School Holidays

The school holidays are now (already) over!

After a 5 week winter holiday last year in Alice Springs, this year’s 2 week holiday just flew by so quickly (particularly since we lost the first 8 days in sickness).

But we made up for it in the last few days – we went to playparks, we had playdates, we went to the theatre to see Pinocchio, we defaced our driveway (just with chalk, but I do need to wash it away now!), we went to a craft session where the kids made beautiful bookmarks out of beads, and we met a fairy in a shopping mall.

During the holidays, Molly has also come on leaps and bounds with her reading and we are very proud of her. She’s taken to leaving messages on the whiteboard for Jake when he comes home late from work (G&T Thursdays!) and her writing is becoming pretty great as well. She still loves her arts & crafts too and made some brilliant play dough people yesterday, then she entered a newspaper competition to draw a picture of a penguin – the penguin is truly gorgeous and is drinking champagne, singing and wearing a butterfly in her hair! 

Walking Tracks

The area we live in is full of walking tracks, but up until now we've been too busy to use many of them. (How crazy our lives have become?) 

But today was a very beautiful, sunny day, just perfect for wearing the kids out on a walk. So we made our way down to the start of one of the tracks, and up we went. Up and up and up lots of stairs. Down through thick trees. Up some more stairs. Past a lot of ferns. And bingo – a lookout over Wellington!

The kids are exhausted this evening so fingers crossed that we’ll all get some sleep tonight. I’m thinking I may have to work my way through the whole list of walking tracks this week! 

The Flu

Well that was a pretty bad virus! Alfie, Molly and I have just slept for 8 days almost non-stop. Well, ok, a slight exaggeration – we did all manage to get up for around an hour each day. Thank goodness it’s school holidays!

Anyway, we’re on the mend now and trying to get to grips with the chaos that ensues from not looking after a house for 8 days - nothing in the fridge, no laundry done, two weeks of rubbish not taken out, etc.

So we're raring to go and the plan now is to cram two weeks' worth of school holiday activities into the next 5 days!

The Bradys

We’ve just had a visit from Darren & Beth + the boys, who were brave enough to do the long haul drive from Auckland with 2 kids – thank you so much guys, it was great to see you and we really appreciated the effort you went to.

Unfortunately Wendy, Molly and Alfie were all knocked out by a nasty flu virus and spent the best part of 3 days asleep!

Luckily, before it struck, we managed to get out and about to the Botanic Gardens, a cable car ride, the beach and Te Papa. Wellington’s a great city. We hope you come back again soon so we can play the Name Game again – and hopefully we’ll be able to stay awake next time!

Busy and tired!

It’s a busy busy, busy time for us at the moment, with Jake all over the country for work and me with extra contracts, plus trying to organise a wedding and finish setting up our new lives here in Wellington. Molly and Alfie are very  tired and the school holidays next week will be a very much needed break I think.

 

In the meantime, we’ve been trying our best to grab some downtime at home whenever we can, and I thought I’d post these shots....a bit of water play outside on the deck, some fantastic drawings of Jake on the whiteboard (the left hand one by Molly & the right hand one by Alfie), and some very important web surfing by Jake in the chaos that is called our study (aka the place to dump all the still unpacked boxes).

We keep hoping that the pace of life will slow down soon, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen exactly?! 

Other than that, Alfie continues to reject the idea of ordinary sleeping positions and now prefers the floor. It doesn't help with the tiredness.

A Narrow Escape

When we left home yesterday morning, Wellington had beautiful blue skies and we thought it would be great to go up the Kapiti Coast to the beach. As we drove north we could see a serious storm brewing up ahead but carried on regardless, and by the time we got up to Waikanae we were getting close to the storm and the strong winds reminded us of a bad day in the Falklands!

But what fun we had in the wind on the beach!

On the way home we called into Pak N Save for a few bits and pieces (except it never is in Pak N Save, and for a supermarket that’s supposed to save you money we always end up blowing the budget on more bargains). Anyway, we heard heavy rain on the roof while we were shopping, but when we came out we found ourselves surrounded by fork lightning with thunder crashing all around us, we saw ambulances passing by, and discovered a tornado had just passed through.

Crikey! Hoping everyone's ok. And thankful for Pak N Save!

School Disco

Molly had her first school disco last night, and as the official bar lady (water only!), I got to witness a couple of hundred 5-7 year olds doing the “Locomotion” and screaming like teenagers as the DJ announced Justin Bieber.

It was truly unbelieveable. I didn’t even realise Molly was aware of Justin Bieber and was quite astounded to see her singing along to the entire song : “Baby, baby, baby” (in an American accent). And there was I thinking they spent all day at school learning to read and write! 

The level of excitement in the school hall was MASSIVE and everyone had such a great time. After being dragged out of bed this morning to go to ballet at 9am, our very very tired Molly has still been singing and talking about it all day long. We don’t think she’ll forget last night in a hurry! 

Wedding Planning

It’s a lot of fun planning our wedding because we get to go exploring new beach locations every weekend at the moment while we look for a venue. This weekend we looked at a GORGEOUS place by the beach which is perfect in almost every way, just a couple of small issues which we need to work through before we commit to it.

As most of you know, we are not normally very comfortable with committing to anything until we have thought about every possible angle a billion times over for several months. Hopefully we will be able to get our thought processes moving a little bit quicker than usual this time, as we know some of you have already booked your flight tickets so we really are most definitely tied to next February. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know we are now a little bit closer to having something organised for you all!

Anyway, we visited a beach afterwards where we had hot chocolate & scones, collected stones, shells and driftwood, played running races and a local lady let the kids have a ride on her horse! Molly then spent the entire car journey home begging us for riding lessons....aaagggh!

NZ Garden Bird Survey

This week Jake encouraged the kids to get involved in the NZ Garden Bird Survey, so yesterday they put some bread out in the garden and then got ready to spend an hour sitting in front of the window with their Landcare Research forms, ticking off how many of each species they could see.

Usually our garden is jam packed with tuis, fantails, sparrows, blackbirds and Kererus; however today they must have all known the survey was going on because not a single bird came into the garden in the whole hour, apart from one lone wood pigeon (perhaps he was scaring the others off?).

The kids got totally bored within 15 minutes of no action, so they went off to play and I had to sit by the window for the remaining 45 mins. Thanks kids/Jake!

PS Two hours after our survey ended about 30 birds came back into the garden. 

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!!

First Day at Another School

Poor old Molly. She's changed school a fairly large number of times for someone so young. She manages to deal with it all so positively every time though, she's a strong little thing.

It was her first day at school (in Wellington) today. And she truly seemed to love it. She came out of class with an enormous grin on her face and immediately bundled into Alfie and gave him the longest and biggest cuddle I've ever seen.

She did beg to wear her old school uniform this morning, but as it was designed to be worn in the desert it wouldn't have been particularly suitable in this climate and we persuaded her to go with lots of layers instead! It's a little odd seeing her go to school in normal clothes, but very few schools in Wellington have a uniform.

We've been trying to piece together exactly what she did today, but some of the stories are a little confusing....we do know that she did PMP (PE to us oldies!), more cross country running, computers, maths, and learnt to write New Zealand print letters (which are different to Northern Territory cursive letters). She also might have planted some seeds with some older kids at lunchtime, but we're not entirely sure how much of that story was her imagination. I'm sure we'll find out given time!

Some developments

Our new life in Wellington has been a bit exciting this week. Jake started work, we’ve signed a contract on a new house, and Molly unintentionally started school yesterday!

We went in to our chosen school in the morning to hand in her enrolment forms and they asked if she wanted to stay for an hour. When we went back to collect her she begged to be allowed to stay for longer and ended up spending the rest of the day there!

She came home full of tales about why stars twinkle (something to do with gas and wind), why the sky is blue (with a full explanation of how sun light refracts through water), and all sorts of other things which I’m sure I didn’t learn until I was in secondary school, certainly not at the age of five?! Anyway, she had a great time and is really looking forward to starting properly on Monday.

In the meantime, three and a half years in small, remote communities has left us a little bit unused to city life, and we’ve all been feeling a little bit overwhelmed this week by the huge amount of traffic, roads, people, buildings, shops, etc.

So we drove around the coast today to Eastbourne/Days Bay to get some peace & quiet and spent a while relaxing in the sun on the beach. It’s amazing that this area is still part of NZ’s capital city yet we felt as if we were miles from anywhere. Alfie and I had stone throwing competitions while Molly collected yet MORE shells, and Jake just fell asleep.

Next job for us is co-ordinating the shipping of all our stuff from both Central Australia and Auckland in time for our moving in date. Anyone who visited us during our time in Alice Springs will probably understand how excited we are about having a proper home with real stuff in it again!

Rain!

We woke up this morning to a bit of drizzle. Help! After having lived in the Central Australian desert for the last 12 months, we have forgotten what to do with rainy days!

We still haven’t found a suitable house (although we have an application in for one, so fingers crossed and we’ll see what happens), so this means Molly hasn’t started school yet.

So we spent the morning indoors doing numbers and writing, and then learning about New Zealand birds, drawing pictures of huias, yellow-eyed penguins, kiwis and pukekos, and looking them up on the internet to see which colours we should use. Those of you who know Molly well will understand how much she enjoyed this activity!

We had a small window of sunshine around lunchtime, so took a quick trip out to a playpark, our 17^th one in Wellington. So now we only have 87 left to visit.

For the rest of the day, the kids were incredibly content playing indoors with their toys – I guess it’s a novelty to them as they’ve spent most of the last year being outdoors for most of their waking hours. Alfie has a new train set which is keeping him engrossed for hours each day, and Molly discovered a dolls’ house in the cupboard at our holiday home.

In the meantime Jake and I are also educating ourselves. Thanks to Saturday’s edition of the Dominion Post (which we’ve only just got round to reading), our word of the day has got to be “whakamarama” , meaning to clarify/interpret/translate - something we do a lot of in our family!!

Seaweed and driftwood

The weather was sort of moody today, a bit of sun, some dark clouds, a little mist over the mountains. 

Surprisingly though, we’re actually quite enjoying being in an ordinary climate again. After spending the last 3.5 years living in some fairly extreme temperatures (in both directions!), it’s really refreshing not to have to think about the temperature/wind/snow/heat/sweat/sun protection/dried out skin, etc, etc.

We pottered about on Raumati Beach for the majority of the day. The kids collected shells and stones (as usual) while we were able to wander up and down the beach, clambering over huge piles of driftwood and finding some interesting bits and pieces ourselves.

Meanwhile, Molly is having a little trouble adjusting to the Kiwi accent. She made a new friend in the playpark and spent a couple of hours calling her “Liquorice” until I questioned the little girl myself and discovered her real name was Alexis. “Yes, Liquorice, I told you”, said Molly. 

The Big Smoke

Although he doesn’t officially start his new job until Monday, Jake had to go into the office for a couple of hours today, so I took the kids into the Big City for a while.

A visit to one of the play parks ended in tears very abruptly when Alfie went on a suicide mission at the top of a giant lighthouse and had to be forcibly removed by a very helpful man who stepped in just in time, when some other parents became concerned that my persuasion techniques weren’t achieving the desired results and we were about to have a calamity on our hands. Thank you, whoever you were!

So we played pirates with a telescope, admired all the waterfront sculptures, and ended up at Te Papa Museum where Molly played ‘Tokatoka’ (a traditional Maori game where you compete to see who can stack the most pebbles in a tower) and Alfie spent some quiet time on the computer learning how to say important words in Maori such as “clothes” and “deodorant”.