April School Holidays

Well that's another one over! We began these school holidays with a shocking few days of cold and wet. But that didn't deter us. For those few days I worked hard while Molly and Alfie had fun wrapping the cats up in towels when they came in from the rain. They didn't seem to mind?

Talking of caring (?) for animals, there are heaps of Monarch butterflies around at the moment and we found one with a damaged wing in the garden. The kids named him/her "Braveheart".

It couldn't fly, so Molly collected flowers for it to eat while Alfie googled what to do with an injured Monarch butterfly. He actually found a Monarch Butterfly Hospital website which detailed how to cut the damaged wing off and create a new one. I didn't let him do it!


Then Molly got all her old toys out and spread them over every floor and table she could find. It wasn't easy to walk around the house. Ninja ate a Sylvanian, then he sicked it back up again. Other than that it was a good plan during the wet weather and she loved rediscovering everything.

Other than that, we well and truly made the most of Jake's connections to the film industry, and went to the movies TWICE! And of course there was lots of arts and crafts going on too. I knew that stack of toilet rolls that had accumulated under the bath would come in useful one day!

When we got fed up of the house (and the cinema!), we headed down to Te Papa. They have an amazing Air New Zealand exhibition there at the moment.

Alfie and I went together a few weeks ago and he was
desperate to show Molly everything.

As well as all the history, there's a little bit about the partnership with DOC that Jake was involved with a couple of years ago (very proud children!), there's a screen which allows you to design your own aircraft (it was created in pink and red with ferns and photos of Molly all over it), a real aeroplane engine to look at, a cabin to sit in, and much more. You even get to dress up in the crew uniforms! 

Then the rain lifted and we spent the rest of the holidays outdoors, yay! The arts and crafts moved a couple of metres to the left, ie outdoors...

Then the kids took me scootering around the neighbourhood!

I got the old broken scooter :( It was little nerve wracking to start with, especially as the front wheel wobbled, but I secretly had lots of fun!

We went all around the streets, to the park, and to the local cafe!

However this is Wellington, and Wellington is often described as being similar to a large University campus. Which meant of course that I bumped into people I knew and had to explain myself. I'm not quite sure my image was quite what it should be in these posh mountain suburbs, but to be honest it never has been so I may just get the scooter out again one day soon!

We also walked up the mountain together one afternoon. It was the first time Alfie's been in ages and it was the first time he didn't complain at all. He practically ran up. He's growing up!

The Gym competition season is looming closer now, and in the second week of the holidays Molly had nearly 7 hours of training at the Club! Outside of training, she still practised hard everywhere we went. She's finally cracked the handstand-forward-roll and the straight-legged-backward-roll. But cartwheels remain her firm favourite and once again she cartwheeled around the city.

It was all over too quickly, as usual, and it's back to school this week. Although with Anzac Day being Monday-ized this year, we have a nice long weekend coming up!