh wait, (Isaac's line) "Here come the local hoods!" and all of the Little Red Riding Hoods come onto stage. Pretty cute, but I had to have Isaac explain the whole plot to me after wards. They end up singing and dancing for the giant (played by friend Sam), and he gives them a magic goose. When the mom asks later where they got the golden goose, they all said "It's a long story"

Here is my "rock and roll" boy, getting into character.

Happy Anniversary

We celebrated our anniversary this week. It's been a great 14 years!

Some of Nikolas' class mates

Nikolas took some pictures of some of his class mates before the play.

Nikolas' School Play

The Te Huruhi Senior production of "Wanda Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" was really cute, with each class writing and performing a skit. Nikolas played a tree, which gets turned into chocolate (yikes! Isaac was very upset at this part in the play), but then he gets turned back again and everything is all right. Doesn't he look very tree-like here?

They sang a lot of candy songs, so leading up to the performance our house was filled with "sweet" music like...

Lollipop, Lollipop, oooh lolli lollipop

and

Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down,
the medicine go down, the medicine go down

and

Wouldn't it be nice if the world were chocolate...

and

C-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e I just can't wait! I'd like to
thank the person who invented chocolate!"

and a bunch of others. Sweet!

By the way "lollies" here are not necessarily lollipops, but refer to any kind of candy. This is some very important vocabulary that we are picking up here.

Cat in a Hammock

Laundry day, and I'm washing the boys' sheets today. I'm hanging the fitted sheets up on the line, the wind is blowing, and our favorite green-eyed tabby comes over for some loving. It's windy and cold, but I take some time out to snuggle with her, and then go back to hanging up the rest of the sheets. By the time I grab the laundry basket, I notice that the tabby had jumped up and is swinging inside one of the fitted sheets and is using it like a hammock. Sweet girl.

Hilly Runs

Well, even though we are at sea level, you can get pretty hilly runs here on the rock. Here's the elevation pics from two "MapMyRuns.com". Both are ~6 K runs, the top one from our house here on Huia St over along Queen St, and the bottom one from our house in Cobblestone, up to the Knob and back. The Knob run was considerably harder, and when you look at the elevation comparisons, maybe now I know why. :-)

Kayaking

Dave and I took Kei Te Lightning for a spin out to Kennedy Point this morning. We rode a few waves (ok, that's a little exaggerated), and we admired a neat little rookery near Surfdale. It must be Spring because all of the birds are paired up together. They looked like they found us mildly amusing, looking down from their nests at us, but otherwise didn't seem to think we were much of a threat. I like riding behind Dave in the kayak. We go much faster and farther than we do when I just imagine him there.

Huia St

We live on Huia St, and I just learned what a huia is (or was). It used to be a very popular and sacred bird among the Maori people, where only the most prestigious chiefs were allowed to wear their feathers and skin. Unfortunately, they were admired into extinction about a century ago, but there are still some of their relatives around and I'll keep my eyes out for them.

The painting to the right shows the different male (front) and female beaks. One was better at chiseling away tree bark to get at insects and spiders, but the female was better at boring into deeper holes to get at them. Other than that, they looked very similar to each other.




Also, to get to our street, you have to turn off the main road onto Moa street. A moa used to be a very impressive wingless bird, that looked like a huge emu, standing up to 12 feet tall and weighing up to 510 lbs. At the Auckland Museum, I was just as impressed with the moa skeleton as I was with the dinosaur skeletons. I guess they were pretty easy to catch and pretty yummy, and they were hunted into extinction around 1500 AD.











Also, to get to our street, you have to turn left onto Kiwi St. The kiwi, I am happy to report, is alive and well.