Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Visiting Relatives

My brother in law Paul is visiting for a week. Gary & Paul are spending the time working on the stock car & I have to work so the kids pretty much have to amuse themselves.

Samyson seems to have taken on the child minder role but is feeling a bit challenged. According to Paul his kids are not fussy eaters & will eat anything - yeah right!!! Still, since they live in Christchurch we don't get to see them much so it is kind of nice.

I took them all to Browns Bay for a swim last night, Paul hates water so he never takes them & I am the only person we know of that is allowed to, needless to say they had a ball. Got them fish & chips for tea.

Tonight I will take them for a drive to see the sights, sky tower, one tree hill etc. Apparantly Mikayla wants to go to KMart, I guess I can take her to Albany tomorrow night although I suspect she may be disappointed to find out it is just like the KMart at home.

I have promised to take the 4 of them to Rainbows End on Saturday, last Saturday of the school holidays, can't see that being a whole lot of busy, still they cannot come up here & not go.

Kids back to school next week.

CHRIS H asked if I was looking forward to it. I am in as much as I have to work so it is hard to find stuff for them to do. They tend to come to work with me a lot so I get to hang out for a bit during the day & have lunch with them (and put them to work stuffing envelopes, taking the mail to the post box etc).

We went away for a week & half then I had the next 2 weeks off so I hung out with the kids, Samyson had CCMT summer school for 2 weeks so I had Siobhan home with me for a week by herself which she loved, we tried to relax and did one "treat" each day. The next week she was going to come to work with me but she discovered one of her friends was in the school holiday programme at the local school so she ended up there for 3 days.

Samyson starts College & Siobhan starts Intermediate so that is kind of exciting too - in a "it seems like only yesterday they were starting primary school" sort of a way.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Update time from a slack blogger

Well it has been a while.

NAPIER:
Had a good time away although it was a bit hairy for the first couple of days as there were strong winds which are NOT conducive to an enjoyable camping experience. Gary was just about ready to pack up & go home again. Having said that, he was in a crap mood for a large part of the time anyway.

Highlights:
- the audio self tour of the old prison, it is a fascinating place with a really interesting history
- Ocean beach. The beaches in Napier themselves are rubbish but about 5-10 mins out of Havelock North you go on this windy road & come around a bend at the top of the hill & voila a beautiful beach.
- Vineyards (of course), that was the one thing I insisted that I wanted to do while I was in the Hawkes Bay, spend a day visiting wineries. I loved Moana Park, talking to the winemaker, his knowledge & enthusiasm was awesome. The same with Church Road, the guy there was great. Mission Estate is a stunning place, I could have stayed there for hours (in actual fact we didn't taste any wine there as it was busy).
- Splash Planet, what a way to spend a day. I put my Big Girl Undies on & went on the hydroslides, something I have not done since I was a kid. I even went in the covered one (not a wise idea for someone who is claustraphobic. The kids had a ball & we got to act like big kids.

We have Gary's brother Paul & his 2 kids visiting for a week. The kids get to hang out & I will try to get some time off work or at least leave early so we can go & do some stuff as the Dads will be working on the stock car most of the time.

In other news I joined Weight Watchers on line & in 2 & 1/2 weeks I have lost a grand total of .... 800g, yes that is it. I suspect my portion sizes may still be an issue & I am also sure that although I am counting my wine, my glass is a little (lot) bigger than 150ml. This week I am going to have a couple of days with no alcohol to see if that will kick start things. I only joined for 3 months at this stage so it would be nice to see results. I thought I would struggle with accountability but I have a 13 year old who keeps me on track & won't let me cheat when I log my daily food. Both kids are good at reminding me to go online & fill in my tracker.

Finally, the last 2 weeks Samyson was at Summer School, he got a partial scholarship to CCMT Emerging Talent school. It is a week of intense workshops then a mock audition on the Saturday. The next week is preparing for a show which they performed twice at the Bruce Mason on Saturday. A really good show & Samyson got great feedback from all his tutors, they told him he had talent & he grew so much during the course.  He got so much out of it and is already talking about doing it again next year.