End of Year Chaos

Our lives have been ridiculously full lately. 

Full of Christmas planning, Christmas shopping, parties, concerts, school functions, the village fair, social events...etc, etc, etc. 

The local outdoor swimming pool is now open for the season, so we’ve been hanging out there a bit, enjoying the weather. 

We’ve put the Christmas tree up, decorated the house, written letters to Santa – and visited him at the local mall too.

It’s not all been kids’ stuff though. We went to our friend’s 40^th party last week, which was a lot of fun, and we also held our annual Christmas drinks party at home at the weekend (we always try to hold one wherever in the world we are).

We had a great day on Sunday supporting Jake on his new ocean swimming hobby –the kids spent all afternoon collecting pipi shells and jellyfish (luckily not stingers!) on the beach, while the adults relaxed with a beer and strawberries – it was all great until Jake whipped off his wetsuit and revealed his speedos (it kind of ruined the relaxed moment ;)

Not so special was when I was stung last week by an Australian Paper Wasp. Typical that I managed to survive a year in Central Australia without getting bitten or stung by anything, and then I move back to NZ and an Aussie insect gets me! 

Within 24 hours my entire upper arm had swelled up to double its normal size and it itched and burnt like crazy all at the same time. Since my weekend was so packed I had to make do with a mild antihistamine from the pharmacy rather than getting to the doctor’s for something stronger – it made the torture last a little longer, but it’s slightly less inflamed today so at least I’m finally on the mend.

On top of all this we also have two very tired children – as I think all Kiwi kids are at the moment. Not only are they completely worn out from all the extra goings-on at this time of year, but sleep has become a big issue in our household and it feels like we’ve regressed a few years!

Gone are our pleasant evenings where the kids are in bed asleep by 7pm. Thanks to the warm, muggy nights and the late sun, our children aren’t managing to get to sleep until 9pm ish – but even though they’re not able to get to sleep they’re actually extremely tired which means our evenings are spent dealing with tantrums and meltdowns and tears and other such behaviour. Grrrrrr!!!

But despite all this, I must quote some excerpts from their school reports, which they both received this week and made us very proud.

Alfie:

“Alfie is an active participant in both group and mat time and has been a pleasure to teach. He particularly enjoys construction and ball games. Alfie is progressing through the reading programme and....he is currently reading emergent level books. Alfie’s passion for learning is evident when he engages in physical activities.” 

(Note the recurring theme of active and physical for Alfie!)

Molly:

“Molly is a quiet, helpful and considerate student who always makes responsible choices. She is reading accurately, at a level that surpasses the expected level for her time at school. Molly takes pride in the standard of her written work, checking the success criteria before handing it in. Molly has produced some detailed artwork this year and her art has been used as a model for others on occasion. It has been a joy teaching Molly this year."

(Awwww, well done Molly! x) 

Concert Season

It’s a crazy time of year.

Over the last week we’ve had daily Christmas/birthday/end of year/leaving parties to go to (in fact often it's been more than one a day) and our children have been in so many concerts and performances that the muscles around my mouth are aching from smiling so much and my hands are sore from clapping! 

Molly’s school Christmas concert last week was beautiful - 140 children all dressed up, dancing and singing. Molly had spent the morning sleeping off the last of her various viruses and was clearly still a little bit sleepy during the concert, but she desperately wanted to be there and she really did give it her absolute best effort, despite still not having much energy.

Alfie’s pre-school Christmas celebration the next day was fun and I LOVED it. He had the very important job of holding up a cardboard box racing car during one of the songs – the kids had made up their own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, which went something like this: 

“On the first day of Christmas, Santa gave to me....ten skateboards flipping, nine spidermen climbing, eight racing cars, seven Dora glasses, six watches ticking, five toy snakes.....four fairies dancing, three teddy bears, two unicorns and a bath tub full of chocolate”. Cute!

Molly also had her ballet concert last week, in which she was AMAZING and such a joy to watch. The theme was modern music/dance in the 21st Century, and I think she really enjoyed performing to something a bit fun and different.

At the end of the show the girls in her class were all presented with their Grade 1 certificates (she passed!) which was a very special and proud moment for her (and us too).

And today she's had her end of year gymnastics display. The older girls in her gym club were amazing, and I actually felt like I was watching real Olympic gymnastics!

But Molly's group are the youngest in the club - so they did a basic forward roll, backward roll, handstand routine to the Chariots of Fire theme tune. Very cute!

Triathlon Man - and a lot of viruses

It’s been a really tough couple of weeks in the Hughes-Downing household.

First, Alfie came down with Croup. On day 3 I woke up to find him struggling to breathe, so I rushed him into the doctor’s to be told we’d got him just in the nick of time and if I’d left it until the evening he’d probably be in hospital on a nebuliser.

Thanks to steroids, he made a relatively quick recovery at home .

On the day he started feeling better, Molly came home from school with a fever and sore throat and then on Day 4 she woke up unable to walk or use her legs at all.

Cue some serious panic from me.

Thank goodness for New Zealand’s “Healthline”, which means we have trained nurses at the end of the phone 24/7 any day of the year. One phone call later and a few questions from the nurse and I was told to get her straight down to the emergency after hours doctor.

Here came the problem: we are a one-car family and Jake was at the other end of the city, with the car, doing his first Triathlon and therefore not answering his mobile phone (why I even tried it I have no idea, but my brain wasn’t working too well that morning). Instead, I called a couple of friends to see if they could take us but it was 7.30am on a Sunday morning and unsurprisingly I got no replies from anyone.

One very expensive taxi ride later, and she was diagnosed with a combination of influenza, bronchitis, laryngitis and a mystery virus which had affected her muscles. That's a lot of bugs for such a little girl! 

Two visits to the doctor later and we finally got the antibiotics we needed to get her back on track. Yesterday she even managed to get dressed and we got her outside in the garden for a bit. I’m hoping she might even get back to school tomorrow (she’s had a whole week off already). 

Oh - and for those who are wondering.... Jake really enjoyed the triathlon, completed it much faster than he'd hoped for, and managed to come first in his age group/category! (I shouldn't really point this part out, but I can't resist: he was actually the only person in his age group/category!) 

Things I'm Loving...

Just a little list of some of the things I'm loving at the moment...

New Zealand’s Wildlife
Recently I’ve had to remain content with watching giant orb spiders (yikes) and tuis (beautiful birds) from my window – I don’t mind as they are amazing to see, but Jake’s been having a far cooler time over on Kapiti Island this week (another work trip) and sent me this awesome picture of a kaka who jumped onto his knee and tried to grab his lunch.

We also took the kids to the Marine Education Centre at Island Bay last weekend, and it truly blew us away! What an amazing place. Molly was completely in her element as she was allowed to touch and pick up different species of star fish, kina*, anemones and crabs. I definitely recommend this place if you're in Wellington and are interested in marine life. 

  

Springtime

New Zealand really comes alive at this time of year and we've had so much sunshine. OK so it means the garden’s getting out of control, the grass is ankle high (and the lawn mower's broken, dammit) and I’ve got my work cut out with all the weeding - but thanks to a very cool water slide gift from Mark and Sam I've found a great way to keep Alfie occupied while I do the gardening...!

Also we have so many more hours in the day now, as the sun rises early and doesn’t set until about 8.30pm. Beautiful sunsets over the mountains, peaceful early morning walks...ahhhhh, I’m just loving it!

Living by the Bush, Mountains and Sea 
You can't beat Wellington for its setting, and I really, truly appreciate having the bush and mountains on our doorstep.

Jake's been enjoying the odd swim in the sea in his lunch hour this week, while I have been doing quite a bit of bush walking (actually, make that bush-pottering-around) with Alfie.

Often we end up at Tyers Stream where Alfie can happily spend hours poking around looking for crayfish and mayflies, or if not then he'll find some mud to squidge around in, some fallen branches to drag around or something to hang off. 

The Funny Things Kids Say
At dinner time yesterday Alfie asked “Mum, can you buy me a hearing aid for my birthday please?” First I had to double check that he’d actually really asked me for a hearing aid and it wasn’t just another misunderstanding of his Kiwi accent...but yep, he really does want a hearing aid for his birthday. His reason? Because then when people boss him around he can turn it off. (What a great idea!)

The Brother & Sister Friendship
Although he claims not to like girls, Alfie often describes Molly as his best friend. They're so close in size that we often get asked if they're twins - Molly thinks it's hilarious. I love how they do everything together and look after each other so well.... xx

*The kina is a type of sea urchin which is endemic to New Zealand. It’s a traditional Maori food, a spiky looking thing with a beautiful green shell. I love them (to look at, not to eat).  

Tramping in Wellington

If walking (or "tramping") is your thing, then Wellington is a pretty perfect place to live in. There are bush reserves, coastal tracks, heritage trails and mountain walks all around the city.

Over the last 18 months we’ve become regular users of some of these tracks and trails, but we have been a little guilty of using and re-using the same few favourite tracks.

So this week, Alfie and I decided to explore some new ones.

We looked through the website www.tracks.org.nz and chose the Piwakawaka Track because....well honestly? Just because we thought the name sounded cool!*

It starts off as a pretty easy walk along a well maintained track which climbs up gently to an open area where there's a big water tank and some other equipment (for weather monitoring??). Alfie thought this was the coolest thing ever and asked lots of questions - how does the water get in, how does it get out, what's it for, etc - although unfortunately I couldn't answer a single one of his questions! (If anyone can help me out here, please feel free to provide information in the comments field below!)

Lucky the track was good as the little guy decided it was generally far more fun to be piggy-backed up it instead of using his legs. I got a good work out, but I'm not used to carrying 20 kgs on my back and  I collapsed in a heap at the top.

The views from the top were awesome and we spent a long time poking around looking at the city, the Westpac Stadium, the airport, Mount KauKau and Matiu Somes Island. I'd brought a flask of coffee with me and just as I thought to myself what a great spot it would be sit down and enjoy it, Alfie found the next part of the track - some downward steps and decided it was time to shoot off down them.

It didn't take me long to realise that lots of steps down means lots of steps back up again on the return journey - most likely with 20 kgs on my back. So we didn't go much further, and Alfie was forced to use his legs for the rest of the walk as it was mostly downhill. I'd love to do a bit more of the track though, so will have to train him better for next time - or develop my own muscles a bit more!

* The word "piwakawaka" is the Maori word for the New Zealand fantail bird. 

The last couple of weeks...

Part of my job is to ghost-write a weekly newspaper column about marketing and technology, and in the process of my research for an article this week I discovered that the first message ever sent over the internet (back in the 60’s) was “LOG”. It was in fact meant to read “LOGIN” but the computer system crashed before it was completed.

This really summed things up for me about working in my field as an online marketer, as I had just lost a whole section of a really important report I’d been writing when my laptop decided it didn’t really like working so hard and shut down. Grrrr! I was grateful that the sun was shining so I put things on hold and went for a big run to de-stress. (OK, it was actually only a 31 minute walk-run but a "big run" sounds so much better!) 

The last couple of weeks have involved a lot of very hard work by me and my laptop, and some late nights. 

But they’ve been a good couple of weeks, full of sunshine and happy times with the kids as well. The good weather means the car’s been left in the garage a lot and the scooters are being put to good use...

After school we’ve had lots of time relaxing in the garden (and sometimes not so relaxing). And on our “hanging out days” Alfie and I have enjoyed several lazy morning take-out coffees/fluffies in the park followed by a bit of pottering about in the stream getting muddy.

Alfie’s started tennis lessons this term and I must say he seems to be extremely good at it, he's a sporty little thing. A small class of just three boys means he gets plenty of attention from the coach and plenty of turns hitting the ball. 

Molly continues to practice dancing all the time, everywhere she goes. She's happy but is starting to get that "end of the school year syndrome" where she's extremely tired and is definitely in need of the long summer holidays (only 6 weeks to go now).  

Oh – and she's also made herself some pretend boobs. 

Work-Life Balance - and a lot of dancing

It’s been a big week for our little girl. On Thursday morning she took her Grade 1 ballet exam, which is a huge deal and a massive achievement for a six year old (well, I think so anyway!)

The level of emotion, excitement and hype in the dressing room beforehand was enough to make any adult burst into sobs, so I wasn’t surprised when Molly’s eyes welled up in panic tears a moment before she was due to go into the exam studio. 

But she managed to compose herself again a few seconds later, went on to do her exam successfully and came back out again smiling and giggling.

The hairstyle (using 75 hair clips, 6 hair bands, two hair nets, a tub of gel and half a can of hairspray) remained in place for the rest of the day as she wanted to show it off at school in the afternoon, and was kept in place until Jake came home from work at 7pm.

The next evening was followed by more dancing at the school Halloween Disco. I don’t remember going to any discos until I was at intermediate school, aged about 10. But these days they start them early and Molly’s been to about 4 or 5 already. I’m still not entirely sure that the playlist was completely appropriate for her age group (eg I’m Sexy and I Know It – but luckily Molly has interpreted the lyrics as I’m Sixteen and I Know It), and it’s crazy to watch the kids dancing and singing along to all the pop songs, word perfect.

The disco was preceeded by a “getting ready party” at her friend’s house where six girls squealed and shrieked for a couple of hours while they put their outfits and make up on, and was followed afterwards by a sleepover at her friend's house where I believe four girls squealed and shrieked until 10.20pm. They got up this morning at 5.30am – therefore Molly is a bit of a mess today! 

Meanwhile, I have taken on a number of extra freelancing projects lately which means I’m going to be working full time, 40 hours a week, for the next 3 weeks or so. Yikes!

I know, I know, people do it all the time. But Alfie’s only at pre-school for 15 hours a week and this is where the plan falls short. In order to fit the work in I will need to drop some other stuff out of my life for a while, eg cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, paperwork, school drop offs and pick ups, and taxi-ing to and from the kids activities. And house hunting? Ha ha, that’s not going to happen any time soon! I guess I also need to strike off the list zumba, coffee/cafes, playing the piano, walking up the mountain, reading, blogging and anything else that usually makes my life fun! 

Alternatively I could just reduce my sleep time down to 3.5 hours per night. I can handle that for a month, surely? Wish me luck... 

We ♥ Auckland (and Wellington too)

We love our new home town of Wellington. The size of the city suits us, its facilities are great, the people are awesome, the setting amongst the mountains and beach is stunning...and our list goes on and on.

But we do often miss our old home on Auckland’s North Shore. We miss the lifestyle and the people. So we’ve been talking and dreaming about a visit there for months now and have been keeping an eye out for low air fares. When a local bank ran a competition recently and Jake won $150, we put this question to our kids:  shall we buy new toys or shall we buy flights to Auckland. Phew – they chose Auckland!

So we made our trip last week. After we got over the initial shock of arriving in such a big city (no sarcasm intended here – Auckland may be a city of “just” 1.4 million, but in New Zealand terms that’s pretty massive and no other city in NZ comes close to that sized population. Not to mention the fact that our homes for the last 5 years have been in tiny, remote communities in other countries. So anyway, traffic, crowds of people larger than 1000 in one place, and lots of skyscrapers are a little out of the ordinary for us these days).

Anyway, after the first hour, we all settled right back into it, and enjoyed 4 days of re-visiting old haunts. Our old beach. Our old playpark. Our old house. Our old friends. Our old high street. Our old cafes. Our old walking routes. Molly didn't remember much from her early years, but the kids both loved it and we certainly packed a lot in and wore them out! It was just like old times, and surprisingly hard to leave at the end. 

After numerous debates about if and when we should move back up to Auckland one day, we were starting to feel quite confused. So when we flew back into Wellington yesterday I think Jake and I both felt some degree of relief when the scenes from the aeroplane windows began to fill our hearts up with that lovely feeling of being "home". Although this does all leave us in the slightly odd position of not really understanding where home is anymore...  

Food Additives

Our friends from Auckland have been staying with us for the last 6 days. They have two children, roughly the same age as ours, so with four under sixes in the house you can imagine how our days could have revolved around mealtimes, snacktimes, hunger, etc.

However, our friend’s little boy has a number of food intolerances, mainly surrounding additives like preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. So our food choices had to be made very carefully.

We're not a family who usually has great stocks of chippies (crisps to you English readers!), burgers, sugary drinks and such like in our cupboards. Although we do normally stock up on a few treats when we've got visitors coming! But anyway, I thought we'd be fine serving up most things we normally eat. 

With the help of my friend, I went through our fridge and cupboards and pulled out everything that had these additives in them and I was fairly gobsmacked to find how much I had underestimated our consumption of food additives.

Vegemite, hummus, pesto, rice crackers, gravy powder, tortilla wraps, ham, dried apricots, mustard, sausages, margarine – all our staple foods had to go!

(Ironically, our sugary strawberry jam and our stash of chocolate were free of additives and ok to stay!)

The need for our food to taste more sophisticated, look more pretty and keep fresh for longer is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s only really arisen in the last 50 years, but it seems to have skyrocketed in the last decade or two. Thousands of additives have become so normal and commonplace in our lives that we very often don’t even realise they’re there. The food industry is a fairly profitable one, and is using these chemicals to keep costs down and sales up, but I just wonder at what cost to our health?

Anyway, the consequence is that our kids have pretty much been on a detox for the last 6 days! I can’t promise that we’ll be able to remove all additives from our diet from now on with immediate effect (as that would mean an awful lot of our food supplies would need to be thrown out), but I’ll certainly be checking my food labels a lot more from now on.

The Wairarapa

It’s school holidays again, already! (Where did that last term go?)

We kicked things off this time with a few days holiday in the Wairarapa, a beautiful region north-east of Wellington which is famous for its vineyards, farming and wild coastline. For a change, we’d decided not to stay at a beach house this time, but chose to stay on the most delightful farm about half an hour inland from the coast - we had a little tin & wood cottage next to the farmhouse, very basic, but just perfect for us. 

On arrival, the kids belted out of the car and just ran and ran for hours around the farm, while Jake lay down on the sofa and read the paper and I tried to explore a bit. Unfortunately I didn't get very far as I was bullied by 3 large cows who blocked my pathway and gave me evil menacing stares, as if they were daring me to walk any further. I chose not to risk my life and returned to the cottage where I found the kids still running around (now caked in thick mud) and Jake still on the sofa (now playing games on his iPhone). 

By day 2 we were well and truly into the swing of things. The kids were now proudly responsible for feeding the farm's pet lamb 3 times a day and checking the chicken pen for fresh eggs,  and had both decided they wanted to remain on the farm for ever and never go home again.

But I persuaded everyone to explore a bit more and we managed to get down to the river, where we found the biggest pile of driftwood and set about making a teepee, digging mini rivers, and having stick throwing competitions. 

Meanwhile back at the farm we all completely and utterly enjoyed the feeling of being away from everything, with no phones, no internet and no TV. We played tennis, walked around the farm collecting big bags of pine cones, had pine cone throwing competitions (!), read books, drew pictures, and had plenty of very much needed sleep. 

The Wairarapa is an extremely beautiful and wild part of New Zealand and we feel very lucky to be living so close to it. In fact, much as we love our home city, we found it very difficult to return to Wellington - Molly in particular was in tears when she had to say goodbye to "Lamb Lamb" (named by the farmer's 2 year old Grandson, not by us!).

It was a great trip - big thanks to Karen & Clayton at the farm for making us feel so welcome! Next I need to plan loads of distractions for the rest of the holidays to take the kids' minds off their dearly missed animal friends!

Wellington's Best Playparks

I was planning to have a lazy start to the weekend this morning but having already been up for over 3 hours (and it’s still only 9am), the kids are getting restless and have come up with a grand plan for a “Playpark Tour”. Apparently we’re scheduling 84 of them in today.

Our whole family have invested a considerable amount of time at Wellington’s playparks over the last 18 months, so I thought I would put together a list of our favourites.

Wellington has 104 playparks so children are definitely very well catered for here! Most of them are pretty excellent, which makes choosing a top five list very difficult indeed and we have certainly left some good ones off this list.

But, in no particular order, here are our personal, all-time family favourites:

1.      Khandallah Park 

The flying fox here is a huge hit for our kids, as is the very long slide (which is frequently covered in bird poo, leading to very dirty bottoms and legs). The muddy stream is another drawcard and has also been responsible for many extra hours of laundry.

2.   Waitangi Park 

Also known as the “science park” in our family, on account of its water play area which allows for endless hours of “experiments”. Also, for some strange reason, every single time we go to Waitangi Park, we always bump into someone we know. The kids think it’s a guaranteed source of finding friends.

3.       Karori Park 

Mysteriously, it always turns out to be sunny when we go to Karori Park. It doesn’t matter what the weather’s like when we set out – by the time we reach Karori Park it’s cricket weather. We love this one for its 1km circuit path – it’s the best place to take bikes and scooters.

4.       Nairnville Park

A year ago Molly was stung by a bee here and it took us a wee while to get her back again as she was convinced the bee would still be sitting on the dandelion waiting for her. The long tunnel slide here is brilliant, as is the helicopter shaped climbing frame. So long as it’s not a windy day, this is an awesome spot.

5.       Frank Kitts Park

You just can’t beat ambling around Wellington waterfront on a sunny weekend, and we always end up spending a while at Frank Kitts Park. The kids can’t get enough of the big lighthouse slide, and are clever enough to have worked out that there’s always an ice cream van nearby too! 

Having finished this post, I better go and get my gear ready for our "Tour" now! 

September...

September in Wellington has been full of sunshine – and also some serious heavy rain, hail and gale force winds! But we’ve had a great month of playing outside whatever the weather.

We've had lots of very cool visitors this month from all corners of the world - Kevin, Hayden, Mark, Dan, Mark again, Tracey, Anton, Leigh-Anne, Debs - it's been brilliant to see you all! 

Other than that Alfie and I continue to enjoy our days off together, doing swimming and gymnastics, catching up with friends, exploring and playing and making things. 

We're on a mission to visit a new and/or different playpark every week at the moment and we're doing quite well. I'm happy so long as the sun's out and I have a flask of coffee and Alfie's happy so long as there's something to climb, something to hang upside down from, and something to jump off. 

This month however, we’ve often had to wearily plod through our days very slowly due to Alfie’s ongoing battles with eczema and nightmares which have been keeping us all up alot at night.

The eczema has involved countless trips to the doctor, a bucket load of creams and steroids, antibiotics (three doses in the last month), and we still can’t clear it up. 

On the plus side, we have turned a corner with the taniwha & monster nightmares by making our very own dream catcher. It took us an entire day to shop for the parts and put it all together, but Alfie came up with the fabulous idea of putting a plastic eye in the middle (to look out for the bad dreams) and 4 small round mirrors inside so that when the bad dreams are caught, they see themselves and get scared and run away (!).

Now we've come out the other side of winter, Molly and Alfie are both spending most of their after school hours in the garden, blowing bubbles, playing on the swings, collecting bugs and leaves, and perfecting their swing tennis techniques. The house we live in is great because I have a perfect view from the kitchen window while I cook dinner - and it's not far to run when I have to break up yet another fight over who broke the swing tennis rules! 

Molly’s school have been really busy this month studying film/drama. Every single class has made a short movie (Molly’s class did “Snow White and the 15 Dwarfs”) complete with casting, storyboards, acting and editing, and culminating with a movie premiere in town. A real cinema was hired, they all dressed up and walked up the red carpet and the movies were shown on the big screen. Lots of fun and excitement all round.

Meanwhile Jake has spent over 50% of this month on various holidays, oops sorry I mean business trips around the country, and we are all missing him a lot. 

Other than that, we're very focussed now on house hunting in every spare minute we get, and have been encouraged by all the new listings suddenly appearing now it's Spring. We have our eye on one in particular - but unfortunately we know that a few other people do as well! Still, there are lots of very lovely properties coming up at the moment so we are hoping we'll have some good news soon.  

The Day We Met The All Blacks

There aren’t many people out there who haven’t already heard all about the amazing weekend we’ve just had with the All Blacks. But it’s got to go down on this blog anyway!

Last week, I entered an online competition with Air New Zealand. I wasn’t really expecting to win – but on Wednesday afternoon I got a phone call from a lovely guy at Air NZ who began to tell me the good news while I was trying to restrain Alfie, who was attempting to eat the entire food cupboard right before his dinner.

The Air NZ man was very patient with me, even though my conversation jumped backwards and forwards between him and Alfie, but he basically told me we’d be going to the rugby on Saturday and meeting the All Blacks on Sunday!

Our prize started off on Saturday night with four tickets to the All Blacks v Argentina game at the Westpac Stadium. It was the kids’ first time at the rugby and quite a poignant game for us (considering Alfie’s place of birth).

We managed to persuade him out of his favourite Argentina soccer shirt for the night (disclaimer: he is too young to understand the politics and only likes it because he likes the yellow sun on their flag) and into a lot of warm, waterproof layers. 

New Zealand's spring weather is renowned for being quite  unpredictable: for the last couple of weeks we’ve been basking in sunshine, but all of a sudden this weekend a violent storm came crashing in with winds of up to 140kph and torrential rain. Not the best weather for the players to give their best, but Air NZ came up with brilliant seats for us and we were some of the lucky ones under cover, protected from the worst of it.

However a surprise power cut half way through the game put the stadium into darkness for a few minutes, and had Alfie completely spooked and wanting to go home.

Meanwhile Molly surprised us by fully embracing the game, chanting “All Blacks clap clap clap...” at the top of her voice, enthusiastically joining in the Mexican waves, and giving out an almighty scream when Cory Jane scored a try (my ears are still ringing).

Anyway, after a very late night and a bit of a lie-in the next morning we got ready to go and meet the team! 

Excitement would be an understatement! The kids spent AGES choosing a pretty dress for Molly to wear and then spiking Alfie’s hair up so that it matched Richie McCaw’s! (They used up so much hair gel that it's still not all out, 3 showers and one swimming lesson later!)

When we were finally introduced to the team, I had to try extremely hard not to become like the man in the Mastercard advert and I forced myself to act dignified and restrained when I shook hands with Dan Carter and Richie! (I think I managed ok, but my heart nearly stopped!) 

We then got on the plane and flew down to Dunedin with the team! After a very shy start, Molly and Alfie took a great shining to Israel Dagg and Ben Smith and regaled them with tales of gymnastics and school and DS games and Barbie dolls and other such important stuff.  

Anyway, a huge thank you to Air NZ and the All Blacks. You've given two children some amazing memories (and for me and Jake too!). We had a great time at the game, and you guys were awesome on Sunday as well. Can we do it again soon please?! 

You Know You Have Young Children In The House When...

• The laundry basket is constantly overflowing. The washing machine is on every day. The job is never finished.
  
• Your best, most expensive, high heeled shoes only come out when your daughter has friends round and they decide to play dress-ups with them.
  
• You realise you haven’t worn nice clothes or high heels for several years (with the exception of our wedding last February).In fact you pretty much live in trainers or gum boots now, and it’s a truly exciting day when the ballet flats or boots come out of the wardrobe.
  
• The same goes for handbags. I used to have heaps of pretty handbags. Now I carry a humungous sack like thing filled with spare clothes, water bottles, snacks, more snacks, tissues, toys, a toilet roll, etc, etc. 
•  Your kitchen cupboards are full of fruit roll-ups, little boxes of raisins and kid-sized packs of crackers & cheese dip, six different bottles of food colouring, and a truckload of different varieties of cake decorations and sprinkles. I never had this stuff BK (before kids), and can think of plenty of better things I’d prefer to fill the cupboards up with!
• Your toothpaste tube has a permanently congealed, sticky blob of toothpaste at the top. 
• You realise you are probably playing a key role in keeping New Zealand’s dairy farmers in business (we go through 6 litres of milk and who knows how much cheese and yoghurt each week). 
• The kitchen floor is NEVER clean, despite sweeping and mopping several times a day.
•  If you want a relaxing bath you have to clear a trillion toys, water bottles, bubble makers, funnels, etc out of the way first. 
• You can’t remember the last time you went to the toilet on your own. 

This is what real life is like in our household. But it's worth it of course, because they are gorgeous!!!