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.

4th week - 7th to 14th July

Our last week with my family in Invercargill.  Lyndon arrived on the afternoon of the 6th.  Kids super excited to see him  (and me too of course!)  ;-)

On Monday 8th we went to Queenstown with my parents for a couple of days.  Aaron liked checking the map to make sure Grandad was going the right way!  :-)

The scenery was just fantastic all the way.  New Zealand really is a beautiful country.

We stopped at Kingston for lunch.  Kingston is at the bottom end of Lake Wakatipu.

This is a real typical picture of the kids and I!  Aaron and Maddison throwing sticks, Samuel watching and I'm collecting nice rocks :-)

Lake Wakatipu from Kingston.

The road up the side of the lake.

We went straight up the gondola as the kids really wanted to go on the luge again.

 Great views of the lake and mountains.

Unfortunately the luge track was all in the shade and it was FREEZING!  Man it was cold!!

These next pictures tell the story without me adding any words!  

After warming up and having a snack, we headed back down and went to find our hotel.  We were meeting up with friends and relations for dinner, so after unpacking we left Grandad having a snooze and Grandma came with us to have a game of 10 pin bowling.

 The kids had never played before ... it was so much fun just watching them!  :-)

Samuel and Maddison used this ramp for their ball.

And although it photo is blurry of Samuel I just love it.  It captures his excitement :-)  Every time he hit a pin he would throw his hands in the air and yell "yeah"  :-)

Glow in the dark stitching and rivets on the bowling shoes.

The next morning we were quite excited to see that it had snowed during the night :-)

Bridge over the Shotover River at Arthurs Point.

We drove up Coronet Peak as far as the Skippers Road turn off and the kids got wrapped up and had fun in the snow.  Someone had made a snowman.

Samuel didn't stay out too long, his fingers got so cold.

Hot air balloon over Arrowtown.

Snowball fights with Daddy!

Snow Angels

Aaron did some damage to the snowman so helped Dad repair it.

The road carrying on up to Skippers.

Gumboots FULL of snow!

Brushed off all the snow and headed back home.  More great scenery.  :-)

Grandma, Lyndon and Aaron went for a bike ride one afternoon.  Maddison and Samuel had to get in on the photo too :-)

Another afternoon they had sack rides on the lawn.

Lyndon finally managed to get Aaron off the sack hehee

Saturday lunch we had a combined birthday party for cousin D, Maddison and friend R.  After lunch Mum set up a string line of balloons and the kids had a pile of nerf guns to try and pop them.

After popping a few we had a treasure hunt, then back inside for cake :-)  Maddison's 3rd of the cake had a little pet shop character on it.  Cousin D had a bike and jeep and R had some shoes.

My sister and I did some "artwork" of the grandkids hand prints for my parents.  I haven't got a photo of it finished yet.  But the two eldest kids had their hands as "jellyfish" and the other 4 were fish.

I painted faces on them and added seaweed, stones and shells.

Doing Kumon with Daddy :-)

Be back another day with the next instalment!  3 weeks in Christchurch :-)

Thanks for visiting.