Mini Break

During the first week of the school holidays we went North and joined the rest of the Hilliard crew at Coopers Beach. We drove up on a nice day (Wednesday) and drove home on a nice day (Sunday) but unfortunately every day in between was pretty cold and wet. It was still nice to get away. Dean was still able to go and get mussels off the rocks at low tide, Dean and Troy went fishing and caught a Kahawai which they filleted and got battered at the local fish and chip shop, and I was able to pick some watercress from a stream on the side of the road. That's one thing I love about New Zealand you can get out there and get yourself a feed from the land and the sea. Awesome!!!

Despite the not so nice weather there was one Beach outing

Some rough and tumble with Uncle Troy

Giddy Up

We ventured to the Kiwi Park but it had closed down. I did spot some watercress though to take home for dinner!

Starry Noses

Saturated Saturday

The yucky weather on Saturday meant aborting our carport building mission. Dean and Reid were not so keen once the hail kicked in :) That along with a bit of lightning and thunder does not make for good, powertool usage and outside work weather. Even though it was pretty yucky and freezing outside we thought we better make use of the day. We bundled the kids into warm clothes and cranked up the car heater and ventured out to some open homes. We made it to one, and weren't the only crazy ones out there, the traffic was horrid. Which made us late to the house we really wanted to see. We'll have a look at that one during the week. Once we got home and felt how freezing it was inside our office/rumpus room, it made us get onto insulating the roof. Our house is quite warm really, and looking in the ceiling you can see that it is all insulated except for what was the old internal garage area which we converted. So Dean ventured out in the rain to buy some insulation for the ceiling. It has really made a difference. A lot of the houses we are looking at are quite old and will need insultating, so it's good to know it's a pretty easy job.

Nathan watching the hail fall

Nathan and Moses Playing in the Insulation Packaging

Dean keeping his chin warm with an insulation beard

Watching the All Blacks beat South Africa on the big screen (projecter against the wall)

Jury duty, Kung Fu, Teddy Bears...

Well the week started with a beautiful day, and unfortunately I spent half the day inside seeing if I was going to get picked for a jury. My name got pulled out of the ballot box, so I got to go through the process right up to going into the court room and hearing the charges etc. I then had to go through the funny process of walking towards the jury box where on the walk up you may be challenged by either the prosecution or defense lawyers. Being that it was a sexual violation charge, I knew most of the women would be challenged, so on my way up to the jury box I walked very slow so they could check me out as I knew I would be challenged. I have to say I was very glad that I was as I don't think I could sit through a couple of days hearing the details of such a horrible thing.

The rest of the week was a bit miserable weather wise and with Maia still teething and with a chesty cough, she was very grizzly. My mum had come up to watch the kids in case I had got picked for jury, so I had the chance to take Nathan out and about on his own which is nice. On Monday afternoon after Jury duty I took him out to the park for a ride on his bike and on Wednesday I took him to the movies to see Kung Fu Panda, which is a bit stink really. Thursday mum went home and the kids and I chilled at home.

On Friday we had to get out of the house, although both kids were a bit sniffly we couldn't miss Teddy Bears Day Out at Mainly Music. After that we went to Toy Library and scored some cool toys. While we were out and about we went and checked out a house. Our house hunting is still going, we are sussing out what we like, don't like, prices etc etc.

Here's our pics from Friday...

Maia with Jonty who was born two days after her

Maia and Liam who were born on the same day in the same hospital

Nathan and his buddies

Bounce, Bounce, Bounce

Look at me practising standing up

Week of Wicked Weather

It's been a pretty horrible week weather wise. On Monday the kids and I found a gap in the rain and braved the supermarket. I told Nathan we'd go to Chipmunks afterwards for a play but when we got there we found out they're closed on Mondays, so as a backup plan we cruised 100m up the road to Mc Donalds where I used my freebe coffee voucher and Nathan had a long play.

Tuesday Ayla came over while Lisa had to organise a passport for Kael. It hailed four times in as many hours. Ayla thought it was pretty exciting as we would quickly open the door and grab some hail stones and then let them melt in her hand. Wednesday there was a break in the weather as Maia and I ventured out to have a look at a house before picking Nathan up from Preschool, but on our way home it went black and rainy again.

Thursday and Today have been home days as Maia is not her happy self, she has a cough and is teething in a major way. It's so unusual to have her so grizzly and following me around the house wanting to be picked up all the time, poor lil princess. There is thunder and heavy rain as I type. All in all we haven't gone too crazy with the weather and have managed to keep ourselves busy around the house.

Ayla being a cat

Nathan and Dean checking out more hail stones this morning, just as Dean was ready to leave for work

Yelling at the Cat

Maia is so funny with our cat Moses. She is usually quite placid, very cruisy by nature, but man she can also be quite loud. When our cat comes into sight she revs up and yells at him, she doesn't seem scared of him as she smiles at him but at the same time doesn't really try to pat him or anything, so maybe she is a little wary. Anyway it's quite funny.

Thursday/Friday

On Thursday we ventured to Mitre 10 to look at a few things. We couldn't go past the playground without having a little play...

They were pretty knackered when we got home so I put Maia down for a nap and gave Nathan a rest on the couch watching a Loonytoons DVD, he didn't last long before he was out

On Friday we bumped into my friend Michelle and her two boys Samual and Nathan at the Toy Library. As I was helping her manouvre the big slide she had booked out into her boot we decided we'd get together to give the boys a play. They came around later that afternoon and here they are enjoying my Nathans race track.

Open Homes

The last two weekends we've being doing a bit of an open home round in Te Atatu. We're thinking it would be good to move there sometime down the track as we like the area a bit better than where we are. Dean grew up there and Nathan goes to preschool there so it would be good for him to go to school there also. It's been an interesting exercise checking out houses in this 'slump market', seeing what you can get for your dollar. Because we want to keep our house and rent it out it may be a little while before we actually get to move, but it's still good to get out and check out what's going on.

Nathan said on Saturday morning "Are we going to look at other peoples houses again today" he doesn't mind it too much because the houses where they have kids he loves to check out all their toys, although he probably is over it because he is not allowed to play with them.

Anyway we had an hour to kill in between open homes so took our picnic to the park and had a play.

What's in the tree kids?

Hmm I think I'll have this leaf for lunch

Mmmm it's tasty

I'll finish off with one of Daddy's hot chippies

Kid Pics

Some Pics of the kids lately...

A picture we took to put on Ayla's birthday card that we made
Maia giving Nathan a double on the bike - or Nathan holding Maia onto the bike?

On Toy Library duty means playing with all the cool toys!

We had a visit last week from Erin, Lani and Luca

Nice and clean after our bath!

Bike Ride

I wanted to take Nathan back to a park we went to a while back with his trike as it's got a good flat wide path he can have a good ride on. First stop was to feed the ducks, which either got too close and freaked Maia out or while my back was turned nipped her toe thinking it was bread as she let out a bit loud cry. It all went well until Nathan wanted to go one way and I wanted to go the other, so a battle of wills ensued and he stayed put for quite some time before another little boy came along on his bike and got him moving with a little race challenge. I'd like to think I would have won in the end had we not been rescued by the lil racer boy.

Queens Birthday Weekend

Well I'm having to catch up on my posts as I haven't checked in for over a week now. For Queens birthday weekend the kids and I headed back down to Taupo to my Nana's house for a family meeting that had been organised. As Dean had to work over the weekend we were able to leave on the Friday and cruise our way down. We did a big trek, saving our stop for Tokoroa which is nearly a 3 hour run, the kids were great though. We stopped at McDonalds as although Nathan had his lunch in the car he was able to have a play on their playground and I ate his happy meal while he enjoyed the toy. We met up with my good friend Kylee and her youngest daughter Shayla who is the same age as Maia, and they crawled around the place while we had a quick catch up.

Before heading on to Taupo I had to do a quick tour of the town I was born and lived the first 13 years of my life in. I haven't done so in a long while. I drove through town, past the two shops that we owned, the first one a hardware store and the second a sports shop, of course they are something else now. I drove past my old schools and then did a driveby past the house we lived in. I have heaps of cool memories growing up in Tok and am still in contact with many good friends from there. It was an awesome place to to grow up in.

Anyway we arrived in Taupo in the afternoon and from there most of the other family members trickled in. Saturday we had our family meeting in regards to some work my Grandfather and others have done in tracing our Whakapapa (lineage, family tree) to the Ngati Tuwharetoa (Taupo) and Ngai Tahu (South Island) area's. As well as those tribes, on my Grandmothers side we Whakapapa back to Whakatohea and Te Whanau-A-Apanui on the East Coast of the North Island. So for a white girl I've got some strong Maori links going on :) Anyways, we got to know my Pa's brothers families a bit better and enjoyed a big feed together later that day.

The house I grew up in. The Green was originally a nice mustardy colour and then later in life my Dad painted it a real nice darky pinky, purply colour, lovely.

Meeting in full swing

These modern day kids entertaining themselves

My Cuzzie's Matiu with Jamie and Tane in the background

Me and my beautiful Cuz, Dani

The boys were about to go on a mission in the freezing cold to get some fresh watercress from some creek somewhere but were rescued just in time by Jamie's mate who dropped some off

Enjoying a beautiful Watercress and Pork Bone boil up and some roast chooks

Nathan Happy as, Maia not so??