Kapa Haka and a Fruit Bat

Molly had her first Kapa Haka performance at school this week, and despite to only having been to three practise sessions so far, she managed to keep up with the others and made us very proud!

Not only that, but the performance was followed by some student awards presentations, including one to Molly who was praised for improvements in her writing. In amongst moving country, house, school, etc, we think that’s a pretty great achievement and so we’re doubly proud of her.

Meanwhile Alfie has taken to sleeping like a fruit bat – hanging upside down off the side of his bed. We can only imagine he is dreaming of his gymnastic classes, where he’s been spending lots of time hanging upside down on the bar and balancing on the high beam??

What a weekend!

It’s been a very full-on weekend for us.

Yesterday was a perfect winter’s day with warm sunshine so we took a trip up to the Kapiti Coast. The idea was to look for a wedding venue (at long last!), and we did look at a very wonderful little place, but unfortunately it was a bit beyond our budget.

Anyway, at lunchtime we were looking for a place to have a picnic and we chanced upon a little spot which has now officially become our absolute favourite beach in the whole world – we won’t publish where it is as we need to keep it secret! We pottered around for ages in the sun, climbing over driftwood, collecting stuff and just enjoying the sunshine. Our job this week is to work out if there are any wedding venues in that area!

Afterwards we took a long overdue visit to the shops and we well and truly blew the credit card limit on some very essential items. After 2 weeks of sharing an air bed with Molly, Alfie is now the proud owner of his very own bed, and the whole family have new bedsheets and fluffy winter blankets. Tonight the kids actually went to sleep on time, and are snoozing peacefully in their new bedding...

After a night out for Jake and I last night to a GROWN-UP drinks party – thanks to Jerry for a great evening, and thanks to Emma for baby-sitting - we woke up this morning to a huge tantrum at 7am from Alfie and stormy weather outside, not the best start to the day!

But today Wellington had a ‘open day’ for locals – the idea being that with the Rugby World Cup coming up soon, the local tourist board wanted us all to know the local attractions so we could recommend them to our visitors. So we had access to a lot of places for just a gold coin donation today. Our plans were to go to three places: Wellington Zoo, Zealandia wildlife sanctuary and the Carter Observatory. Yeah right – three places in one day with two little ones??!! We managed to get round half of the zoo! Molly just had the best time ever, as we got to watch an operation on a chimpanzee, meet a one-legged Kiwi with a prosthetic leg, and she listened to a talk on how to become a vet.

Off to enjoy my own new fluffy blanket now....night night!

The First Month

We can’t believe we’ve been here a whole month already!

Time’s flying by quickly, but we’re settling in and getting used to the different colours, the different environment and the different weather in NZ.

After more than 2 years in the Falklands (which have a semi-arid climate) followed by a year in the desert, the rain is one of the most novel things to us – especially to the kids who don’t really remember rain! The good thing about it is that it creates all this GREEN around us. We’re living in a very beautiful place.

Molly’s been extremely tired and overwhelmed at times, but is enjoying school, has kicked back into ballet lessons and has joined her school Kapa Haka Group too. Meanwhile, Alfie has started gymnastics and is seriously proud of his strong arms, while I just love watching his wobbly efforts on the bar and balancing (aka shuffling) on the high beam – so cute!

The house is slowly coming together, although the dining table is yet to be re-assembled due to lack of tools – this means we haven’t eaten a meal sitting down for 10 days now. Standing up must be good for your digestion though?

We also very quickly need to purchase some beds as we only have one at the moment, and our first house guest arrives tomorrow – at the moment he is only vaguely aware that he will not be staying in great comfort, and we do hope he is brave enough to come back again later in the year when we can offer him a real bed and a more furnished house!

Sad and Happy

We had a bit of a roller coaster day today. It wasn’t very nice checking out of our holiday home (long story!) and it poured with rain all day.

But on the upside, today we moved into our own house! Well it’s rented, but it’s a proper, long-term home. Not only that, but all our possessions arrived from Auckland today.

We haven’t seen most of this stuff for three and a half years so it’s been a hugely exciting day discovering lots of old treasures – as well as a whole load of stuff which we seriously shouldn’t have kept in storage for 3.5 years, eg a bottle of sweet chilli sauce which was 3 years past its sell-by date.

Meanwhile the kids ran riot and moved everything as soon as I’d unpacked it. We couldn’t find anything to cook with or eat off, so Pizza Hut got a call as it was the only number I could remember from 3 years ago: “Oh eight hundred, eighty three, eighty three, eighty three, la la la”.

Meanwhile, Jake missed out on pizza because he got lost on the way home from work and ended up walking several kilometres in the lashing rain and wind. Two hours later, a bedraggled curly man arrived on the doorstep, but even he is excited about seeing our stuff again and is about to put my piano up! 

Scorching auctions

We’ve spent heaps of time over the last few days looking for a car. We’re using a hire car at the moment but that has to go back soon and we desperately need our own.

Yesterday we spent a huge chunk of the day driving all over the city looking at cars, and ended up at Turners Auctions which Alfie thought was completely amazing – “Can we buy this one?” ..... “No this one”...... “No I like this one”.....”Can we get this van?”....etc etc.

By the afternoon we still had no car but were seriously in need of a break, so we bought a pie each (NZ pies, mmmm!) and headed to beautiful Scorching Bay for a bit of R&R. Molly became very muddled up between the car auction and the name of the beach, so it became ‘Auction Bay’.

Someone had done an amazing sand sculpture on the beach, so Jake and Alfie tried to make one of their own (they didn’t get very far), while Molly collected an entire car boot full of shells (as usual). Me, I just climbed around a bit and smiled while I looked at this amazing place we are living in. 

Cross Country Running

Molly's first week at school has been spent running for miles. Literally. They've been training for the school's cross country race, so they've been out every day running across fields, around playgrounds, up hills and down hills (although I suspect a lot of walking usually takes place on these bits).

Yesterday was the day of the race, so all the families came along to cheer them on. Alfie and I were standing on the sidelines, and Alfie was fully briefed to shout "Run Molly, Run!" as she came past.

However, when the moment came, Alfie instead shouted "I love you Molly!" and then he legged it across the field and chased after her before I could catch him, and continued all the way to the finish line with Molly! He was so proud of himself!!