Cleaning

I can always sit and watch someone else do the cleaning

Can't you??

Party Time

Last weekend was a holiday weekend here in New Zealand.
For some reason we are lucky enough to sometimes, due to when certain days fall, to gain 2 long weekends 1 after the other.

So we, as always, went to the caravan.
There we had a big joint dinner with the other permanent campers, but to add some fun to it we classed it as a Toga Party.
All the food was in that theme as well.
We had hummus and feta cheese, moussaka, a lovely chicken casserole with tomatoes and olives, beautiful salads etc and wonderful chicken kebabs and mince meatballs. Everyone worked hard on preparing the food.

However everyone worked just as hard on their costumes.....yes that is right we all dressed in Togas for the evening.

As you can see, everyone got in on the action, even though we had had a very hot sunny day.
My shoulders are pink and so are Alex's cheeks!
But for just a little while we had a warm evening, sadly by 7pm we were all dressed in jeans and jackets as the temperature dropped.
A good night was had by all.

Our next joint party is at Easter time and we are having a "mad hat party"

Did I Tell You.....

About the wee little bit of rain we have had during the summer holiday so far?

Sure I did, but just in case you forgot......here are some pictures to show you just what it was like.
All I can say is just keep watching the water on the driveway...!

I was sat in the gazebo at the caravan at the time of this downpour and it lasted for all of about 5 minutes.
It then took about another 30 mins before all the water had drained away from the driveway!

Finally Beaten!

By the rain that is not my favourite sports team.

Here in New Zealand it is the start of summer.
The schools have broken up for their summer break of 6-7 weeks.
The weather is finally turning nice.
Everyone has gone camping.

We too went camping over Christmas, we left on Christmas Eve and we have had an awesome time.
The first 5-6 days were beautiful, just how you hope to spend a summer Christmas if you are by the beach. The sun was out, the boys loved playing with friends and everyone had a relaxing time.
New Year was slightly different in that it rained and rained and oh yea just for good measure it rained some more! The poor people in tents, got flooded and a lot went home many days earlier than they had planned too.
Then the sun came out again and it has been nice, the odd day of rain but nothing you can't survive.
That is until yesterday when it rained a lot more, continuously all day.

The forcast for today is for much of the same and I finally made the decision that I did not want to spend another day couped in the caravan. So we came home.
We were not wet, we were not flooded, we had plenty of food, plenty of things to do but we had had enough of spending quality family time in an 8x4m space in the rain.
We had washing to do and so I decided we needed a change of scenery.

So here we are at home, sleeping in our own bed, even though the caravan is comfortable to sleep in, with more space to wander around in, the ability to use the toilet without getting wet feet on the way.
We have got a few things to get done.
The courgettes have managed to go wild and we have 2 that are like baseball bats, I think we have marrows! Will get pictures and show you later. (left the camera at the caravan, so the boys will collect it when they go back next week)
The sunflowers are reaching the roof and need tying so they don't fall over, again will show you later in a picture.
The roses need trimming, the tomatoes need tying, the garlic needs pulling.
So just a few jobs that need to be looked at so we don't loose the whole garden in the weather.

We will go back, just going to let the worst of the rain pass before we do!

Art Work

At the caravan they have started to decorate the surrounding campsite area with some wonderful artwork.
From what I can gather as well it is by a local artist, which I think is a great way to showcase the talent in the area.

The owners of the campsite have just placed all the following artwork up in the hotpool area to spruce the place up.

I liked them and thought you might too.

It is Over

The boys are in bed, the washing mountain has been reduced to nothing, the cats are happy to see us and I am so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.
The long weekend everyone has been desperately waiting for has now come to a close.
And WOW what a weekend it has been.

It has been fun lounging around the caravan for 5 nights with family and friends. The weather has not been totally on our side, man we got hit with some strong winds at one stage for 24 hours. Although as usual on the day we are leaving the sun comes out in force!
We got to have fun on Friday night watching the Australian defeat the Welsh (not that that was the result I wanted), but the Welsh fought like mad and oh what an ending to a tough game. The Welsh deserved every point they earnt and I am just so sad for them, but they sure went home huge heros in the eyes of the fans at home. Such a little team to have come 4th in the Rugby World Cup (RWC). Well done to them all.

And to end the weekend we had the awesome time of watching the RWC final on the big screen. It was a tense and exciting game and we are so glad we let the boys stay up to watch it, although they both just about fell a sleep about 10 minutes from the end, but oh how they both fought it, eyelids drooping and snuggled nicely on Grandma and mummy's lap and then wow, game finished both boys wide awake and excited.
Just in case you didn't know New Zealand beat the French 8-7 in the RWC Final in Auckland, New Zealand last night, and as we live in New Zealand then you can guarentee this is all anyone is talking about. The 6 O'Clock news was rugby, rugby oh and just to finish it off with a little more rugby tonight, maybe something else will happen in the world tonight and they will report this tomorrow!

If the weekend has finished then it also means that the school holidays have come to a close as well. School is back tomorrow but for all of 8 weeks and then we are into Christmas school holidays.
The boys has lounged around, watched dvd's, lots of tv and run till they have no puff left with their friends at the caravan.
Tomorrow we have the joy of facing homework again, late nights with judo and just general life.

We are slowly creeping to the end of October too, Blogtoberfest is coming to a close as well. I have just checked my posts and with being away for the weekend then I did miss 2 days of posts, but with having posted twice on some days then I will still manage to end the month with 31 posts and that I am happy with.
I have made some wonderful new blog friends throughout the month and I am having such fun catching up with what they are doing. I have learnt a new craft, Mail art and gained some new things to think about making when I have the time! Yea right, maybe in 20 years time.

So the last load of washing is calling my name to go and hang it up, my bed is calling too, telling me how soft and snuggly it will be and my new suduko book arrived in the mail this weekend, so some puzzling before lights out is on the menu too.

Have a great week all, catch you soon

Easter

The boys woke at 6.30 and totally forgetting the fact that a bunny may have visited, they proceeded to watch a movie in the caravan.

However, by 7.15 they had been to visit a friend’s caravan and suddenly remembered who should have visited. So they started to tear the place to pieces.
They came and told us sleeping wide awake big people that the bunny had missed them out and had not visited. Then with the help of their friends proceeded to tear the place to pieces even more on the ever determined quest of finding some chocolate eggs!

However, Ben had requested that we could do an Easter egg hunt like last year. Unfortunately he seemed to have forgotten this part so early in the morning.
I however, was on the ball and had the hunt all sorted, just not laid out ready to go. So while Steve calmed herded the roaring crowd, I quickly ran around the park and laid the said trap.

We then let the boys loose to see what was discovered. We first let them know that maybe the bunny had left the eggs in the car. This lead to them finding the puzzle start but for some reason Ben had it in his head that this was for a treasure hunt and not for eggs, so stepped over it and carried on looking for eggs. When questioned he said it was for a hunt, which we then had to mention that usually a hunt had prizes.........like possibly eggs? This hit the spot and suddenly they were on a hunt mission.

After sorting the clue and finding many others they found the lost eggs. They even seemed to forget that the bunny had been late in delivering them anyway. They also seemed to have not noticed that they had run up and down the campsite at least 4 times and were now using loads of energy! Wow mums are so sneaky sometimes!

The rest of Easter has been lovely, a nice relaxing chillin’ time at the caravan with friends.

A lot of card games have been played in the last 4 days.

The main one being “Phase 10”, a Rummy based card game with a twist. You can play with 2-6 players and the more you have the longer the game and the more frustrating it becomes but man is it good. It has kept many of us occupied for many hours this last weekend.

Leading on from this, many have been playing “Rummikub”, a tiled based card game. Again, I love this game and so look forward to being able to teach the boys when they are slightly older.

The other one that we have played is “Skip-Bo”, another basic card game that is suited for the children; well at least Ben at almost 8 has been enjoying it and also learning about strategy. I think maybe we have started off his love affair with card games and how much fun they can be.

I also had the pleasure of teaching my boys how to play “clock patience” this weekend and now they both keep getting out a pack of cards to play on their own.

However given the current state of the weather, anyone know of any ducks that want a new home? We have enough water for them and have you got an umbrella to go with that? Yes it has decided that raining is the best possible way to ensure everyone gets very wet and stays home.

Although whilst at the caravan I don’t mind the rain, ok the caravan is not very big and so 4 people stuck inside does have its moments, but it is so much fun watching the poor campers trying so hard to pack everything up without everyone getting too wet! Whilst also trying to explain to the kids why they have to stay sitting in the car whilst mum and dad pack everything up? And that ‘no’ they can’t have another ice cream whilst they sit and wait!
Such fun to watch.

Hope you Easter break has been as enjoyable as ours and that you didn’t get too wet and the kids didn’t get too sick from excess chocolate consumption!

Sandcastle Time

Once again we have been lucky enough to get to spend some quality time at the caravan during the Christmas Holidays.
Everyone just loves it there as it is so relaxing.

The boys spend day after day zooming around the camp site on their bikes, which by the way, they are getting so good at using. They always get so confident on their bikes when there. It is great.
They are in and out of everyones tents and caravans as they play with all their friends and in fact sometimes we can go hours with not actually seeing them, but we are not bothered, as they know the rules for the boundaries of the camp and we know they come back when tired, thirsty or hungry.

It is a relaxing time for us as well, because of the boys not being in our face. We get to sit and think for more than 5 minutes before someone is asking for something.
There is nothing to actually achieve whilst there so no rush to actually do anything!
Just our kinda holiday.

However this year the new owners of the site decided to assist with it being a family friendly site and planned loads of activities for the children.
There have been planned cricket games, T ball games, sandcastle building, art fests and crab hunting.
The kids have loved it all.

Alex in particular enjoyed the sandcastle building. He got right into this, dragging daddy down to the estaury with bucket and spade and proceeding to design his dream building, well if you can call it that.
It was however all his very own creation and that is what I love.

There were many children there with parents, who stood back and watched their parents build their desired creation, not sure if the kids or parents enjoyed this activity more. The children occassionally got sent on hunting missions to find a desired piece of wood or some seaweed for decoration. But other than that the children stood by and watched their parents become kids again!

It was a well attended competition and everyone had a lot of fun in the mud sand!

Boys Weekend

A couple of weeks ago, whilst catching up on the blogs I follow, one of them (Leisy) talked about how her husband was taking their 3 yr old away over night camping.
I thought what a great idea.
Steve has never done anything like that with our boys and I decided that it was about time he did!

So I went and told him he had to organise a weekend away with each of our boys individually.
We checked the calendar and came up with 2 weekends.

I helped them plan the time away, well with regards to food anyway. I asked them one evening what they wanted for dinner on the Saturday night, Alex knew straight away that he wanted Fish and Chips.
So when I did the shopping I ensured that they had everything they needed food wise. They went late on Friday evening, so dinner was had at home with everyone, then they had to sort out breakfast and lunch for Saturday, dinner was takeaways and then they had to sort breakfast and lunch for Sunday.
They took bikes and scooter, swim stuff and dvd's.
So just over 2 weeks ago Steve and Alex disappeared to the caravan for their weekend away together.
Alex was really excited about this, so was Steve come to think about it!

This was quite significant because Steve has never had nights away with the boys due to his diabetes.
When the boys were little I was always worried about what would happen if he had a hypo in the middle of the night? When they were so little it was very easy to got lost in the moment of looking after them that it was easy to forget to eat. Now this is fine for someone like me who can get really hungry and then eat, for Steve, then his sugars would get really low and he would then probably ignore the headache because the kids needed him and then he would eat wrong and maybe suffer for it later when everything all came to a head in the middle of the night!

Someone once told me, when the boys were little, that it got easier when they were older?
At the time I was head deep in life with them and I couldn't quite believe that this was going to be true, but when they are older it seriously is true, life does get simpler.

But the boys are now older, they are less demanding on your time, you can have 5 minutes to yourself and the world does not come crashing down around you. Time is flexible now not so restrictive, in other words life is fun with them.
So now I am not so worried about Steve, I know that he has the time to eat right and therefore will be ok during the night. I also know that he worries about it when he is with the boys on his own, so I know he won't be stupid and will have dinner at a sensible time etc.

So today is Ben's turn, they are heading away tonight after dinner.
The shopping has been done and they are all set to go.
Steve did take the camera with him when he went with Alex but sadly there were no pictures taken (guess you can tell who takes all the pictures in this family?)

What will I be doing I hear you ask??
Well I get to stay at home with the child who is left behind. As we are still a 1 car family then we don't get to go too far.
Ben enjoyed sleeping in mummy and daddy's bed for the nights and we had an adventure on the bus to a friend's birthday party.
Alex and I will be staying at home, although my brother has told me they will be over this way on Sunday due to my nephew having some soccer games to play, so we will go and join them watching him play his matches.

I also think this may have to become an annual event, 'Daddy and Son weekend away'
I am sure we should do a Mummy and Son weekend away too, but I already get plenty of time with them that I am happy for this to wait a while!
Maybe one year we will think of stepping up from a little weekend away to the caravan to something a little more elaborate? Maybe an over night stay in Auckland or something in a hotel?

Warning

The day started ok, until my girlfriend's came over and told me that we would fit in their car?! A little bemused I asked why I needed to fit into their cars?

Turns out there had been a Tsunami in Samoa and it was threatening the East Coast of New Zealand.
No problem except that our caravan is on the East Coast of New Zealand and that is where we are currently located. With no car as Steve is over in Hamilton working whilst I am here with the boys for school holidays.

So on went the limited radio reception that we had and quick phone calls to our husbands who would maybe be able to give us more up to date info from home.
The general consenses was that yes they were advising us to move to higher ground for a few hours as there was threat of 1-2m high waves arriving on the beaches.

So 4 adults and 8 children piled into 2 cars and spent and hour or so up a hill watching the sea roll on by with no sign of any weird activity what so ever!

So a little excitment to make the holiday go by nicely but no real threat to us at anytime.

Walking

Last weekend we went to the caravan.

On the Saturday we had gorgeous weather and so we went for a walk.

Steve knew of this secluded beach that he wanted to find.

He said he knew where the path was, so off we set to find this beach, which can only be accessed by this path.

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to go for this walk. The sun was shining, the water was blue as blue and it was awesome being out in the fresh air.

I took some pictures of the Harbour around by where the caravan is situated from the top of the hill we were climbing to find this beach..

It is beautiful and reminds me all the time why I love New Zealand in the winter and why we have our caravan situated where it is!

Once at the beach, when we had found it, the boys thought the water was the best place to be, Alex just can't resist getting wet!

The Cats

Last weekend we managed to finally get to the caravan. We were away for 2 nights and the cats got to stay outside for 2 nights.
Nothing marvellous about this, apart from the last time we went, Prenzel took off in the 3 nights we were away, and it took us 2 weeks to find her and get her home!
So this time we were a little wary, even decided that if she disappeared again, then No, we were not looking for her!

2 lovely nights at the caravan and on our return, 2 lovely cats sat at the door waiting for us and telling us off for leaving them over 2 cold nights!

Looks like she might be happy and have decided to stay?

Bikes

Ben has been slowly learning to ride his bike without training wheels.
When we were here several weeks ago we took 1 of the wheels off.
He wasn't entirely happy about riding it that way, but he managed and all was going well, that was until the remaining wheel broke.
So this week our mission, if we choose to accept it, was to get Ben riding his bike with no training wheels.

I think we may have managed. he can ride his bike with out training wheel once he gets going, but he is having a little trouble getting started.
He just has to learn how to push him self off and keep peddling at the same time.
Practise, practise, practise....

We have the rest of the week here at the caravan, so we are not going anywhere. Plenty of time and space to practice.
Oh and incentive too....as lots of the other kids are riding without training wheels and he doesn't want to be left out! What more incentive could any child need?

Holiday

We are currently having school holidays at the caravan, well at least I am with the boys, Steve is at home working.
Feel a little like a WAG (wives and girlfriends) as currently at the site there are several families here without husbands, as they are back home working. The pool yesterday was filled with mums and kids but no dads!
The weather has been kind to us and the kids are spending the whole time outside running around and riding bikes. I am loving that because I have never had so much time on my own and not had to worry about what they are up to or had to come up with entertainment continuously.
The other side of that coin is the fact that by 7pm everyone is so tired they fall asleep very easily and sleep most of the night. It was 7am when we all woke this morning. My type of holiday.

I have noticed, however, that due to being away my blogger reading list is mounting up each day. Of course I have to pay to use the computer here, so I have a whole heap of blogs to catch up on when I get home!

Over the Easter weekend the campsite was full and we managed to get several games of cricket going. Well the best you can get when the average age is about 6 yrs old! But anyway, everyone that joined in had a blast and seeing as one of the games lasted for 3 hours! it was just a continuous rolling game. People came and went, parents dealt with kids and still there was always someone to keep the game playing. The kids had a blast, but then so did all the parents that joined in. We had some very budding cricket players in our midst. Some good throwers. Watch out Black Caps we are grooming the next intake for you!

Hoep you Easter has been as much fun as ours?

Caravan

We just got to spend the best weekend ever at the caravan so far this year.
The weather was on our side and I could so have stayed there forever and not left.

We went over late on Friday evening and then have done nothing all weekend. We did some swimming, general lazing around and it was the best.
It gave me a taster of what the time over Christmas may be like when we are there.

Nothing was a hassle, or a both.
The boys made friends with some of the other children who are going to be there at Christmas time, one of the little boys comes with his parents to their caravan, so we know he will be back, not just visiting Grandparents. He is 6 yrs old and lives in hamilton.
Think him and Ben are going to have a fab time at Chrsitmas.

The boys are so use to the place now that we are able to let them go and play away from the caravan and know that they know where we are if they need us. Ok they don't go out of the park but are free to take themselves off to the trampoline by themselves if they so wish. The trampoline is 150m away from the caravan and I can look straight down the park and see them bouncing, but it is freedom to them and you have to give them a small amount for them to learn any.
It was so cute though, because they came and asked if they could go down there and then promptly walked down hand in hand to the trampoline. Wish I had run and got the camera and snuck up behind them to capture the moment, definitely one of those 'ah so cute times'

They are unable to get into the pool without us due to the gate, so no worries about them disappearing that way. They know to look out for slow moving cars around the campsite, although people realise that this is a campsite and therefore are very good at going slow due to children! Actually the traffic around the site is minimal, so probably one of the reasons I am happy to let them wander already. There is a playground across the road, but they have not shown any interest in going there yet without us, and hopefully they won't for a while because that is a definite NO.

So roll on Christmas when we get to spend lots of summer days at the caravan, chilling, cruising and relaxing. I have better go to the library and stock up on books.

What Do I Want?

It is my birthday on Tuesday.
Steve is aware, but suddenly asked again today...'when is your birthday?'
Oh yea...'what do you want?'

Sad thing is, I can't think of anything I actually want. There are things I would like, but they are either too expensive or things that I don't actually need but could quite happily buy just because!
We stopped off to get ice cream this afternoon after having been to the garden centre shop. Steve suddenly said, lets look in K-Mart, they might have that hotplate we have been looking for?
Well worth a try seeing as we can't find one anywhere.

Turns out they don't have hotplates but they did have a 120L bar fridge that is the perfect size for our caravan and at only $150 brand new it was too good to pass up on....so the ever resourceful person that I am said 'but I have always wanted a fridge for my birthday!'
Steve just looked at me and laughed, ok so I did then convince him of why it was just what we needed and we brought it anyway, as for my birthday, well I will just wait and see for Tuesday.....

Cool Dude

On Friday we managed to leave Hamilton early so we got a good start at getting to the caravan early.

Alex was not too interested in the just over an hour drive, and so all he did on the way was sleep. (although this back fired in our face at 9pm later that night!)

Ben on the other hand now gets all chatty in the car and will discuss foreign politics given half the chance! So when the conversation dried up, or was that when mummy started to ignore the silly questions and constant, mum, mum ,mum from him, he turned to other ways to amuze himself.

So he bent down and rescued the paper from the floor and sat in the car reading the local newspaper.

When I got the camera out, well then he started posing!