Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Easter weekend
saw us heading to Northland to meet up with Billy's whanau for his greatgrandparents unveiling. We had an amazing weekend. We spent the first night in Paihia then good friday sightseeing in Russel and Paihia before heading off to meet up with the whanau to travel to the marae. We had two nights on the marae, with the unveiling saturday morning. We also got to see and hear alot more of Billy's whakapapa from his great aunt and visit the marae where she, his great grandmother and brothers and sisters grew up. We all feel very priviledged to have been included in this. Billy's dad got to play with him at the beach for the first time and we were able to spend an hour in swimming with the girls in really warm water. Harriet and Billy loved marae life with lots of kids to play with and were even pretty good during the long powhiri and speeches during the formal parts of the weekend.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Rainbow Warrior
carrying on the tradition of her grandmother as a peace activist and greenpeace supporter Isabella spent sunday on the Rainbow Warior 11 helping with their public open day.
Picking Cinnamon
Harriet is getting a rabbit for her 6th birthday and decided quite a few weeks ago it would be named Cinnamon which then left us the task of finding a small lop eared bunny that looked like a cinnamon. Sunday we went out to a rabbit breeder whose kits would be ready about the 28th and Harriet got to choose her rabbit. He is a very cute little honey brown boy who we can pick up the day after her party..we figured a small baby bunny would not do well as the centre of attention at her fairy party.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
What have we been up to....
firstly...my thesis has been handed in, the reason this blog as well as the garden, the kids photo albums, jobs around the house and numerous other things have been somewhat neglected over the last six months, all spare time has been spent on finishing. It was a somewhat crazy idea to think I could work full time night duties, be a full time parent and write a thesis and I'm sure I have driven my family crazy at times but it is all in now.
The second weekend of feb saw us heading off to splore, a big music and arts 3 day festival. There were 5000 people, all camping and it was the first time I had camped since I was a teenager and the first time we had taken the kids camping. Everyone had a ball, the kids loved camping, we managed pretty well although it helped our lovely friends are seasoned campers and had all their gear with them. The music was great,as were the night time performances, we went aiming to camp with two other gay families and ended up in a group of about 10 so all the kids had little buddies including Isabella and her friend who got to hang out with some other 13yr olds.
The next weekend Isabella celebrated her birthday belatedly with all her school friends with a hippy party. The girls ate pizza and fondue and had a go at tye dyeing and screen printing. Isabella is enjoying high school, she has joined the debating and marine biology clubs and is continuing with saxaphone lessons, this time with her own saxaphone which she brought with her science fair prize money and a generous donation from gran and barb. Some of the classes such as french are proving a little easy as she learnt numbers, colours, etc when she was 5yrs old and they are starting with basics. She received an excellence for her first english project. She is back volunteering with greenpeace and will be working on the Rainbow Warrior this weekend.
Harriet is also back at school and enjoying catching up with all her friends. She is rehearsing each week for a repeat performance of her bollywood show on 28th of march, the date of her 6th birthday and already planning her fairy party for the next day. She had fun catching up with her uncle and his partner this month when they came to see us and is very excited she gets to be a flowergirl at their november wedding.
Billy is chatting up a storm. He is at that delicious stage where you realise they know all these things they weren't verbalising, he can count to ten , describe things by colour and has all these words he never used singularly but puts into long sentences. His favourite phrase is 'that's funny' and he always uses it in context of funny -hah ha or funny wierd. After a rough start when he was brewing tonsilitis he now adores his daycare and runs off happily waving me goodbye. His little friend Bella goes the same days as him and they are great playmates for each other. As a 'finishing my thesis' present ang got me a fabulous retro bike complete with baby seat so I can now bike him to school. It was taking me 45mins each way to walk him along the bike path. He giggles the whole time he is on the bike.
The second weekend of feb saw us heading off to splore, a big music and arts 3 day festival. There were 5000 people, all camping and it was the first time I had camped since I was a teenager and the first time we had taken the kids camping. Everyone had a ball, the kids loved camping, we managed pretty well although it helped our lovely friends are seasoned campers and had all their gear with them. The music was great,as were the night time performances, we went aiming to camp with two other gay families and ended up in a group of about 10 so all the kids had little buddies including Isabella and her friend who got to hang out with some other 13yr olds.
The next weekend Isabella celebrated her birthday belatedly with all her school friends with a hippy party. The girls ate pizza and fondue and had a go at tye dyeing and screen printing. Isabella is enjoying high school, she has joined the debating and marine biology clubs and is continuing with saxaphone lessons, this time with her own saxaphone which she brought with her science fair prize money and a generous donation from gran and barb. Some of the classes such as french are proving a little easy as she learnt numbers, colours, etc when she was 5yrs old and they are starting with basics. She received an excellence for her first english project. She is back volunteering with greenpeace and will be working on the Rainbow Warrior this weekend.
Harriet is also back at school and enjoying catching up with all her friends. She is rehearsing each week for a repeat performance of her bollywood show on 28th of march, the date of her 6th birthday and already planning her fairy party for the next day. She had fun catching up with her uncle and his partner this month when they came to see us and is very excited she gets to be a flowergirl at their november wedding.
Billy is chatting up a storm. He is at that delicious stage where you realise they know all these things they weren't verbalising, he can count to ten , describe things by colour and has all these words he never used singularly but puts into long sentences. His favourite phrase is 'that's funny' and he always uses it in context of funny -hah ha or funny wierd. After a rough start when he was brewing tonsilitis he now adores his daycare and runs off happily waving me goodbye. His little friend Bella goes the same days as him and they are great playmates for each other. As a 'finishing my thesis' present ang got me a fabulous retro bike complete with baby seat so I can now bike him to school. It was taking me 45mins each way to walk him along the bike path. He giggles the whole time he is on the bike.
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