Is It All In My Head

Fiji…oh, wait, no, Australia

This Easter we had planned to go to Fiji, taking the girls out of school a few days early and enjoying a nice relaxing tropical holiday, lots of cocktails by the pool and the girls tucked away at the kids club.  Alas, mother nature had a different plan, and Fiji was stuck by catastrophic floods, and an impending cyclone.  We made new plans, and headed for Broadbeach, just south of Brisbane.

Sandcastle on Broadbeach

We found a great hotel with a big pool for the girls, Read more of this post

Chloe!!

This weekend we finally decided it was time to bring a new dog into the family.  We’ve really missed having a dog, and we’re very excited to have Chloe.  She is a cavoodle – half cavalier king charles and half poodle – and is currently seven weeks old.  She is a lovely apricot and white colour, with floppy little cavalier ears and a slightly curly poodle coat.

She is truly a little baby – sleeps a lot during the day, cries all night, and wees all the time.  Mostly outside, because the girls take her outside ALL the time (any excuse to carry her around for a few minutes), but occasionally indoors.  Still, she’s doing very well for a seven week old.

The girls couldn’t be more excited, they had been pleading with us for months to get a new puppy.  We’ve learned from experience that there is a right way and a wrong way to bring up a dog, and we’re hoping that this time we’ll get it right, and have her with us for many happy years.

Excited new Chloe owners

Chloe, 7 weeks

Going to the zoo zoo zoo

To see the baby giraffe!  And to put my children into some meerkat holes!  All had a great time.

Baby and Mum

Finally, a way to contain the girls!

Giraffe Family

Afternoon at the beach

The summer of 2011/12 will go down in New Zealand history as the summer that wasn’t.  Rainy, windy, and cold, we waited and waited for the good weather, and every time we had a warm sunny day, we got all excited and thought, at last – summer has arrived!  By half way through February, we realised it really wasn’t coming.   So if we did have a good day, we’ve really tried to make the most of it.   The sun came out last Monday so after school we went straight to the beach.  The girls had a fantastic time exploring the rock pools at St Heliers Bay, and running around the shallows of the ocean as the tide raced in. Days like this remind me of how wonderful Auckland really is, and how lucky we are in New Zealand to have almost universal access to clean safe beaches.  Paradise.

Girls at St Heliers Beach

More photos after the jump. Read more of this post

More water sports

Madeleine has been having a very wet term so far, with swimming sports almost every day.  She’s been heavily in training for school swimming sports, which were held last week, and she came up trumps with two second places in her heats.  She’s also joined a Flippa Ball team and plays every week against local primary school teams.  She absolutely loves it, even though they lose as often as they win.  Here are a couple of pics of her in water sports mode.

Swimming sports glory

Maddy at Flippa Ball

Update – Madeleine won player of the day at the weekend, here she is with her trophy, and prize

Player of the Day! (and prize)

Water slide

Today was a BIG day. Well, not really big, kind of a big little day. I didn’t split the atom or cure cancer, but Lucia did go on a water slide for the first time. I’m very proud.

Madeleine turns 9

And so, on 1/2/12, Madeleine turned 9.  This must be auspicious, for she was born on 1/2/03, another pleasingly easy to remember date.  We celebrated by going out for dinner and having the restaurant (our favourite Italian, NSP in Parnell) deliver a chocolate cake to the birthday girl.  Alas, this is the only photo I took the entire day, and its really not a very good one.

Madeleine turns 9

I did get another photo the next day when she  put on her some of the new clothes she got from her Nana for her birthday:

Madeleine's new clothes

Madeleine did have a great day, in spite of the fact it was also the first day of school for the year. (And yes, I did breath a huge sigh of relief when I was able to pull away from the school gate and then pull up at the door of a cafe, walk in, and sit down by myself.  Not the least because I am half way through radiation therapy and its not much fun for anyone to drag the girls along to that fun fair every morning.)

So, thats the blog up to date!  2012 has begun in pretty good form, and lets hope it only continues to improve.

Butterfly Creek & Rocket Ropes, January 2012

Another perennial holiday favourite for all Aucklanders with children is Butterfly Creek.  As well as the obligatory butterfly enclosure (which is kept at a very balmy tropical temperature and makes me feel rather faint within about 10 minutes) it has a great petting zoo, crocodiles, a minature train, and a cafe, and is next door to Rocket Ropes, an adventure rope-climbing type malarky.  I can’t explain.  There are photos below.

The girls were hugely excited when the butterflies started landing on them.  First, Madeleine attracted this little specimen:

Madeleine @ Butterfly Creek

But Lucia really attracted the big kahuna with her flower headband:

Lucia @ Butterfly Creek

We were about to leave the enclosure when it alighted on her again, this time on her arm, and we almost had to shoo it away so that we could leave: Read more of this post

School Holidays, January 2011

And so the holidays rolled on, with rain, rain and more bloody rain.  There were more sunny days in January than December, so we managed to go to the zoo, the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT), and walk around the top of Mt Wellington (no we didn’t walk all the way up there, there is a perfectly good car park just below the summit and it seemed rude not to use it).

Girls at the zoo, January 2012

MOTAT January 2012

Mt Wellington trig station January 2012

We visited cafes, including the wonderful Catroux in Westmere:

Lucia the artist

Madeleine the artist

And the very innovative Kohu Road Cafe and Creamery in New Lynn.  Kohu Road makes gourmet ice-cream, and have possibly the only cafe in the world with a caravan in the corner.  The girls had a fantastic time playing inside it.

Kohu Road cafe caravan

Russell, January 2012

After leaving Lucia on the boat, the rest of us headed to the Russell Orongo Bay Holiday Park.  We had booked five days in a cabin, but alas within minutes of arriving I remembered why I hadn’t been camping for approximately ten years – I actually hate camping.  At least, in a concrete “cabin” that is about four meters square, filled only with four beds and a bar fridge.  With shared bathroom facilities and hordes of ernest, ukulele playing teenagers meters away from the door.

Surprisingly, Madeleine also had a bit of a meltdown upon leaving her sister.   Read more of this post