5th week - 15th to 21st July 2013

Monday 15th I was up early to finish packing our bags ... trying to get those last things in was a big effort!!  We flew to Christchurch before lunch.  I had made the kids sandwiches to have on the plane so they were "starving to death" by the time we got to Nana and Grandad's!!

Kids were excited to see their cousins and then Aaron and Maddison went with cousins C and E round the farm with Grandad in the afternoon.  The little boys stayed home.

Tuesday was tree hut building day!  Plans were made, supplies were gathered and the work began :-)

There may have been little boys climbing in and out of Grandad's tractor while we were getting iron for the hut!

More cousins arrived late afternoon and stayed for dinner.  Maddison and cousin B her only girl cousin were very excited to see each other :-)

Love seeing the snow on the Southern Alps.

Wednesday 17th we all (8 little cousins) went to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch.  Kids loved it.  They fed the eels some food on metal spoons that were attached to the deck.

We laughed at the Ring Tailed Lemurs.  One minute they were sitting minding their own business or playing together and then all of a sudden the sun came out from behind a cloud and they all stopped what they were doing straight away ...

 and sat like this exposing themselves to the sun!

 So funny to watch.  The sun went behind a cloud and they carried on playing, sun came out again and quick exposure!  I wonder if they wondered why we were laughing at them!  ;-)

We bought food when we got our tickets to feed the farm animals, birds and eels.  This duck ate from Lyndon's hand.

Samuel is right into tractors at the moment :-)

Maddison and Samuel each had a ride on a little donkey.

 Very cute :-)

Samuel liked looking around in the Maori Village.

I think the kids were watching kea's here.

A spot of rock climbing!

Talking to the Kaka birds :-)  They are so beautifully coloured.

Watching the fish and eels.

That night the kids still had plenty of energy and were ripping up and down the house making a terrible racket!  So I suggested that Aaron read them all a story since he was the eldest!  Ahhh ... so much quieter!  :-)

Samuel got Daddy to read him the Troll story.

Thursday morning involved painting of the iron for the roof and sides of the tree hut.

Frame work going up.

Then we all met up again at a cafe for lunch.  Samuel had a kids platter (marmite sandwiches!)  ;-)

Aaron had a burger.

So did Maddison and she WASN'T happy!  (once I said she could remove the lettuce and tomato she was fine!)

Then the dessert!  The meringues were massive!

Maddison much much happier with her dessert!  haha

After lunch we went into Lyndon's brothers and the kids had fun playing outside together on the swing, in the tree hut ...

and climbing the tree!

Over the weekend Lyndon's brother's family came out to stay came out to stay.  More tree hut building :-)

Lyndon decided to try and get one of Grandad's old motorbikes going (wasn't successful though, but Samuel had fun!)  ;-)

Especially when it involved having a turn on the water blaster

all to himself!

Oh the joy!  :-)

Sunday we went out to meet my sister and her family at the motor cross not far from Lyndon's parents place.  The kids had a turn sitting on the boys motorbikes!

Thanks for visiting.  Be back soon with week 6.

17 Years!

Time sure does fly! 17 years ago it was just the two of us ...

Today we have grown and so has our family hehee ;-)

I will say though that I am not as big as I was 2 years ago! If you really want to have a "belly" laugh then check out this blog post. (I have lost 20kgs since then!)

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Cutting the cake 17 years ago ...

This morning I took the rainbow cake I made to share with our friends and they very kindly took some pics of us. Here we are cutting the cake together hehee

Inside of the cake - wasn't that happy with the blue colour actually. I will buy one of the blue gel colourings I think and hopefully it won't be so dirty looking.
All gone ... last bit was taken as a takeaway for someone who wasn't able to make it.
Bernadine left a comment on yesterday's post asking how I found the cake mix. It was really easy to mix, but I am still not convinced about using oil instead of butter. I think the cake had a different flavour than if I had made one using butter, but Lyndon reckoned it was the frosting. I will keep my eyes open for a plain white cake mix that uses butter I think and then do a comparison. Nothing like an excuse to taste some more frosting!! hehee

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We went out for lunch to a Chinese restaurant after our snack and Maddison was quite taken with this pig! :-)
Onward for the next 17 years ;-)

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Thanks for visiting.