Holiday Update #4 - Invercargill

Thursday 12th started out with the most gorgous sunrise.  Mum took this first photo.

And I took this one about 7 minutes later.   The colours were spectacular.

My sister came into town with her boys and Aaron and after lunch we headed into Queens Park.  We walked through the aviary, visited the animals and then went to the playground.

After over an hour there and a snack or too later we walked on to the museum.

This day there were lots and lots of tuataras out.  It was the most awesome visit we've had there :-)

I think we saw about 21 tuataras all up.

While we were looking a man walked through their enclosure and threw them bugs and worms.

Then after he finished that he bought out a tuatara for us to see and touch.  Meet Gunther, a 22 year old male tuatara :-)

He said that if you wanted to know what a dinsour would have felt like then touch Gunther's skin :-)

Awesome experience. 

After we finished there we headed back outside and took some photos of the kids :-)

Friday 13th, my sister and her boys came back in and we headed out to Gemstone Beach near Orepuki.  Samuel fell asleep 5 minutes before we arrived, so he slept through lunch.

I sat in the car with him while the others walked up the beach a bit looking for stones and of course digging, climbing and getting wet!  I'll let the pics show you heheee

Samuel woke when they got back so he had some lunch then was off outside to explore.

Deciding where to get wet first!!  ;-)

The sand was quite soft in places and he fell over a bit!

After the kids all had a change of clothes (so much sand!) we headed to Riverton Rocks.

There's a huge slide there and some tunnels which the kids loved.

Note the dirty jeans!  Yet another change of clothes needed after this stop haha

Even though it was cold we enjoyed an iceblock :-)

After that we headed to Grandad's hut and met Grandad and my sisters husband there for fish'n'chips.

Yesterday the kids played in Grandma's garden making roads with hotwheel cars, diggers and trucks!

I looked out the window and discovered someone in with the chooks!

When I went to get him out Maddison followed me and I noticed something disgusting on her jacket ... I said "Maddison what's in your pocket?"  Well the look on her face says it all!  She had forgotten she had put an egg in there and it had broken and was leaking everywhere!  What a mess!!

I think she will remember next time to take the egg straight away inside to Grandma!!

 

So that's me caught up with the last couple of weeks.  We are now counting down the sleeps till Lyndon arrives (2 more sleeps) :-)  The kids are really excited about seeing him again (and me of course!)  :-)  They have lots of stories to tell him!

 

Be back with another update later in the week.

Thanks for visiting.

Holiday Update #3 - Invercargill

Time for another update!  We had several days of frosts when we first arrived down here.  One afternoon there was still frost on the lawn at 4pm.

Maddison had a couple of days where she wasn't feeling great and spent a lot of time sleeping either in bed or on the couch.

When she was feeling better she was off outside again :-)  She loves collecting the eggs and bringing them to Grandma.

Saturday 7th, we went to the museum to visit Henry the Tuatara. 

I didn't get a very good photo of him, but this younger one was out hiding in the grass.

The kids enjoyed looking at the birds and the seal that pops up from behind some driftwood and makes a big noise!  :-)

Grandma got out the trainset and set it up in the attic and Aaron and Maddison had several hours of fun with that.

Monday the 9th started with egg collecting ... these pics make me laugh because Aaron and Maddison are holding their noses!  heheheee

This is a very typical scene ... Aaron climbing the gate into the chicken pen, Maddison leaning over the fence checking the hen's feed and Samuel holding a pine cone which any minute he will throw in some random direction!

In the afternoon I did some baking with Samuel's help!  He liked winding the handle to crush the biscuits.

We said goodbye to Aaron - he went off with my sister and her 3 boys for a holiday at their house for 3 days :-)  Samuel would ask most mornings at breakfast "Where's Arrow?" (that's his name for Aaron)

I've been enjoying tamarillo's on my toast in the mornings :-)

Caught Maddison trying on my glasses one morning ... can't believe the difference glasses make to her little face :-) 

Tuesday 10th, we headed out to my sisters for the day.  The weather was a bit overcast and windy, but we managed a trip to the beach.  Samuel and I got to drive a 4-wheeler there.  He was SO excited and the whole time jiggled up and down and said "weeeee, weeeeee, weeeee" everytime we went over a bump and up and down little hills.  My sister showed him where the horn was ... that was even more exciting!  He thought he was the bees knees :-)

He also got to help feed my sisters horse some bread.  He thought that was pretty cool as well - he can say horse and make a neigh sound so "chatted" to the horse  ;-)

The beach is really cool - full of little rock pools and lots of shells and pretty stones to collect.

And of course sand dunes to slide down and get sand in every crevice imaginable!

Samuel liked being in charge of a shovel!

We built sandcastles ...

Although some decided they would fill their gumboots with even MORE sand!  (crazy kid)

We cooked damper.

Samuel insisted on cooking one too ... he was so funny to watch.  It got jabbed in the fire, rolled in the sand, was used to stoke the fire and by the time he had finished "cooking" it there wasn't too much left heheee  He had a fine time ... I gave him another one to eat though as his wasn't edible!

While Aaron was away Maddison got busy and learnt to ride a bike without training wheels!  She got it really quick too.  She was very pleased with herself :-)

Seems that if anyone leaves their glasses lying in reach of little fingers they get tried on!  Here's Samuel with Grandad's glasses on.  :-)

Maddison danced with Lilly, Grandma's cat (she's about 18 years old and not really up to dancing much!)

Here's some pics that my sister took of Aaron's holiday :-)  Playing psp's in the morning!

Hammering nails into boards ... kept them busy for ages heheee

You probably can't tell in these pics, but he had his tongue poking out hehee

One day they went to the book bus to check out some books.

And went to Waipapa Point to see the lighthouse and also sealions.

There were heaps of them sunning themselves on the beach and in the grass.

There's a big sealion in the grass to the right of Aaron (wearing a grey hoodie) in this photo.

There was gun play with nerf guns too!  :-)

So that the 5th to the 11th of July.  Next few days coming up in a separate post.

Thanks for visiting.