The Rest of the School Holidays

So after our amazing trip away, we still had 3 weeks left of the school holidays. We're almost at the end of them now and it's quite sad :( We've had so much fun!

Here's a little bit of what we've done in the last 3 weeks.....

Alfie spent a week on an intensive soccer camp. This coincided with the start of a heatwave, so he basically spent hours each day running around in the hot sun and by the end of the week he was a walking disaster. But he loved it.

The following week, both children did a week of intensive swimming club. (We do believe in working them hard during the holidays!). As they're both at the same level, they were in the same little group and a lot of giggling went on. But they worked extremely hard and progressed massively. This level includes regular "10 minute challenges" where they have the goal of swimming 20 lengths in 10 minutes. Both have reached 19 lengths and just have to speed up a teeny bit more to get that last one in!

While they've been doing all these activities I've been enjoying the incredible opportunities that modern technology provides by working poolside, working soccer pitch side, working in the park, etc - these days I can just log on from anywhere, it's great!

But if our school holidays sound like too much sport and hard work, don't fret. We have had a lot of playtime too. The water slide has been out more times than I could possibly count, and most of the neighbourhood kids have had a go. Actually so have Jake and I. 

And as if we haven't had enough swimming lesson time, we've also spent countless hours at the Khandallah open air pool. We are SO VERY lucky to have this on our doorstep. At $1.50 per child, it has got to be one of the best possible ways to spend a day during the summer holidays (after the beach, which of course is free). Whenever we go, we seem to know 75% of the other people there, so the kids have instant playmates to swim with (if you're Alfie) or to jump off the diving board with a couple of times and then go and gossip for 6 hours on the sundeck (if you're Molly).

While we've been playing in the sun, Jake's been back at the office :( But we've kept him going with regular lunchtime visits. We sometimes take him to the nearest beach for a picnic and a swim...

And we also took him rock pooling to collect sea anemones...

We LOVE that we can just pop out at lunchtime to do this stuff!  Wellington is amazing.

Because it's been so hot, we've been able to persuade the children that washing the car is a great cooling-off activity ;) And they've actually really enjoyed it (although the car remains very smeary). Signs have been put up all along the fence offering $2 car washes to help raise money for the SPCA, but so far I'm the only person who's taken them up on the offer. (And I've forgotten to pay my $2!)

Also because it's been so hot, we've had lots of late nights as it's just too hard to get to sleep otherwise. One evening we went for a walk around our local streets and while we were walking we came across an abandoned tyre. Alfie decided to roll it all the way home - it took us a long while, but it was worth it because we've tied it up to our Pohutakawa tree with a piece of rope and, hey presto we have a garden swing again!

As usual, we've also spent a lot of time at Khandallah Park over the holidays. It's such a great spot for a picnic, a play, a game of cricket, and a paddle in the stream where the kids always manage to catch a few crayfish (with their hands).

During quieter moments, Molly has been working hard on a piece of fiction for a junior writing competition. The basic rules are that it has to be under 1000 words (this was hard for Molly and we had to do a lot of editing!) and it had to be connected to the ocean. Molly's story involved a dad who murdered the mum by blowing up her boat with a piece of dynamite, leaving the only daughter to be sent to an orphanage where her daily job was to dive for oysters. Interesting ?!The winner will be announced later this month so we'll wait to see what the judges thought! ;)

And other than that, we've done all our usual holiday activities....biking to the cafe, endless hours at playparks, playdates, arts & crafts, and generally making a mess all over the house!

So overall, a great school holidays and we will all be very sad to see it end....