Photo of the week

I keep forgetting to post a photo of the week. The past few weeks have been so busy that I haven't taken many photos. 

Last weekend I went cycling with a friend. We rode early in the morning to avoid the rain but got rained on any ways. It was really cold once we were wet. We still had a good time though

Avalanche City

     On Friday I was working in lab when I got a text from a friend asking if I wanted two tickets to the Avalanche City concert that night. She wasn't able to go because she was going to be stuck at work. It was pretty late Friday so I didn't have a lot of time. I texted my friend Alix. Luckily she was keen and on campus. I finished my experiments as quickly as I could and we headed off to the venue which wasn't too far from uni. I was starving so we stopped at an Ale House near the venue (called Power Station). Around 730 the opening band came on. It was more a singer than a band. His name was Carian McMkeen. He is a local guy. I liked his music. I hadn't heard any of it before. 

    After that Avalance City came on. They are a New Zealand band. The lead singer is David Baxter. There was also a drummer, pianist, trumpet/xylophone player and a various string instrument player. David played the guitar. The trumpet player had a go at trumpet and xylophone. My favourite guy was the one who played bass, guitar, ukulele, a mini banjo type thing and an instrument I've never seen before and do t know the name of. I was super impressed at all of the instruments that were played. 

    I only knew a few of their songs but I still really enjoyed the concert. It was an interesting mix of people. There were people from my age to older than my Dad. I'm super lucky that I got to go. I highly suggest looking up some of their music. 

Picture Monday

So...I didn't take any photos this week. I did have this photo sent to me and it made me laugh so I'm sharing it with everyone else :) 

A second photo (cause I've forgotten so many)

I thought doing a photo a week would make it easier to post more but I got out of the habit. 

It's finally hit winter here which means around 40 degrees, windy and damp. It wouldn't be so bad if buildings were heated or insulated but you never really get warm which can be pretty miserable. 

Even though it's cold and windy I'm currently standing on a beach. Today is Jack and Kaiya's cross country race which I agreed to come watch. I'm classic child event style that means I've been out to work. I'm supposed to stand by a cone and be a race Marshall. I picked a cone on the beach so I'm in the sun with a nice view while I wait for runners. Waiting for them to organise 200 kids I to races also gives me a chance to catch up on my blog! 

Forgotten photos!

I forgot to put photos up again!

This is a photo that I made of the kids for Robs birthday. He always jokes that he is going to make them into his band so I made him a family band photo. I'm pretty proud of my photoshop skills. 

Picture Monday

Last week most of my friends graduated with their post graduate diplomas of science. I didn't because I haven't quite finished mine yet and it's expensive and there's no one to watch me graduate. This is a photo of me and three of my friends after graduation. 

We finally got internet back!!!

    For the past six weeks or so our internet has been REALLY bad. At best it's like dial up but most of the time we haven't had anything. I've missed lots of blog posts because of it so here is a small catch up.

King of the Bays
     King of the Bays is an ocean swim race that was on April 2nd. I did the 2.8 km race with my friend Fiona. I had hoped that the race would go super well but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I got lost from Fiona and ended up drafting off someone who I thought was Fiona and we headed off course. Heading off course made the swim longer than expected and was really frustrating. I'm not super happy with my time but I also swam a lot more than I expected to so it maybe isn't as bad as I think it is. I am really proud that I did King of the Bays considering when I started ocean swimming a year ago swimming 2.8 km would have been tough in a pool and I didn't have the confidence to do it in the ocean. I finished it in 1:06. I was 39th in my division and 977th overall. My goal was under an hour and I think I could have done it if I hadn't got off course.

Panasonic People's Triathlon
     The weekend after King of the Bays (April 10th) I did a sprint triathlon (500m swim, 20km bike, 5km run). I put one of the photos from it as my photo of the week a few weeks ago.  I really enjoyed this triathalon. I felt like I really found my cadence on the bike. Often on the bike leg I go full out and then get tired but I did a really great job of maintaining a consistent pace. It really paid off because I was nearly 7 minutes faster than the last one that I did! I am really happy with how the race went. It's the last triathalon of the season and it was so great to end it on a good note. I was worried about it because the week preceding the tri the Sharps had been gone for the week so I had cycled to uni and home ever day (24 km each way). It is way more cycling than I normally do so I was worried that my legs would be shattered and I'd really struggle. Doing so well after a big week definitely boosted my confidence and I'm really excited for next season.

Whanamata
    Last weekend (April 23-25) we had a three day weekend because of Anzac Day. One of my friend's boyfriends has a batch in the Coramandel so we all went down for the weekend. We didn't really do much. We went for lots of walks on the beach and hung out. The weather wasn't great. It was too cold to swim and cloudy but still fun to wander around and hang out. It was nice to have a break from uni and the fam and stuff for a week.

Forgotten photo Monday

I totally forgot go to Monday this week. We had a three day weekend for Anzac Day (similar to Memorial Day). The kids are on school holidays so we stayed home and chilled the past two days. Today is the first day I'm going into uni so it feels like a Monday even though it's a Thursday.

Last week I took the kids ice skating. I really love taking them ice skating because it is something that I taught them. It's fun to see how much better they get every time we go. They are also so happy when I take them. It can be a bit tricky to go because the ice rink is an hour away. There is a traveling ice rink that come closer  to us some times though. 

Forgotten Photo Monday

I completely forgot to post a photo this week. It's school holidays and it's crazy busy! I don't have any photos of me from last week. I have tons of the kids though. This photo is from the Cubs Disco. Kaiya is a Cub Scout this year but will be moving up to Scouts in time for Jamboree which is here next. The Cubs threw a disco at the Cubs Hall. I ended up selling low sticks and other exciting things. This picture is Indie and her best friend at the disco. The kids had a great time but the grown ups were exhausted! 

Picture Monday! Or is it Tuesday?

I was goin to wait until I had a chance to post about what I did over the weekend but the last few days have been crazy so I haven't had time. 

This is a photo of Indie and Tally at Waiwera Hot Pools. It is a hot springs half an hour north of us that has water slides, a lazy river and tons of pools. The kids had a teacher only day at school so I took the girls to Waiwera while Jack went to Snow Planet with his friends. It was super fun. Both little girls tried all the water slides (even the "mega creepy" one as Indie says) 

Photo Monday/Tuesday?

We had Easter Friday and Monday off so I am a bit confused as to the day. Having a four day weekend really messes things up. 

This is the only photo I took this week so by default it's the photo of the week. Kaiya and I were bring silly with the dress ups. These masks were so tiny for our faces but it was hilarious 

Picture Monday

I think I did something strange and delayed publishing from my phone but I use my phone for picture Monday so the past two didn't publish. Oops! 

      Last week was a pretty good week. I got a package from Sara with Wonder Woman socks and a print. The Sharp's went away for the week so I had lots of time to be at uni and cycle. On Sunday I did a triathalon. I had to leave the house at 5:30 am and it was super cold so I wore my track pants and jumper on over my Tri suit. I wore my Wonder Woman socks too. I looked a bit silly when I took off my track pants but still had my tall socks on. 

Picture Monday

I got mail this week! Aunt Sue sent me a post card. It was pretty exciting to get mail especially from someone other than my Mom (that's not to say I don't love your post cards Mom). 

Triathalon

    On Sunday I did a triathlon. I did the sprint distance which is 500m swim, 20 km bike and a 5 km run. The weather was horrible when we were driving to the tri. There was lots of rain and wind. The water looked very choppy when we got there. It was still sprinkling when we got in the water. The water was the choppiest that I have ever swam in. It was hard to sight and figure out where I was going. I swam the 500m 4 minutes faster than I swam in the last triathlon I did. The bike was difficult because the ground was still quite wet. There were some hills that I liked because I get a bit bored on just flats. The run went all right. By the time we were running the sun had come out and it was really nice.
     Overall I am pretty happy with how I did. I finished in 1:32. I was 64th over all. I was 10th out of my age group of 15th but I was only 37 seconds from the 9th place in my group. I have another triathlon coming up soon and I am hoping to go slightly faster.

St. Patricks Day!!!

Indie making the trap. 

   

Tally being silly with her head band. 

Green mac and cheese

   













   




            This year over St. Patricks day the big kids (Kaiya and Jack) were away on school camp so it seemed like a good time to make St. Patrick's Day a big deal for the little girls. The day before St. Patrick's Day we read some stories about leprechauns and made a leprechaun trap.  I got some cool headbands for St. Patrick's Day. The girls stacked two pots and covered the handles with tape so that the leprechaun would get stuck. They then filled the pots with every green thing they could find including, grass, a seashell colored green and beads. They then covered the pots with a paper tent to keep the leprechaun in if the tape didn't work.  I was very impressed that they were so independent in building their trap. Overnight a leprechaun went into the trap and took the treats we had left to lure it in and exchanged it for some chocolate gold coins! Tally and Indie both had a gold coin with breakfast.The leprechaun had also got into the breakfast smoothie and turned it green! The girls had a St. Patricks Day themed lunch box with shamrock sandwiches, green grapes, a clover cookie and a few green m&ms. I had to throw in some not themed things because I didn't have enough green things for them to not be starving. For dinner we had green mac and cheese that I colored with spinach in the cheese sauce. They were initially very skeptical of their dinner but after a few bites they warmed up to it.

Indie and Tally with their trap. They were having a laugh
about what a leprechaun might look like 

Photo of the Week (Feb 29-March 6)

EDIT: I tried to publish this from my phone but it didn't work for some reason. I've only just realized so I am publishing it now.

I am copying a good friends idea by doing a photo of the week. There are lots of silly/cool things I see that aren't worthy of a whole blog post but are still worth sharing.

I saw this car in the library parking lot and had a good chuckle at it

Weekly Photo March 7-13

This photo is really exciting to me because it is the preliminary data for my thesis. I could go explain the data but I don't think that many people will be overly interested in it. I was really excited to start getting data. Even though the data probably won't make it into my thesis and the data is not overly interesting. Ideally the two groups would have very very different bar heights but oh well. Such is the way of the world I suppose

Busy Busy Saturday

      Saturday (March 5th) was a crazy busy day. I cycled down the shore and took the ferry over to the CBD. Then I cycled to swim squad. I had given my friend Fiona my swim stuff the night before so when I got there we went for a quick run and then we did swim squad. I sure have a lot of work to do on my pull. We were doing a set where you count how many times you stroked between two buoys. Everyone else had numbers that were about half of what I have showing that while I move my arms with good technique I don't move a lot of water with them.

Funny Coffee Cup from
Shakey Isles

Fu    After the swim Bevan picked me and my bike up. We had brunch in St. Hellier's. It was an alright meal. I find that the cafes in the bays are often not as nice as the ones on the shore. They seem to charge the same price but not produce the same quality of food. So after our semi disappointing brunch we headed to Hyper Ride. Hyper Ride is a shop that sells discounted snow board/skate board/surf board stuff. Bevan's birthday is next week and he needed to go try on some things so his parents knew what to get him.
     After Hyper Ride we raced back into the city to go to the Coffee Festival. It was in Shed 10 on the water front. The festival had a very hipster feel to it. There were tons of different coffee roasters most of which I had never heard of before. We got free coffee from one called Shaky Isles. They have hilarious coffee cups and packaging. We also got free coffee from another place called Flight something. It wasn't great. We tried coffee from Spaceman but I didn't like it so I didn't get a full coffee. We also tried the most delicious hot chocolate. It was just like melted chocolate. It reminded me of the Bernard Calibu hot chocolate I used to get in Calgary when I visited the Mitchelle's. I also tried some stuff from a place called True Food. They were making really nice almond milk from home made almond butter and water. It was tasty. Their food was over priced though.
    After the Coffee Festival we went to Bevan's house then my house to get ready for the evening. We went to a friends party/casino night. It was fancy dress which was fun. I wore my favorite Federation dress which is awesome. We had some Indian food before heading down the my friends house. Then everyone headed to the casino at Sky City. It is one of two casinos in New Zealand. I didn't gamble because it doesn't seem like a good idea on tight finances.
     It was a super fun yet exhausting day. Luckily today I got to have a lazy day to calm down from it all.

Busy Weekend (Feb 19-21)

     Last weekend was pretty busy. Friday afternoon I worked then I was planning on going to the Lantern Festival with Bevan and some friends from uni. I was really excited about the festival because it moved from Albert Park to the Auckland Domain. There was also rumour that they had lots of new lanterns because the Domain is much bigger than Albert Park. I have really enjoyed the Lantern Festival the past two years and it reminds me how long I've lived her.

The Museum in the Domain that had special
lighting for the lantern festival. 

Panda Lanterns! These are the only ones I saw.
I don't remember seeing them last year.
The pandas are on a teeter totter but they look
a bit sad. 

     Due to some poor communication I didn't get to the lantern festival until 9:30. By the time I met my friends they were all hungry and wanted to eat. We wandered around the food stalls for about an hour. Then we set off to see the lanterns...right as they were turning them off and shutting it down for the evening. I only got to see the panda lanterns that were next to the food stalls. I was pretty bummed but there wasn't a lot I could do at that point.
     Saturday I got up and went to the ocean swim clinic I have been going to all summer. It was a technical set which was really hard because we did so many drills. By the end of it I was absolutely exhausted. There was a bomb threat at Mission Bay (where swim clinic is) while we were swimming so they had closed off most of the park and the beach. I had planned to run after swim clinic but they had closed the side walks and there were loads of police around so I decided not to. Instead I went home, had a shower and a nap then got ready for Bevan's sisters engagement party.

Bev and I at the engagement party

     Bevan's sister, Emma is engaged to Josh. They are both really nice. Bevan came to pick me up and we ran to get a few last minute things for Emma. We got to the engagement party about an hour after it started. The engagement party was at the Marine Center in Browns Bay. It was nice because the building is right on the beach. I didn't know any one there expect Bevan's family. I got to meet his Aunt and Uncle. They were very nice. Emma had some games set up like guess the number of kisses in a jar and a quiz about the couple. She also had a photo booth set up that had an instax camera. I have a cute picture of Bev and I from it. I tried to take a picture of it for the blog but they are all kind of blurry. I mostly hung out with Bev and his parents and chatted. It was pretty nice. At the end of the party we stayed to help tidy up then had pizza with Bevan's family for dinner.
      Sunday I relaxed and got ready for a busy week. I have Masters Orientation this week and next week my program officially starts!

Rainbows End

     Last Sunday (Feb 14th) I went to Rainbows End with Bevan, Alix, Sean, Ali and Haley. Rainbows End is a theme park in South Auckland. Here is the link incase your interested http://rainbowsend.co.nz/. It was a pretty fun day. We didn't get there till about 11. We started off with a movie room thing which wasn't very exciting. Then we did a smallish roller coaster and a log ride. That was pretty fun. As we were about to go down the big hill on the log ride Bevan reach foward and tickled me so I screamed naturally. I got teased about being scared on a calm ride. Then we went and did a corkscrew roller coaster and a cool spinning ride. After those we had some lunch. We went across the road to the mall for lunch because it was way way cheaper. When we came back we waited in line for ages to go on the go carts. After we went on the go carts we did a ride called Stratosphere. It is sort of like the Kamakazi ride at the fair in Helena but it also spins around as well as going upside down. They have the "extreme" setting which goes all the way upside down and the "chill" setting which only gets to a 45 degree angle. We were in line for extreme but after we got to a 45 degree angle it started slowing down. Turns out there was an issue with the harnesses so we had to reset them then do the chill version again to check them before we could do the extreme version. It was mildly frustrating. By the time we finally got the whole ride we were all pretty excited which probably made it better. Unfortunately that was our last ride of the day as the park closes early on Sundays. We kind of missed that when we planned it. Oh well it was pretty fun.

Bean Rock Swim

Everyone has a number on their hand. I got number 1 cause
I was obviously meant to come first. Not cause I have a last
name with two A's. 

     Today Tanya and I did the Bean Rock Swim. It is a swim from Mission Bay out around the Bean Rock lighthouse and bak to shore. It ends up being 3200 m or 2 miles, if you swim it in a straight line. I most definitely didn't swim it in a straight line. I had planned on doing the half (1600 m or 1 mile) however Tanya said that she would do the full with me. She is a much faster swimmer than I am but she had said that she would swim the whole way with me so that I wasn't freaked out. I am super grateful that she offered to swim it with me and I'm very glad that I did the full 3200m.
     It was a beautiful day for a swim. It was bright and sunny. the water was mostly calm. Everyone had a number written on their hand that matched their alphabetical spot on the list so they could keep track of us. I was number 1. We started at 11 from shore. It felt like it took forever to get out to the lighthouse. I am certain that it was trying to move away from us. I didn't particularly like being near the light house. It was significantly larger from the water than looking at it from land. As we were swimming by clouds came over so it was very dark and murky under us. There was also really high boat traffic so there were some reasonable size waves. The water near the light house smelled of petrol. It seems weird that you can smell while you are swimming but you definitely could pick up on the petroliness of the water. They had kayakers out to alert boats that we were there and to make sure we were safe which was nice. We had been warned about getting too close to the light house cause the water moves quite quickly and you can suddenly be on the reef if a big boat passes. We did however make it out unscathed. Once we got around the light house we had to swim all the way back to shore. My arms were actually tired at this point which wasn't boding well for me but I just kept swimming. Swimming back in was easier than going out. If definitely went by faster knowing that I had already done more than half of it.
    The swim took 80ish minutes. Results haven't been posted yet and I was pretty excited about being done so I didn't really listen to what they told me. I was 8th in my division. It took me 1:26:07. I came 253 overall out of 277. Technically I tied with Tanya cause she swam the whole way with me.

Picture of Bean Rock lighthouse that I downloaded from the race page. It was taken from a boat so looks reasonably close 

Waitangi Day Weekend

Route from home to Whitianga

     Last weekend (Feb 6-8) was Waitangi Day weekend so we get a three day weekend! Yay! Two three day weekends in a row. My friend Alix invited Bevan and I to go with her and her boyfriend Sean to her grandmas house in Whitianga for the weekend. It seemed like a good (and affordable) three day weekend. We left after everyone got off work on Friday night so we didn't get there until quite late.

View from the house we stayed at. 

View down from the balcony at the house. It was cool to be
above the canopy because there were lots of different
native birds. 

Map of The Lost Springs. The Lagoon isn't a heated pool but
the other pools are heated. The Crater Lake pool is the warmest. 

     Saturday we got up but the weather wasn't great. Alix's grandparents were kind enough to make use breakfast and do the dishes! It probably doesn't feel like a huge luxury to many 25 year olds but I was thrilled that I didn't have to cook or do dishes. Being an au pair has really made me appreciate how much work it takes to run a house and how nice it is when someone else does it. Because the weather wasn't great we decided to forgo the beach and go to mini golf instead. Half way through mini golf it started raining but luckily it wasn't too bad and cleared up quickly enough that we could finish our game. After mini golf we got some lunch and ice cream before heading back to the house. Alix, Sean and Bevan had some down time while I went on a run. Unfortunately Alix's grandparents live on the top of a hill and the only place to run is down the hill which means at the end when my legs were tired I had to go back up the hill. It was really hard. After our down time we went to some Thermal Pools/Spa called the Lost Springs. I didn't take my phone to The Lost Springs so I only have the map that they have on their website. It was really cool though. They had build it up to look like caves and they had tons of cool rocks and geodes attached to everything. There was also lots of foliage so you hardly knew you were near a town.  I really enjoyed hanging out at The Lost Springs. We didn't do much, just floated around. It was great to just chill out. When we got home we had dinner then played cards/Farkle or as Bevan calls in Nang. Farkle/Nang is a game you play with dice. I used to play it all the time at home but I hadn't played it in ages. It was super fun to play again. I don't like calling it Nang though. I think Farkle is a much better name for it but I was out voted on it.

Cool rock sculpture in Scorpion Bay

Route to Cathedral Cove 

Me in a tree at Scorpion Bay

 Sunday the weather was better so we took a trip to Cathedral Cove. Cathedral Cove is a big tourist place. You park and then you have to walk 35-40 minutes to Cathedral Cove. We had a hard time finding a park so we ended up parking on a residential street a 15 min walk from the start of the trail.  At the top of the trail I got a coffee from the coffee cart (I love coffee!). The man at the coffee cart was able to pin point my accent to northwest America and guessed Montana which was pretty cool. We started off on our trek. Bevan found a cicada and I insisted that I wanted to hold it even though they freak me out. So he gave me the cicada. I held it for about 3 seconds before it poked me with its proboscis. I promptly screamed and flailed about flinging the cicada into a poor unsuspecting man who was walking back to the car park. He was a good sport about having a cicada thrown at him. I got teased a lot.  We had planned on having lunch at Cathedral Cove but we were a bit hungry so we stopped at Scorpion Bay which is a little bay on the way. We had our picnic lunch there. After lunch I climbed a tree and we wandered around Scorpion Bay for a bit before heading to to Cathedral Cove.

View from the tree I climbed in Scorpion Bay

     At Cathedral Cove we hung out for a bit. The waves were pretty big and we had a lot of fun playing in them. I think that there is a benefit to having grown up around the ocean because they seemed to play in the waves quite easily while I felt like I was a bit thrown around by the waves. We had lots of fun. Bevan and I played around. He would lift me up over the big waves which was really fun, well except for the time he didn't lift my high enough and a wave broke in my face. I had so much fun playing in the waves. After playing in the waves we laid on the beach for a bit before going back to the car. On the way home we had to stop for an ice cream, YUM!
     After our trip to Cathedral Cove we packed up and came home. Monday was the Super Bowl and Sean had a party to go to so it was leave Sunday night or get up crazy early on Monday to go home. Sunday night was definitely the better option. I was pretty happy that Alix invited us. It was a great weekend.

Bevan copied my tree climbing idea!

Cool rock garden in Cathedral Cove

Lovely view from the way to Cathedral Cove. 

Trip to Ragalan

Route from Auckland to Raglan for perspective

Jack, Indie and Tally looking at the
giraffess and zebras. 

   


















Last weekend (Jan 30-Feb 1) was Auckland Anniversary weekend so we got a three day weekend. Tanya and I took the kids to Raglan on Thursday afternoon (Jan 28). On our way to Raglan we stopped in Hamilton and went to the zoo. Unfortunaetly we got their fairly late (3pm) so lots of the animals were going to bed. It was a beautiful zoo. The enclosures were quite large and the walkways between the enclosures were shaded by tons of trees.

Kaiya at the zoo

Jack and Indie at the zoon

Tally and Indie at the zoo.

Looking for fish from the stairs that lead down into
the water next to one of the beaches

That evening we explored town a little bit and then went back to the house we rented for the night. We encountered a small problem when we got back to the house, there were lots of huge cockroaches. I'm not talking about the standard run of the mill cockroach which is about 1-4 cm. I am talking about the super big ones that are 6-10 cm, black and disgusting. I spent a lot of time squishing them while Tanya ran to the supermarket to get some spray. The kids were understandably quite worked up about the whole situation. Luckily the property manager had another property that was available the next day.
     Friday Tanya went for a run. I made a valid attempt to take the kids to the play ground but we got side tracked on the way and ended up climbing trees and looking at the fish. After Tanya was done with her run we had a nice lunch out. Then we moved to the new house which was AMAZING. It was pretty awesome. It was smaller and farther from town than the first one but it had beautiful views and a short walk down to the beach. Friday afternoon Rob arrived. Tanya and I went shopping and got some clothing as well as some food.
     Saturday we got up early and went kayaking. It was really fun. Tally amazed me by kayaking almost the whole way in a kayak all by herself. As we kayaked around we found some people who were looking for pippies. They are a little shell that has an oyster like animal in it. Bevan has told me about them before and has tried to show me how to collect them but there aren't enough near us. I was pretty excited to finally get to collect some. After kayaking we had lunch. Then we took the kids to the play ground. I had a wander around town. There was an art festival on while we were there so all of the artists had opened up their studios. I wandered through a few on my way through town. It was fun to stop in a few different galleries. After my wander through  town Tanya, Kaiya and I headed back to Auckland. Tanya had a mountain bike race Saturday and Kaiya had a sleep over birthday party Sunday night. Overall it was a nice trip. It was fun to go some where that I had never been before. Sometimes I forget about how little I have actually seen of this country.

View from our second house

try.
   

Western Springs

After I got back from America summer here was in full swing. Luckily Bevan had some days off work so we got to hang out a lot for a week before things got into full swing. One of the things we did was go out to Western Springs for a day. Western Springs is a park next to the zoo that has lots of trails, a large pond and tons of geese, puhkeko and really aggressive black swans. We got some cheap bread and set out on a bird feeding mission. Bevan was really assertive and fed animals out of his hands and even pet a few geese. I on the other hand got bit by a few swans and screamed quite a lot. 

See he pet one! Well a few actually but this is the only
one I have evidence of. 

I like this one cause it looks like a love heart