Hello to everyone

We are all well here in New Zealand, the sun is shinning summer is being kind to us, finally!

This week was the kids first full week back at school and boy was it a long one. By Wednesday Dominic was already complaining about having to go, asking do I have to go to school today? It would be good if he could understand that the answer is yes for the next 16 years!
But when he came home on Friday he was excited about Monday because the new and improved and much bigger school sandpit would be ready. That's why he goes to school I am sure. At school he is very well behaved his teacher told me, I wondered if she knew whose mother I was! Dominic likes to be the best at everything, and listens well and is quiet. His reading is not too bad but he gets ahead of himself when he knows the story and reads from his memory. He has started getting spelling words this year too so I'll let you know how that goes. Anything to do with "work" Dominic resists, someone must be right in there with him doing it beside him.

Jacob loves school. It is as easy as that, his favourite is maths, but is good at everything. At the moment he is reading the Harry Potter novels and The Hobbit. He enjoys mythical creatures and medieval settings. He has the play mobile with the castle and knights and all their weapons and spends a lot of time drawing pictures of these and coming up with different situations and stories. Lego is another of his favourites, this really does take up hours of his time. Some of his creations are amazing and I will try and get photo's of many of them. He has one good friend at school but is well liked by all, after school there are always a lot of kids calling out good bye to him. His teachers have always said he is very polite, considerate, patient and helpful in class to his class mates. He is very confident and has presented his work to the whole school in his assembles. He is not shy or afraid of people.

Together at home they get on well most of the time. We are quite a noisy family so shouting can be heard on most days! But I do not let them fight physically when they are angry. 'Boys will be boys' [this is a common English saying] but i think only when they are playing they can be a little rough with each other, as long as both are playing the game. But as soon as someone is angry and uses their hands that is when i stop them. But this doesn't happen much. Dominic likes to annoy Jacob the most and always has, he just has that in his character. So at the moment a lot of his discipline is to listen to what the other person is saying and if they are sounding upset, obviously he knows the difference but it is the stopping part we are working on!!
Jacob is very helpful and is taking on some more responsibilities around the house now. He is now tall enough to reach the clothes line so getting the washing in and hanging out wet togs and towels after school are his jobs. He is drying the dishes, peeling the potatoes and taking out the rubbish as well. Jacob tends to get frustrated very quickly as soon as something goes wrong or sees the negative side in something very quickly so helping him to take a breath and switch that view around to problem solving is what we talk about a lot. Not that he likes to listen to mum going on and on about that all the time!
Both boys enjoy helping in the kitchen so often in the weekends they help make cakes, muffins, biscuits and pizza dough.

We have started swimming lessons again this week. Both boys have done them on and off for a few years. Jacob is a good swimmer, he can swim many lengths in freestyle and backstroke, half a length in breaststroke and is just learning butterfly. Dominic is very confident in the water and can get himself around a lot even in very deep water, so he floats well! He will happily dive down deep and jump off a 3 meter diving board. He is now learning how to breath with his swimming strokes.

Here are a few photo's of the kids at home, playing with their Lego, riding their bikes and playing 'Star Wars' with their light sabers.

They are training to be jedi knights. And Jacob with his favourite thing in the world.

These first 2 are Jacob's rocket and launch pad. The second is Dominic's rocket.

This is outside our house on the road it is a great, safe place for the boys to bike.

A Summer Holiday

Finally I have it sorted and have down loaded the photos onto this site. My computer is too slow at home so I had to wait until I got back to school. So here is our summer holiday!

These are some dress up things the kids got for christmas.

Our holiday this January started on the 2nd. We loaded up the car with bikes, boggie boards, sleeping bags, a tent and even a cat. Ginger Bob our cat was going on holiday to Bernd's house while we were away.
So we stayed the night in Wellington and where up for an early start across the Cook Straight, a 3 hour ferry ride. The drive from Picton to Christchurch took us 4 1/2 hours, a beautiful drive passed Kaikoura as many of you know, I think everyone has been to watch the whales there!
Our plan was to spend a week in Christchurch with some friends, to just relax and soak up summer.


We found a trail for biking. It is the old railway line that is not used anymore. It is fantastic. This section was 22 km long, it was a hot day, riding with some slightly reluctant children, but we got there in the end.



We spent a morning at the swimming pools and hydro slides. It was my first time and I was quite nervous[I have no idea why i have never been on a hydro slide before?] but of course the children are experienced at such things so it was no problem for them. one and a half hours was plenty of time for us having to run up those stairs for just 45 seconds of fun!!


Our next stop was Mt Cook. It is still one of my favourite places in the world. I'm sure many of you are thinking "You need to get out more" especially Arno!
We had 4 nights up there and the kids were able to catch up with their friends that they grew up with. It was fantastic for them.

Biking out on the camping ground road. Mt Cook barely visable above and Mt Sefton below

We used to come out on hot days with the kids and swimm in this little lake. It was hot this day so the kids jumped in! Not me, we are in the mountains.The next 5 photo's are all up the Tasman Valley, right next to the Glacier and lakeGlacier lake and icebergsDominic is a keen photographer, he often doesn't tell you when he is about to take the shot though, there were some very ugly photos I had to delete! This one passed the test.

Next it was down to Twizel for another 4 nights. Our friends from Mt Cook have a house down there and there are lakes and rivers and shops! The water was really cold but kids are very brave about all that. So they went fishing and swimming, canoeing and biking and ate lots of ice cream.

We were off to Wanaka next. It is a beautiful, expensive, growing adventure town. We spent the afternoon at the lake, and buried Dominic! Poor Jacob was sick the first night with vomiting, no fun for anyone on holiday. The second day there was an Ironman competition, Boris i was thinking of you. What an amazing achievement! There was a 70 year old man competing and it took him 18 hours, definitely very motivating.

Omakau and the Central Otago Rail Trail was next. This is a very small town in the middle of no where, New Zealand seems to have a lot of these? And they are my favourites.
This rail trail is 150 km long, we did about 30 km. One day we went from my friends house in one direction and back and the next day in the other direction and back. This part of the country is very beautiful and very hot in summer. And the coldest spot in the country in winter.

Dominic needed a toilet stop, he discovered a longdrop, this is a deep hole in the ground with a toilet seat. Not very nice on a hot summer day. He came running out screaming "if I was locked in there I might die from the smell!"Parts of this track felt like the wild west of America. These are the old train tunnels and in the middle were completely dark. We had be told about them so had our head torches ready, but I was still a little scared. The kids are at the top of the photo below.

Still heading south we went to the very bottom, Invercargill. We were lucky enough to have 3 fine weather days down there. It is often very cold and winding as it gets the weather coming straight from Antarctica. In the museum there they have tuatara's which have been around since the dinosaurs, they don't move to much and it reminded me of when we went to see the "der depperte Vogel"kiwi's in Queenstown with Manfred and Arno, our native animals may look funny but the really don't do much.
We did a day trip to the Catlins, a native bush coastal area, more beautiful scenery!!
And down to Bluff which is the absolute bottom of the South Island.

Bluff the bottom of the South Island. The rest of the world sure is a long way away!
A beautiful beach in the southThis is a petrified forest. Covered with lava 180 million years ago. Just looked like rock to us. There is a penguin in the background, very hard to see in this photo. We sat and watched him hop about for a while.
Our biggest drive of the trip came with an 8 1/2 hour journey from Invercargill to Christchurch, we all survived it remarkably well. I didn't get too tired, a few Red Bulls always help and the kids didn't fight, complain, moan or whinge too much either!

Then the kids flew to Wellington to have a few days with Bernd. And i managed to have a child free birthday that involved shopping, pedicures, massages and lemon meringue pie.

So we have made it home now and are settling back in. We were gone for a whole month and were happy to be back. School starts again in a few days, Jacob is happy, Dominic says he is not but I suspect he will be happy to go there and eat his lunch and play in the sand pit.