Liska's 4th Birthday

Liska had her 4th birthday on October 14th. It started out with waffles with whipped cream, followed by playing at Kowhai Park and a picnic lunch, watching Lazlo's first touch rugby game and dinner at Burger King (birthday girl's request, she has been eying the colorful Burger King play structure since we moved here). It ended with a princess castle cake and opening gifts. I surprised myself by falling apart- she isn't a baby any more. Once again, the grandparents, aunts, uncles and even great-aunts and great-uncles were wonderful- sending gifts, cards, getting the date right for the birthday phone call. Thank you!

Spring Break

I was planning lots of outdoor adventures for spring break, but it rained and was cold for almost the entire two weeks. Both kids got sick, though, so they were mostly content to stay at home. We read a lot, played hide and seek inside, played castle and legos, planted seeds for the garden, made these strange little waldorf-type yarn dolls, baked bread and went puddle jumping. On one of the clear days we went to the beach and watched people catching whitebaits. Whitebaits are tiny baby fish that are eaten whole. They are considered a delicacy in New Zealand and can only be caught for a short time each year.

Hawera BMX BikeTrack

We spent a beautiful afternoon at the Hawera BMX track, about an hour north of Wanganui. Brad and Lazlo rode for hours while Liska and I played at the track and a nearby playground. Liska loves to watch the BMX world championship YouTube video in which Sarah Walker, from New Zealand, wins. We can't wait for her to get on two wheels.

Brad's Birthday

Brad had wanted to go mountain biking for his birthday, but the weather didn't cooperate. Instead, I managed to surprise him by having his mountain biking friends meet us for dinner at the Yellow House Cafe, one of the very few good places to eat in Wanganui. At home we celebrated with fish and chips-Brad is always looking for an excuse to have fish and chips-and a double decker brownie with chocolate frosting. Our families were so thoughtful getting cards and gifts here on time, thank you!

Hone the Kiwi Bird

Lazlo's school focuses a lot on the environment, and this year they adopted a kiwi bird which they named "Hone". Lazlo is his grade's "Green Team" representative, so he got to go to a nature reserve and see Hone released into the bush, which was pretty darned cool because most New Zealanders have only seen kiwi birds indoors in wildlife sanctuaries. To follow up on this theme, the lower grades of Lazlo's school put on a musical called "Hone the Kiwi Bird" and Lazlo was cast as Hone.

I have to admit I was a little anxious about it. Most of the kids sang one song on stage, but Lazlo had lines throughout the entire 45 minute production. Rehearsal at home didn't go too well (can't blame him, he is worn out by 4pm) so I was relieved they practiced at school. Not surprisingly, rehearsal improved once he started getting attention for it from the teachers and big kids.

Although he is no Macauley Caulkin (Brad's words, not mine), Laz did a terrific job. He remembered all of his lines and even helped out others on stage who had forgotten theirs. Some of the kids were unintelligible, but Lazlo spoke clearly and occasionally with some expression. Watching him on stage was my favorite part of the show, of course. But a close second was watching the boy, front and center, who became mesmerized by the band aid on his arm in the middle of his song. While everyone sang and danced around him he went into his own little band aid world, unsticking and resticking the band aid on various parts of his arm, until the song was over.

We'll post the video soon, but here are some pictures.

Barb's Visit, Part 2

Our first real destination was the Wild Foods Festival in Hokitiki. It was touted in our guidebook as being just that, and we imagined it would be full of adventurous foodies like Brad. Unfortunately, most of the people there were too drunk to appreciate the culinary delicacies New Zealand has to offer. For example, the delectable huhu grubs. Before you think we're bad parents for having Liska eat them you should know that she asked for seconds.


Liska eating a huhu grub and Brad eating worm sushi

We headed down the west coast of the South Island to Okarito Lagoon. It was beautiful and supposedly great for bird watching if you didn't happen to have two noisy kids fighting over who could paddle.

Okarito Lagoon

Brad put his impressive spatial perception skills to use for our trip and left no empty cubic millimeter of space in the van. Thank goodness for my mom, she played with the kids while Brad and I unpacked and packed the van each day.

Barb's Visit, Part 1

I feel terrible, it has been 5 months and I still haven't made any posts about my mom, Nancy and Hannah's visit. I have thought about it many times but with over 1000 photos (we had a great adventure) I didn't know where to start. I decided the best approach would be to make multiple posts about the visit, so here is the first one.

We were all so sad to see my dad and Molly go, we were lucky to have another special visit to look forward to. My mom was able to stay with us for a month; two weeks alone and then two weeks where Nancy and Hannah joined us. We had a wonderful time!

My mom was a great sport. We met her at the Wellington airport and immediately took her on a two week whirlwind tour of the South Island. We hopped on the ferry and visited one of my favorite spots, Nelson Lakes National Park.

Nelson Lakes
We arrived at our first stop late at night and were greeted with a sign in front of the restaurant saying "Welcome Toroks". No one was around (literally-for miles) but our cabin was unlocked and we awoke to cows mooing in the paddock across the drive and snow capped mountains beyond.





Outside our cabin, somewhere on the west coast of the South Island








The next day we stopped at Pancake Rocks, where the columns of limestone really do look like stacked pancakes, and the wild Tasman Sea shot up through blowholes.


Between our ambitious itinerary and the kids waking up early each day, my poor mom didn't have much chance to recover from jet lag. You would never have guessed she was tired, though!