Easter Sunday

The children were all up ridiculously early to check to see if the Easter Bunny had been. And surprisingly enough he had. There was chocolate everywhere!

The children were given 10 minutes to consume as much chocolate as they wanted and then time for church.

Chocolate and then Church. What a way to start the day!

In the afternoon it was decided to go down to the reserve to burn off a few chocolate calories and have a few hard-boiled egg and spoon races. Both adults and children took part in the races and sad to say the level of fair play in evidence was quite limited. There was not one race marred with one controvesy or antoher, but we all had heaps of fun. They were so much fun they may have to become part of the Easter tradition!

Tick Follows Tock

Maunday Thursday and we have visitors again. Sharon, Mike Frankie & Sonny decided that they would arrive a day early to stay with us. The last holiday park they had planned to stay at turned out to be a little bit of a dump. So Sharon rang late Thursday afternoon to ask if they could come a day early. Needless to say we had left the housework to the last minute but we managed to rush home, do a bit of frantic cleaning, tidying and food shopping we were then able to open the doors to Meadowbank Backpackers Hostel with confidence.

The weather was considerably better than it had been when they arrived - bright sunshine rather than heavy rain - and we decided that on Good Friday we would away to Piha beach to take advantage of the late summer sun, picnic and surfing. (Over here Easter is seen as the official end to the summer, so any sunny days after that are seen as a bonus!)

The day at Piha was very successful. We had a picnic on the beach with sandwiches containing the obligatory sprinkling of black volcanic sand. The children had a great time building sand boats and sand castles, sand surfing, pretending to be pirates, paddling and for Joe & Millie some surfing too. Jes and Mike were not to be outdone by the children and after some posturing, borrowed the children's boogie boards and spent the next hour trying to catch the perfect wave! Highly entertaining for all the spectators. The men definitely need to work on their technique.

Sonny didn't really enjoy himself as much as the rest but then it transpired that he was a very poorly bunny and had to seek hospital treatment over the whole of the Easter weekend, so much so that flights to HK had to be delayed until he was well enough to travel! Fortunately he did get better in time for them to fly to HK on Easter Monday evening.

End of Term 1

Wow - that went fast!

One term over and done. I think it can be safely said that the children had a great term. They made loads of friends, worked hard and played hard. they even have the callouses on their hands to prove that last bit! Nearly every day after school they play in the school adventure playground for about an hour - climbing walls, slides, and loads of monkey bars. It's the monkey bars that have given them and nearly every other child at school callouses galore on their hands.

During the last week of term the senior students in Mt Carmel (the juniors) were asked to decorate an egg with winners being given Easter eggs as prizes. Joe, not surprisingly, chose to decorate his as Jonathan Falefasa Umaga better known as Tana Omaga an All Black. I'm sure you can spot the similarities!

All it took was one boiled egg, two black balloons, some kitchen roll, some white paper and some super glue & there you have Tana Umaga!! Blue Peter eat your heart out!

The Cricket Tournament

Today was the day Joe has been looking forward to for weeks. This was the 11 a-side cricket tournament held at Dilworth School in Remuera. There were schools from all over the Eastern Suburbs but to make it more manageable each school would only play 2 matches with an hour each innings.

Joe was playing for Mt Carmel A team and was very proud of the fact. His team played Meadowbank Primary (a very local derby) and Dilworth School.

Mt Carmel A won the first match and lost the second match.

Joe played extremely well but is still learning of the importance of good sportsmanship - let's just leave it at that!

Daddy's Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow!

We can stay all day!
Today we went off to the Auckland Zoo. Joe and Millie were excited at the prospect of seeing a real-live kiwi bird and a crocodile! Guess who wanted to see which!
Neither were disappointed although both the kiwi and the alligators were pretty shy and they weren't available for a photo shoot.We had taken a picnic so we did manage to stay most of the day. One of the highlights definitely had to be one of the lionesses playing with a large blue plastic barrel. She picked it up and carried it to the pool where she dropped it in. Because it was relatively big and had several puncture marks in it sank quickly but kept bobbing on the surface. This was obviously what she wanted. She spent the next 5 minutes playing with it and making it bob about even more before she decided to drag it out of the water completely. She actually looked like she was enjoying her playtime.

At the end of the visit Millie was very excited to the visit the gift shop. It gave her an opportunity to use her EFTPOS card for the first time. With it and with birthday money from Auntie Avril, Millie bought this little chap. As with every soft toy to enter our house we had to think of a name. Millie finally settled on "Auckland".

The future is EFTPOS

One of Millie's friends from school, Olivia, told us that she had an EFTPOS card and her own bank account. Both Joe & Millie thought this was amazing - not the bank account bit but owning your own EFTPOS card!
After quite extensive research and a few blind alleys we found a bank that would allow the children to open their own bank account and also supply the desired card.
Joe & Millie are now proud owners of their own cards!
In NZ EFTPOS is everywhere and there seems to be no minimum spend either. This makes it perfect for the children to go and spend their pocket money in the local dairy (corner shop) and get an ice-cream or lollies (sweets).

On the one hand this does take a lot of pressure off Mum & Dad because they don't have to dip into their own pockets for such treats quite so often but it now means that Mum & Dad have to remember to pay the pocket money on a regular basis. Fortunately we can do a transfer over the Internet so we don't even have to have the right change!

The Camper Van

Wednesday 14th March
Today our visitors went to pick up their camper van. Joe and Millie are very envious of their trip and spending all those nights sleeping on the top bunk. Frankie was also very excited to be continuing his road trip. They finally set off after a lunch at Mission Bay and a big shop at New World supermarket. They had to make a detour via Rutherford Terrace on the way out which was timed well as they were able to say adieu to Joe and Millie after they had returned from school.