Christmas 2014

So, here's the story of Christmas 2014, mostly told in pictures....

It all started on 23rd December, when Jenny & Wayne (having arrived late the night before) took the children out for the day. They had a blast - going rock climbing, paddle boating, rock pooling, and to the museum - and came back in the afternoon all sunburnt and exhausted! 

This left me free to finish up my work for the year, wrap the last few presents in peace, do a last minute supermarket shop - and do some nice stuff too....

Like go for an early morning walk in the mountains.....

And have a picnic lunch with Jake on the waterfront....

And a walk around to Oriental Bay.... 

Have a coffee and read the paper at one of Wellington's lovely cafes.... 

And listen to the pop-up carol singers in town....

It was bliss to have an entire day to myself in the sun. So in many ways the 23rd December was pretty much the best day of the Christmas season for me! 

The next day, Christmas Eve, we picked Jake up from work in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day at Scorching Bay, swimming and playing on the beach.

(And maybe drinking a little bottle of bubbles too!)

It was such a lovely Christmas Eve!

We then began our family Xmas traditions. First of all, we always make a point of eating fish on Xmas Eve and we all open one present each. This goes back to my Polish roots. However, Wigilia Hughes-Downing style is not quite the same as the Wigilia as I had every year growing up with my Polish family! It's all in the interpretation. We had fish and chips on the beach at Lyall Bay instead. (Not a great shot of Alfie - he was hot and red and hungry!).

And then on to the next family tradition. On Christmas morning, we always go to the beach as soon as we wake up, no matter what the weather, to open a present, drink hot chocolate and eat (cold) Vegemite toast. This year was pretty windy and chilly, so we came home pretty quickly and ate Xmas cake for breakfast!!

And then it was round the tree for presents! Jenny & Wayne are working in Mozambique at the moment and brought the kids some lovely African things - a Mambas soccer top for Alfie and an African dress & jewellery for Molly. Don't they look great?!

Jenny got a bit emotional about one of her presents ;) !! (a framed photo of Molly)

Jake got quite excited about his can of Ambrosia custard all the way from the UK!

And then it was on to Christmas lunch - this was one of many "Cheers!" moments....!

Molly always helps prepare the Christmas ham for dinner. This year I also soaked it in beer every 15 minutes as well and it made the ham come out AMAZING! Very delicious indeed if anyone needs a recommendation for how to cook their ham!

It's also Molly and Alfie's job to decorate the pavlova every Christmas. Good job kids!

On Boxing Day we opened MORE presents, and then took Nana and Wayne over to Makara Beach for a walk along the clifftops....

....and we stopped for Christmas cake at the top!

For dinner that night, we walked into Otari Wilton bush and barbequed some sausages (to add  to our leftover Xmas ham and mince pies). Alfie is becoming a great barbeque-er!

And we rounded off Boxing Day with drinks at the Spruce Goose (by the airport) where the kids could play swing tennis while Wayne did some plane spotting! Lovely for everyone!

Finally....... Christmas in our house carried on until 27th December. Jake and I began with an early morning competitive journey up the mountains - Jake being convinced that he'd easily get there first. So he ran up one track and I walked up the other - and I got there first!!! (Never going to let you forget that one Jake!). Then it was back home for MORE presents!

And then we drove around to Eastbourne for a little walk along the coast....

 And a little game of cricket in the park....

And a little swim in the sea.....while a certain crazy member of the family jumped off the jetty a couple of times....

And then we came home to play on the new water slide....well, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a water slide!

So now it's all over. But what a great Christmas. Thanks for coming to visit Nana Jenny!

The End of The School Year

End-of-Year-itis has well and truly kicked in in recent weeks - but school has finally finished for the year.

This is always such a great/hard time of year - with the end of the school year comes all the excitement and emotions of finding out whose class you're in next year (and believe me this is a BIG deal to the kids) and all the sadness of leaving your old class behind.....

Not to mention all the excitement of Christmas coming and summer and late nights and all the other things that come with December.

So we've had a mixed up time lately, split between hanging out at the beach, and resting after school with quiet play and DVDs as much as possible.

Not that school's actually been very hard work in an academic sense. The last month of school always seems crazy, and the last week in particular is quite ridiculous! They spent one day playing in the school pool; on another day they arrived to find giant inflatables in the field and spent all day playing on them; and another day was dress-up day (Molly went as Harriet Potter!). They also had shared lunches with the parents, watched movies, and ate countless candy canes all day and brought their lunch home without eating it. 

The kids both brought great school reports home this year. Some of my favourite excerpts are below:

"Alfie really enjoys writing....he writes with expression, personal voice, and some entertaining anecdotes. Alfie really enjoys writing about his soccer exploits and games the Phoenix play. Keep up the fantastic work Alfie, I always enjoy reading your stories!"

"Molly's strength of character has shone through this year. She has proven that she is a strong and resilient student. This has shown in her learning too, where she has taken risks and accepted challenges".

We had some extra excitement in the last week of term when Alfie lost his first tooth! And the very next day Molly lost one too!

There've been some other great childhood developments recently too: the kids have learnt how to make a good gin & tonic!

Summer has arrived, and although school's finished up, Jake is still working until Xmas Eve. But no worries for Jake - we have been bringing picnic dinners and picking him up from work to go to the beach. Happy sunny evenings....! 

 

 And finally, some random news - we've been entering a few competitions lately and over the last week we have managed to win a new smartphone and a hairless doll (from an NZ-based Alopecia organisation) for Molly! 

A Christmassy Kind of Week

It's been Christmassy this week - in more ways than one!

We're having a slow start to the summer. In fact, the weather this month so far has been worse than it was all through the winter. This means two things:

1) The blueberry season has been delayed. This is NOT GOOD.
2) It feels a little bit like Christmas in the UK at the moment!  (but less dark).

Usually by this time in the year we are spending our afternoons at the outdoor pool, running through the sprinklers in the garden after school, staying up late in the sunshine etc. None of that has quite happened yet.

But most of our other December traditions have continued on. It all started on 6th December when St Nicholas came and filled the kids shoes up with goodies.....luckily they've both recently been bought new shoes, a size bigger.

We put the tree up at the weekend....every year this becomes quite an event. We get the mince pies and the Xmas CD out and have a sing-along, and Molly gets to put the angel on top, so lots of fun. So far it's still up, but I don't rate its chances with the cats around. (NB Please admire our nice white walls - that terracotta is finally gone! :) )

We also held our annual Christmas drinks party at home last weekend. Those in the Falkland Islands might remember this as an evening where tins of Quality Street featured highly. In Wellington we have to make do with strawberries and mince pies instead.

We've had the end of year gym display and ballet show - now that's a real sign that Christmas is coming. This year for ballet they did Peter Pan and Molly was one of the fairies. It suited her down to the ground as it meant she got to wear a beautiful tutu (instead of a pirate or sailor outfit).

And this week we had the Junior School end of year Christmas concert. I don't want to call it a carol concert because most of the songs they sing aren't traditional carols - it's all "Aotearoa Christmas, under the Pohuktawa tree...." and such like. Alfie just loves singing, so it was very cute to watch.

It's the end of year concerts and shows that always make things start feeling like Christmas.




In between all that, the kids have been writing Christmas cards to everyone in their class, everyone they play with from other classes, everyone they met at WOW, etc etc. This means a truck load of Xmas cards. And where did this traditition of sticking a candy cane into every single card come from? We never did that when I was a kid. Maybe it was started by (or sponsored by?) the local dentists?



Sadly, and frustratingly, Molly and her friend managed to discover some of her stocking presents hidden away in my bedroom last week. They were apparently looking for things to dress up in. This created a huge dilemma for me - but yes, I went out and bought new things for the stocking. Plus - in an extra effort to keep the magic alive I also thought it would be a good idea to take her out to meet Santa ;)

 Another tradition - every year in the lead up to Christmas we get the Christmas jigsaw puzzle out. It forces us all to take quiet rest times at weekends and in the evenings.







One more thing - our local Town Hall did Christmas carols and drinks the other night, so we all stayed up late and went aong (the kids in pyjamas and Santa hats). Alfie sang the loudest and ate the most cake!

So we are most definitely in the build up to the big day now, and it's silly hats and headgear all the way!

Life in November

The end of November already. And so begins the mad rush that always signals summer is coming, the end of the school year is coming, Christmas is coming, etc etc. Here's some of the things we've been doing this month...

Molly had her school athletics day. She actually hates athletics, she really hates it. But even she admitted the day turned out quite fun! If we disregard the actual running races and athletic events, and focus on the water relays and the other not-really-real-athletics stuff...

The same week, the annual school discos took place. This time we had a Halloween theme. Alfie went as a red kind of machine man thing (I have no pictures, sadly - or fortunately depending on which way you look at it), while Molly was a more sophisticated witch.  

With November comes fireworks - even on this side of the world! But it's slightly different over here. It doesn't get dark at this time of year until about 8.30/9pm, so the fireworks are late and all the kids get to stay up for a very exciting night.

The city council usually puts on a pretty good display over the harbour, and our usual tradition is to go and watch it from the top of one of the nearby hills. We got there slightly early (along with half the suburb!) and watched a beautiful sunset first, then the fireworks. The kids thought it was the best night ever! 

Meanwhile, Jake's still busy burning the candle at both ends and is currently on a mission to monopolise New Zealand's media. In the space of 10 days he's been in the newspaper twice and on live breakfast TV! All in the name of Weta...

Molly's working hard too. She does nearly 4 hours of gym a week now, and with her end of year ballet show approaching and her Christmas gymnastics display this weekend, there's been no rest! She recently went through the amazing process of designing her own gym leotard - the pattern, the fabrics, etc - boy, did a lot of thought and agonising go into the choice but she got there eventually and doesn't it look great?! 

When we're not at work, school, gym, ballet, piano, soccer, tennis - or on the TV - we've all been working exceptionally hard re-decorating the house. It's taking up every spare minute.

We had some time off last Sunday and spent a wicked day at the splashpad playpark up the coast - basically just your standard kids playpark but with water spurting everywhere. SUCH a great invention and so much fun! 

And when we'd finished there, we went down to the beach to collect fish in buckets and play cricket.

So life's busy. We're all working hard, but we're making time to play as well! The only people in the family who have been lazing around all the time are Bear and Ninja - who have rejected the beautiful soft cat bed we bought them and taken over our bed instead.

The Orongorongo Track (again)

This amazing overnight tramp has featured on our blog before, almost 2 years ago.We loved it back then, and we loved it just as much this time.

Last time we walked it, the kids were just 4 yrs & 6 yrs, so they required a lot of help and we had to carry all their gear. This time it was different! We gave them backpacks and made them carry all their clothes, shoes, sleeping bags, books, toys, etc! Leaving us to just carry our own gear and a couple of days worth of food. We also brought another family along with us this time so we had 5 kids (and a dog) in our group who all motivated each other to walk all day without any grumbling at all. Nice....

So, after a picnic lunch in the bush, we set off. Here we are at the start of the track, all refreshed, happy, mud-free and sweat-free. Note Freddy Gawn (the dog) who was the only one who had no idea what was in store for him at this point - although he probably had the most fun out of all of us in the end!

The first day's walking went brilliantly, with just one brief stop necessary for some afternoon tea and a refreshing paddle in the river....

The track is relatively flat (by NZ standards) but the last half hour was a bit challenging with a lot of uphill along narrow rocky paths. I think we were all quite pleased when we found our hut!

The Department of Conservation maintains a number of these huts around the country which you can book out to sleep in when you're tramping, and they do such a great job. There's no electricity so you need to bring your own candles, but other than that all you need for the night is there - some mattresses and bunk beds, a gas cooker, a wood fire (with wood and an axe) and a table and chairs to drink tea and play endless rounds of cards at...

...while the kids occupied themselves playing outside with sticks and torches and stuff.....

After a very, very broken nights' sleep (Freddy kept pacing the floor of the hut and kept us all awake!), here we are setting off in the morning for Day 2's walking.

For the journey back we decided to take a different route, and travelled the first part along the (mostly dry) river bed instead of along the track. We thought it would be nice and flat and easy. How wrong we were!

The little water there was criss-crossed backwards and forwards across the river bed, which meant countless river crossings for us. Shoes off, shoes on, shoes off, shoes on, numb feet from the cold, numb feet from the rocks. Only two of us complained though...!

It did mean that the journey out took much longer than the journey in! So long that the boys/men couldn't hold on any longer....(!) ;)

And a couple of lolly breaks were necessary to keep the kids going this time...but we all made it out in one piece with only one tiny blister between the 9 of us, a few muddy items of clothing and lots of smiling faces....!