Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of Trick Or Treating here, so despite Blake's insistence that he need a costume, we ended up dressed as Americans in a public hospital for the evening. 

Okay, back up.  Today started as a very slow day with laundry and not much else when Liza stubbed her toe.  Fast forward 5 hours later and she has a broken L big toe (Type 3 Salter Harris fracture of the L 1st DIP for my medical friends).  She was in the most pain I think I've ever seen her in when it first happened, but she is doing okay now.  She'll have the cast for 4 weeks and if the X-Ray in 2 weeks shows that the bone has not moved out of place, she can go into a stiff-soled shoe.  Hopefully her time at camp won't be affected too much in one month.

Friday was South School's Flower Show.  The kids are all required to participate and make very interesting flower arrangements.

A vaseline saucer is a regular saucer that is decorated with flower petals and leaves using vaseline to stick them to the saucer and together.  Liza and Blake both placed for their effort.

I also had a chance to see the kids' classrooms and work and get pictures of them with their teachers.

 Liza and Ms. Gillian Dampney

 Blake and Ms. Raewyn Hunter

Happy Birthday Liza!

Liza is 13 today!  She woke up to find a present I had wrapped for her of underwear and earrings.  Weird, I know.  Anyways, she seemed happy.  Today is 3 months since getting her braces off also, so she now only has to wear her retainers at night.

 
She got a birthday welcome and balloons at my clinic, then went to school.

At lunch, I had to go home to meet the electrician so we could figure out why we had no hot water this morning.  When I got there, the problem was already fixed, so I watched an episode of The Soprano's and baked some M&M brownies for Liza's birthday dinner.

After school, at Kid's Club, both kids had a little bit of a meltdown because they miss their dad, but were doing okay once I picked them up.  We bought brie and crackers (Liza's choice) to add to the mince and cheese pies I cooked for dinner.

Now, while Blake takes an overdue hot shower, Liza and I are going to watch a TV show together.

Waihi Beach

Monday 10/25 is Labor Day here, so it's a 3 day weekend!  I had planned on taking the kids to a new beach for a couple days, but Liza asked for a sleepover with 2 of her friends on Sunday night, and because I am such a nice mom, I cut the beach trip to an overnighter and now I have 3 rowdy girls in my house. 

Yesterday, we took a road trip to Waihi Beach, which is a 9km long beautiful beach that has been described as "the safest beach in New Zealand" and is in the Coromandel peninsula of New Zealand.  That is the Northestern jut of land from the north island.  We arrived at about 1pm and headed straight for the beach, where the kids made friends with a cute kiwi boy.

We then headed for town and booked a room at the Waihi Beach Hotel, which was very cute, but attached to a bar.  I should have realized when I booked the room at the pub that we would be hearing loud pub traffic into the wee hours of the morning.  Surprisingly, this only woke me up once and we all did okay with sleep.  AND, there was a bonus.  The band stayed in the motel also and hung out shirtless in front in the morning (something Liza noticed first), which made packing up the car a joy. 

Yesterday evening, after dinner, we headed out for more beach time and again when we woke up this morning, there was a local market going on across the street from the hotel.  The kids had ice cream cones for breakfast (hey, that's calcium and protein) and we bought a bunch of fresh tomatoes that the kids both thought were great and rock salted macadamia nuts.  We then fit in one more beach trip before heading back to our Otorohanga-home.

 

After a nap, we picked up a couple of Liza's friends for a sleepover.

   

Pictures!

I am going to try to upload all of my pictures from each of our different adventures.  See link on the right.  Keep checking back as I get more and more of them uploaded.

Sheep and Speed and Sulfur

So we ended day 1 in Rotorua at the motel pool.  I watched and knit until it was too dark and the kids swam with a Fijian family, who were very tolerant of a rambunctious 8 year old boy!  The motel had private indoor natural thermal pools, but the smell of sulfur (which permeates Rotorua) was too strong in an enclosed space for me.  Instead, we went to the park in town, where there were several shallow thermal pools we dipped our feet in.  It was delicious.

Natural bubbling hot mud pools (just to look at)

Natural thermal foot baths in Kuirau Park, Rotorua

Rotorua Day 2

We started the day with a trip to up the Skyline Gondolas to the Luge!  I only crashed once and that was when I was trying to film the ride with my camera at the same time.  Smart, I know, but it sounded like a great idea at the time.

Skyline gondola and beautiful Rotorua in the background

Chair ride after the luge, which are hanging off of the chair.  The tracks we luged down below.

Then, we went to the Agrodome, where we saw a show about sheep, etc.  We were introduced to all of the different types of sheep.  Who knew there were so many.

Romney, Merino, Suffolk, oh my

One was sheared for us and gave us all a little piece of raw wool.  The kids were both picked as volunteers to go up on stage and Blake got to milk a cow and Liza bottle fed a lamb.

Blurry because he was very fast

Blurry again, sorry.  All of Blake's milking pictures were

The little guy in front bolted off the stage when the little lambs ran on.  It was very cute

They demonstrated how sheepdogs work, ones that bark and ones that just stare at the sheep to make them move.  We then got to go on stage and take pictures and touch the sheep, lambs and cow.  Pretty fun for us city folk. 

He looks worried, but it was all very safe

No fear here.  No one prompted Blake to do this, he just ran right in and picked one up.

We ended the day at a circular shrub maze, which was fun, then had a wonderful Thai dinner that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

Zorbing

Last weekend was another long one and the kids are still on holiday from school, so we went to Rotorua.  Rotorua is a tourist destination and the weather was beautiful, so we went non-stop.

Day 1.  When we arrived, our motel room was not quite ready, so we headed to the Zorb.  Liza and Blake rode together in the Hydro-Zorb, with water inside so they sloshed around on the way down.

Inside the Zorb

Well, it's my turn to do a Saturday morning shift, so I have to go.  More about Rotorua later...