Wednesday 24 April 2013

Sight seeing

While Karen and Alastair are here we're doing our best to show off the best sights Auckland has to offer.  On Saturday we took them to our local beach and park, Stanmore Bay.

After that we hit Onewa domain, where Adam had a football match.  There's a really cool park there too.

On Monday we went down to Devonport and up to the top of Mount Victoria to get a good view of the city and Rangitoto.  I struggled to get any "normal" photos with Adam and Alastair...


The vents down to the old bunkers have been painted to look like toadstools now.


Yesterday (Tues) we went into the city to do the sky tower.  We were planning to do the sky jump but when we got there saw it cost $225 each! Plus you are just kind of lowered down by a rope, whereas we though it was a bungy.  We didn't think it was worth it.  So we went to the top of the tower and had lunch in the Orbit restaurant - it revolves around the top of the tower.

Adam managed to get Karen onto the glass floored portion :)


After we finished the sky tower we decided to do the bungy swing, since we hadn't done the sky jump. It was awesome!  And a LOT better value for money :)  The guy got us all strapped in and started getting the bungy stretched out, was just chatting away to us and all of a sudden let us go.  It came as quite a shock - you hit a speed 200km/hr in 2 secs!  Lani was filming us and I think it made her jump so much she hit the button that stopped the video, but she got it going again when we were up in the air, so we're missing just a little bit of the swing after launch, but here's the main gist:

We had quite an audience by the time we were let go.  I screamed really loudly (although I hadn't been planning to!) but we were pulled up so fast that Karen and the kids said they didn't hear a thing.  It was awesome and I'd definitely do it again.

Today we had a bit more of a relaxed day - just went down to Takapuna.  We were planning to walk to Milford along the coastal walk but got rained off, so just had some lunch at a lovely beach front cafe.  And headed home via the English shop ;) Just finished my Wispa bar - yum! And slowly working my way through a packet of Percy Pigs.

Saturday 20 April 2013

Easing back into this posting thing...

I have been terrible.  I know.  I don't even want to go and look at how long it's been since I did a proper post.  This is my attempt to start posting again, since it's supposed to be kind of a journal and that's important to keep up to date...

I've been put of doing posts because I know I have a lot to catch up on (as well as being super busy and tons of stuff on, but doesn't everyone?!).  So I'm just not going to attempt it.  Maybe I'll come back and fill in the gaps at some point, but now I think I just need to get started again.

So quick summaries:

Work: Just finished term 1.  It was very long (12 weeks) and I have been very VERY tired during this last week.  Hoping to recover soon!  Timetabling went excellently for my first go at doing it (if I do say so myself!).  Have had lots of positive feedback about it and feel hugely proud of myself.  FYI it was a job that literally no one else in the whole school wanted to do.  But I actually love doing it, especially now I feel like I know what I'm doing.

Adam:  Well, he's just as awesome as ever.  Doing well at work, being given a lot of high profile projects and large amounts of responsibility.  He's lost a lot of weight since starting running and football  last September.  He's looking really good and feeling a whole lot better for it too.  Marriage is great and we have so much fun together.  LOVE him!

Kids: All doing well.  Lani has started Ukulele lessons and loves it.  Also loves reading and I love that! She's onto Jaqueline Wilson books now, which started with Hetty Feather.  Zach is doing really well at school (if we just glaze over the biting incident this week and chalk it up to over tiredness...).  He has really taken to reading and breezing through every stage of reading books he gets sent home with.  Having a conscientious older sister has really helped encourage his enthusiasm for learning.  Tilly is as ditzy as ever.  Our honorary blonde.  But she's so flipping cute.  She loves pre-school and I really need to get onto helping her learn her basics at home.  She can count well, but for some reason always forgets 15.  She says ooo-kay instead of oh-kay :)

Current Happenings:  Karen and Alastair arrived yesterday.  Karen is staying 3 weeks, Alastair... well no one's really sure yet... He's come to live with us for a while and experience the awesomeness of living in New Zealand :D

Recent achievements:  I run.  I know.  Weird. Last week I ran 18k in preparation for the half marathon I'm doing in 2 weeks.  I actually love it and, blow me down with a feather, I'm actually good at it.  Built for running.  Who knew?

Stuff I want to spend more time on: Blogging.  Photography - it's been neglected, for all the same reasons the blog has.  Not enough time and such a big job to start up again, such a backlog to get through. Learning the Ukulele - Adam got me one for Christmas and I love it (and did I mention yet how great he is? He remembered I'd mentioned I'd like one a few months before and it was the perfect gift)

Church:  I'm Sunday School teacher for the 16-18 yr olds and really like it.  Having lots of great discussions with the new curriculum this year.  Just had general conference and I need to catch up on watching it.

Friends:  Have been feeling a little sorry for myself (this is not a pity cry, just being honest about it) because I miss having really good deep friendships around me.  I haven't developed them here yet and I know that's down to me and just time.  I find it very hard to make those connections and put my barriers down to be able to do it.  Plus, it takes time to build.  No one's been horrible to me or anything, I'm just jealous of people that have their years-long, never-ending friendships when I don't have that here yet.

That's all I can think of for a quick recap.  For my kids who I hope will enjoy reading this one day - I'm sorry I haven't written down everything for you, just know that we think you're awesome kids (trying, but awesome!) and you did awesome things.  The three of you are a very cool bunch.