Rafting

At the caravan this Easter it was obvious that moral was a little low between the people who had been there a while. We got told that usually everyone was chummy with everyone else and that there was usually activities put on for the kids etc.

So one of the regulars had decided a couple of weeks previous that we need something happening at Easter to bring everyone back together. So he organised a raft race.

He was only really able to talk to 2 other people about this so there were only 3 teams but I think it sort of worked.

The rules were very simple, 3 people per team, 1 named captain. Raft must be inflatable rings held together with string but no permanent structures, oh and you needed some oars.

Rules: The raft is positioned out in the water with 2 team members, captain stands on the shore and when told must run into the water to their raft and off you go once round the marked course.

Nobody put up a sign or anything but word of mouth is pretty good as when someone let the air horn off at 9.45am on Easter Sunday to let the teams know they had to get ready in the water suddenly the people emptied the camp to come and watch. It was like they had all been possessed and all just filtered to the water. It was quite a sight.

Anyway the raft race was fun and even though it threatened to rain I think it went well. There was a cup at the end and champagne. They are hoping to do it again next year and make it an annual Easter thing.

So Grandad and Iain, get your planning caps on because Steve has told them that we will have a team for next year. So you are staying at Athenree next Easter because as new comers we need to kick their buts!

Poor Ben

Our little big boy is impatient, not sure where he gets that trait from, but am sure it is his father?!
He wanted Steve to help him cut an apple today and being impatient like he is decided to do it himself.......
Yes you can guess the next bit....apple didn't get cut much but Ben's right ring finger did!
Managed a nice decent size clean non bleeding cut that unfortunately was very gapey and we knew would need seeing too to assist with the healing.
So off him and I trotted at 1pm to the Accident & Medical Clinic to sit for a happy 2 hours so a nice doctor could put some glue on the wound to hold the edges together. They then dressed it and sent us home, telling us to "Keep it dry for the next 2 days!"

At 6.30pm this evening we trotted back to the clinic to get another dressing put on because the previous one, including the glue had all come off!
So here we are back to square one with a open wound and nothing to hold it closed.
Now it is steristripped together and has opsite waterproof dressing all over it to hopefully keep it clean and dry whilst healing starts, although Ben is very good at healing slowly so I am hoping it will granulate together quickly and we don't have to go back to any doctors later in the week because it hasn't stayed together.

Although the clinic did send us home with extra steristrips so I can always fix it myself next time.

Swimming Lessons

Because they both came along so well whilst we were away we decided to check out some lessons for them.
So we are checking out a place tomorrow afternoon when the boys will have an assessment to see which class they will be put into.
Hopefully it will be ok and the boys will gain a lot more confidence in and around the water.

This will be very helpful with going to the pool at the caravan all the time

Blocked!

My blog has had certain parts blocked within the UAE!

OMG I can hear you cry, what has happened?
Well in fact it is not as serious as it sounds..
My parents are in Dubai at present and unfortunately the internet there blocks anything it doesn't deem culturally acceptable!
So no you-tube, facebook, skype or even fun quizs like this or this!

This is not just my site, this is all sites.

Isn't it amazing what control they feel they have to have over their people!?

Swimming

At the place we have the caravan are some hotspring pools. Nothing huge or anything, just a semi medium pool and a small adult soaking pool (this is a lot hotter than the main pool, no kids allowed)

So whilst at the caravan for 5 days it turned out we went swimming at least twice a day!

The boys loved it, well eventually.

Going swimming

Ben had no problem, he got more confident as the days went by. Jumping off the side to us, trying to swim form one of us to the other, unfortunately most of it was under the water, but at least he is not afraid of his face in the water now.

Alex was not a happy chappy for a while but by about the 3rd time of going he was now getting in himself with his ring and happily floating around on his own, kicking his legs and getting himself places.

Dady can you help me please

Off we go...

Ring a ring o rosies

So in just 5 days they have both come so far!

Ben's Rationalising

Ben announced to us this morning that he couldn't put his rubbish in the bin because only big boys do that!
When asked if he was a big boy he replied "No"
When asked why not he replied "Because you have to be 5!"

So life according to Ben is as follows:
2 yrs old = Baby
3 yrs old = Little boy
4 yrs old = Big little boy
5 yrs old = Big boy

So Ben is a Big little boy and Alex is just changing from a baby to a little boy.

Life according to a 4 1/2 yr old boy!

Dead or Alive

What do you know they have a quiz to tell you how much you are worth dead!
Although I think what I am worth is decent, I think I will stick around for a lot longer thanks.

$4775.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Countries

How is your Geography??
Funny I can name more countries than I can colours???

31

Not Sure if This is Fun?

12

Why I would want to do this I have no idea.

How they can tell this from a bunch of questions is another thing I have no idea on??

Who makes these things?

Colour Fun

25

Ok so not that many really, but hey it is 9.45pm

And when you do the test and see some of the names of colours then you will see where I went down!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to you all.

Would you believe we have just been away for 5 days without one Easter egg!

We just don't seem to do Easter!

But what about the boys I hear you cry???

They don't know anything about it. We have never seemed to get into it.

Ben wouldn't eat the chocolate eggs if we did buy them for him and Alex doesn't know so why not make it wait a couple more years.

We do realise that things will change next year as Ben will be at school and there will be more knowledge coming his way from peer pressure.

He will know about every dam thing as it happens next year because someone at school will be talking about it or the school will be doing something at that time.

Oh well maybe we will do Easter Eggs next year or not!

Caravan Holiday

So after dinner on Wednesday we had the pleasure of packing the car and shipping off to our new caravan.

The weather has been good so far so lets hope it stays for Easter, although they are saying it will.

Here are some pictures showing you the caravan once it is lived in, although remember to refer back here for pictures before it was completed.

Enjoying time on the deck.

Life in the sun (sorry about the washing!)

Our Room

The Boys Room

Living Area

Kitchen area

So there you have it, the wonderful place we are spending Easter at.

New Product

New Zealand have just got all excited about this new product from Kraft.

Another one in the Philly Cheese range.....Philly with Strawberries

Now I don't have the heart to tell everyone this product has been around for years and I was in fact eating it in the US for lunch back in 1995!

Cribbage

Where on earth did this card game come from??
My parents can play this and now I find out so can Steve. He had the pleasure of teaching me over the weekend whilst at the caravan!
OMG what a game, I am sure he was cheating, although I have never played so wouldn't really know, but he definitely got into the cribbage spirit because I almost lost lots of points because I wasn't playing quick enough, but then seeing as I have never played how was I meant to know I could get the points!!
I am sure as I get to know the game more and understand it and know the scoring system better then I might actually enjoy playing it, but we will see.

I did look up info about where it came from on Google. This is what I found...

"Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board used for scorekeeping, the eponymous crib or box (a separate hand counting for the dealer), two distinct scoring stages (the play and the show) and a unique scoring system including points for groups of cards that total fifteen.
According to John Aubrey, cribbage was created by the English poet Sir John Suckling in the early 17th century, as a derivation of the game "noddy". While noddy has disappeared, crib has survived, virtually unchanged, as one of the most popular games in the English-speaking world. The objective of the game is to be the first player to score a target number of points, typically 61 or 121. Points are scored for card combinations that add up to fifteen, pairs (plus triples and quadruples), runs and flushes."

Steve was taking points left, right and centre! You gained one for this and if you did it this way you gained another, but if you weren't quick enough in taking the point someone else took it! I am sure half the points he took were made up, he could have said you get one for a Queen just because there is a Queen of England for all I know!

So for now I think I will just wait to watch my parents and Steve play together, then I might get a better understanding, although I know my mum tried to teach me many years ago!

Statement by Alex

Today we went to Katikati to stock up on the fresh essentials that we required. It is only 10ks down the road from the camp.
We stopped before hand to get a drink, the usual stuff, Flat White, Hot Choc, Fluffy and cup of milk.
Before we had finished this is the conversation we had with Alex.....

Alex: I take this cup with me?

Me: No it belongs to the restaurant!

Alex: No mum!

Me: Yes

Alex: No! This is not a restaurant, this is a cafe!

Geeze doesn't everyone know the difference between a restaurant and a cafe??

Our Caravan

We have a caravan and it is on the site at the campsite waiting for us to go over tonight and spend 5 glorious days there.

I had the pleasure of going over yesterday and getting everything ready when they put it on the site.

So to give you a taster of our Easter plans, here are some pictures of the caravan, oh and girls, Cam does not come with the caravan, sadly he was just there to put it all together for us!

Falling in Love

Yes I have fallen in love, but it is not with whom more with what....

I have fallen in love with New Zealand....

Yesterday I had the pleasure of driving through the Waikato region about 1 1/2 hours to get to the site where our caravan is being placed.

I did the drive on my own and I left Hamilton at about 8am. The sun was just rising above the tree tops and all the plains were covered in fog.

It was beautiful, the sun was just hitting the right places to make everything shine.

You could just see the sun poking through the fog. This big round circle trying to shine down.

As I came to the Kaimai ranges the fog was sitting like a skirt, I could see the top of the ranges and I could see the bottom but there was this fog over the middle, add to this the sun shinning down and making it all sparkle and you have the most glorious sights.

By the time I got to the campsite I was totally sold on New Zealand all over again.

Don't you just love life....?

Gibbing the Wall

We had a horrid piece of partical board up in the kitchen that was very old and not good at all.

We got a gib stopper in to make all the seals nice, but he said he could do it even better if we could replace the board with proper gib board.

So Steve had the pleasure of removing said board and replacing it with a nice smooth board that will give the wall a much better finish. And we want that seeing as we are going to be painting the kitchen and the previous owners had it wallpapered.

As always Steve had 2 little helpers in this project who are always ready to climb the ladder and generally get in the way!

The Zoo

As a committee outing for the children we went to Hamilton Zoo the other day.

Now I can't say I really like this zoo, think I have been spoilt by Auckland Zoo.

They have lovely giraffes and rhinos, the walkway round the zoo has been done ever so nicely and the chimps have a wonderful enclosure but the rest I just don't like.

It is this maze of paths that seem to go nowhere.

The enclosures are very impressive but due to this the animals can all hide very well in their homes and you can't see them.

So you spend the whole time searching and telling the kids that "apparently a lemur lives here, or a red panda etc"

My 2 love the tigers, but unfortunately their enclosure is so big we have never seen a tiger on all the times we have visited, which doesn't sit well with Ben as this is all he races around the zoo to see!

They do have a playground that sits well with my 2 and the giraffes are so big and right there that you can't miss them.

Caravan Update

We actually got to go to the factory workshop where our caravan is being built the other day to see how it was coming along.

Our kitchen area.

Our Bedroom

The boys bunk beds

The deck on the side

It is all looking really good. The colours I chose are all looking good together and I can't wait to spend Easter in the caravan at our new site.