Mini Beach Tour

Made it successfully on time to yoga this morning and had a particularly successful session as well!  I was able to hold certain tricky positions for longer and actually felt more flexible in some, so I'm starting to notice some good progress in the stretching department!  Although later today I noticed a strange tingly sensation in my right knee...which is still there, so I'm wondering if something stretched a bit farther than it should have...or if it's just a coincidence and not a yoga-related issue!  Afterward, I had to wait around for the ferry, enjoyed the sun and read my book, rushed home, showerd and was off to see Orewa Beach for the afternoon.  It was really nice and huge with the tide out!  On the way back, stopped over at long beach as well, one of the more popular in the area, apparently!  We watched a couple of struggling runners go the length and then also right as we arrived we watched a man entering the water with his cap and wetsuit to go for a swim.  Looked like he was definitely training for something and making excellent time down the beach!  He'd probably gone over 1km by the time we left! And now I'm off for a little disco bowling with some old and yet another new friend!

New Friend AND New Job

I went into Auckland today to meet with Julia from Sweden, another au pair working in the area, who has a passion for researching the best little cafes to go to, so of course she suggested a great one!  Now new people are turning up left and right and we've got some fun plans brewing for the weekend, including lots of new people, some of which who have already met each other! 

Later today I went to the Steve Lindsay Swim School to get in and assist in some swim instructing, kind of like a hands on interview or almost audition for the job!  I think she was pretty happy with how I was working out because in the end she just left me with her class of little ones!  I ended up taking a few kids aside from their classes as well because they weren't quite up to the level of the rest of their classmates.  So basically, it was more about me learning the system and a bit about the levels and just how they teach and basic things that are expected of the kids.  She's asked me to email hours that I'd like to/would be able to work and then have to go meet at the other pool to get a mini tour and see how things go there as well.  Soon, though, I think I'll be working Thursdays and Fridays as a swim instructor!  A little extra income won't hurt either!  Unfortunately, I didn't make it to yoga tonight because I was teaching from 3-5:30 so didn't have quite enough time to get over there for 6.   Staying in the pool that long was incredibly easy as well.  I've never taught in a pool so WARM!! It was like a bath! Amazing, and it made it so much nicer not having to deal with shivering children as well!  I'm sure it's a lot easier to heat though, too, being only 2 lanes and shallow all the way across, as well as much shorter than 25m or yards even.  I'll see what the other pool I could possibly be teaching at is like Monday, hopefully!

Library? Not So Much...

This was just another typical working day really...although this morning after dropping the kids at school Tessa and I went to the Library to return some books and possibly sit and read a few.  She was really not for that at all.  Kind of just looked at me at first like, "what am I supposed to do now?"  She pulled one book off the shelf and I asked if she wanted to come sit and we'd read it, but she was not up for sitting so I just started to read it anyway.  She just turned back to another shelf and started to take some more books.  She likes to open the cover, look at a few pages and then move on to the next one.  Then we saw the park and slide out the window, which looked way more interesting than books...so out we went!  She made me go down one of those tube slides with her for some reason...probably because it was a bit wet...and I was afraid we were going to get stuck!  Luckily we made it through no problem and had to repeat a few times, then she settled for an open slide going on her own so I didn't have to squeeze in anymore!

To follow up on the Smudge incident, she was waiting in Tessa's crib today when we went in for a nap!  Of course Tessa was less than impressed about this and would not go near it until Smudge was out of her room and the door was closed!

I went to another tennis clinic tonight as well, Attackers and Defenders, basically 12 people, 3 courts of doubles, a coach feeding balls on each court and you could only win points at the net.  It was fun and fast, the hour definitely flew by!  But I felt like I was finally ready to play after an hour, just not quite long enough!  I did however enjoy Monday's Tennis Extreme a lot more and was a much better workout, but this was fun and got to meet a few more people.  Everyone at the club is really friendly and on these nights as least, just there to have fun, though a few points did get pretty competitive!

Oh and just because I figured out how to do it...I figured I'd include this video in my blog for those who didn't get to see it on facebook...also cause I was missing summer a little bit!

Glambert Videos

Typical Tuesday

Finally really into a regular schedule for awhile and so Tuesday working hours are 8am-6pm!  Dropped Reuben and Libby at school, went to the supermarket for a few things with Tessa, came home and gave tessa a snack, played in her little cardboard house for about an hour...she demanded that I come in, but I didn't fit very well, if I stretched out my legs they went the length of the house, and of course I had to sit.  She was putting the "baba" (her new baby doll) to sleep but feeding her lots of milk first, just like she has before she goes to sleep.  She kept running out to get more and waking her up to feed her.  She would have been one stuffed baby if it was all real!  Then Smudge came along and was feeling left out I guess...she wanted to come into the little cardboard house as well!  The thing with Tessa is that she and Smudge do not have the greatest relationship...actually they pretty much hate each other!  Smudge usually runs away from Tessa, except when she randomly jumps into her bed, and Tessa yells whenever Smudge gets too close to her.  Needless to say, Tessa did NOT want Smudge in the house with us and Smudge was doing everything she could to get in.  Eventually she managed to pry the door open, as it was only cardboard and didn't have a latch....and came inside.  At this point Tessa wanted to sit on my lap to be "protected" from the cat, and Smudge also wanted to sit on my lap!  (If it's not 3 children competing for attention then the cat has to join in!)  Tessa just kept pointing and saying "No" and "side, side" meaning go outside!  We tried pushing her and and shooing her but Smudge was determined to stay in the house with us, she even tried to bite when Tessa went to push her out!  I had to lift her out and then wedge the door closed eventually.  Still she would not give up!  She started sticking her paws through the little gap of a door handle and when I tried to pull/hold the door closed I got clawed!  Then she tried to jump through the open circular window and I got clawed again on my should as I happened to be sitting right next to it.  Smudge was too determined she drove us right out of there and we went swinging outside instead!

During Tessa's nap I tidied the house (MUCH needed from the weekend) hung out some laundry, folded some laundry, and did my own laundry.  We went to pick up the other two from school, spent a little while on the playground cause it was so nice out and then came home where they played on their brand new driveway while I made them dinner.  After bath time Reuben put on one of his favorites CDs, Michael Jackson and began showing me his dance moves.  He was THRILLED to find out I could teach him how to moonwalk and he ran to get some socks and get practicing!  Libby also wanted to learn after watching us for a bit, but then became more interested in simply sliding on the floor on her feet, then knees then whatever else she managed to slide on.  Libby seems to be warming up to me much more the last couple days, realizing that I'll be staying awhile and I'm not just a stranger living in their house for a little while, although she is still full of questions and every so often really wants to know who I'm going to marry, or if I know!  I even got a compliment off her today, which started with a random questions.  She asked if all I was wearing was "that jumper" which I was, my blue and purple striped long, long-sleeve for those who know it... and leggins, but usually the kids have on multiple layers I guess cause she could see my shoulder she wondered why I didn't have on another shirt underneath, I told her cause I was warm enough in it by itself, thinking that would suffice as an explanation.  Then she came out with "you look beautiful!"  Haha, very surprised to hear my house cleaning and babysitting attired got me that compliment!  Libby always manages to come out with something unexpected!

Weekend and Monday...busy, busy, busy!

Adam Lambert Glam Nation Tour=Amazing!!

Security highly enjoyed feeding people water from their pumps...in addition to spraying ppl to get their attention

SUPER close to the stage, just one person and the fence in the way!

CRAZY long lines of people waiting for 2 hours before we arrived on the bus and got to go in before them all :)

Starting with Friday night, I met Mami in the city and we ventured out to Danny Doolans again, but we were a bit later than the week before so it was just far too crowded already to really enjoy so we wandered around and tried some other places.  We ended up spending most of our time in O'Hagan's which was filled willed an older crowd at the start and they played music like YMCA (which neither of us had ever heard played out before!) and Love Shack, etc.  Turned out to be another late night, so went into the Saturday plans on about 3-4 hours of sleep...luckily I'd been getting plenty all week long! 

Saturday at noon I met Jenny, Caitlin, Rachel, An and Sabrina by the ferry terminal in Devonport.  We're all au pairs who have all arrived fairly recently, Rachel being the most recent who arrived Tuesday!  We spent the afternoon wandering around town and ate a cafe outside enjoying the sunshine!  We all realized just how strong the sun going to get here, just from the cafe we all got a little bit of color.  After thoroughly exploring Devonport (apart from hiking up the hill to see the views because some of us weren't wearing appropriate footwear) we ferried across to Auckland and did some exploring there.  Our dinner reservation in Orbit, in the sky tower, was at 5:30 so we had some time to kill before heading up.  We found Albert park which was really pretty and walked around there then sat and had some get to know you/story time until it was time for dinner.  As it was a gorgeous day, the views from the sky tower were incredible!  We had free entry to the observation deck with our dinner reservation so we were able to see everything in the sunshine and then go up and attempt to watch the sunset and see the city all lit up afterward.  Unfortunately a long cloud came in, making the sunset pretty much non-existent.  Dinner was delicious and the restaurant revolved about one rotation per hour so you get to see the city from all sides.  Even though it wasn't cheap, it was definitely a worthwhile experience.   We wandered around for a bit after and some of the girls decided to go out, although no one had too much energy after the day.  I decided to head home and get a full night's sleep in preparation for my Sunday plans!

Sunday I slept in, woke up refreshed and then watched the kids for a couple hours while Julia and John went out sailing.  The competed in a few races (which they won because no one else went out due to not so nice rainy/windy weather!)  I headed down for club doubles at 3 but again, the weather presented a problem on the hard courts and Junior Interclub were occupying the 3 turf courts (luckily for their only Sunday game) so doubles was called off this week.  I decided I needed some form of exercise so ventured out for a run in the unpleasant weather.  Although it was windy and rainy, it was actually not too cold.  It was my first run since I've been here and actually went pretty well!  I found myself a nice little route.  When I got home it was time to shower and get ready for ADAM LAMBERT!! So I booked a ticket for the 6pm bus departure from the city to the stadium.  GREAT move.  The concert was sold out and there were quite a few buses loads of people that left at 6pm.  When we pulled up to the stadium at about 6:30 there were already HUGE lines of hundreds of people wrapping around the building.  We heard some people, not even in the very front say they'd already been waiting 2 hours, and we just got dropped off and got to walk right by all of them and head straight inside.  We still had to wait until about 7pm for the doors to open to the stage because once they did it was pretty much a free for all, stand or sit where you wanted.  Because we (and by we I mean my friend Rachael I met waiting for the bus, who also was attending on her own, so made a bus buddy right off the bat!) managed to get on the 2nd bus we were SUPER close to the front of the line and so when the doors open we just walked quickly up to the stage and had one row of people in front of us and were right in the middle.  Perfect location and had an amazing view the entire show.  People didn't really even push too much once everything got going, had a tiny bit of breathing room, although it didn't smell too great...It was all very worth it!  The opening band was Seth Haapu, a Kiwi singer, (that was his song Bones and here is his newest single Stereotype) who was pretty good, didn't know any of his music but he also did "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars and did a really nice job.  Then we had about an hour of waiting for Adam, and after each song ended there was cheering in anticipation...I just told the person next to me, there's no way he's on before 9:30, he'll come on at 9:30 and play until 10:30 (when Seth Haapu finished did 8-8:30).  Sure enough, he did exactly that, well his encore song for his bass guitarist brought him to about 10:40.  Then we hopped on the bus and headed straight right back to the pickup point without any delays!  I'll post a link to some videos I took with my blackberry when I get them on my computer.  Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera, just didn't anticipate being close enough to get AMAZING photos! oh well! Memories will have to suffice. 

As I was getting ready to go to the concert Libby had all kinds of questions for me, first off was "how did you get those earrings in?"  I guess I've always just worn my small cuff ones and she's never scene big ones on me.  Then followed with a discussion of me having my ears pierced and when did I get it done, etc.  Next was, "why are you looking all pretty?"  She first thought that I was going to be IN the concert...haha and couldn't understand that it was going to be just one person performing...I managed to get out the door on time though!

This morning was pretty smooth running, everyone was pretty happy and Libby was in an especially good mood!  All of a sudden she's all excited about swimming and the fact that I may start teaching at the place where she takes lessons and has decided she wants me to teach her class!  Will work out well and I can give kids a few private lessons of their own before summer starts.  She only just got excited about learning to swim because the deal is, she must learn how to swim before she can do sailing races and bigger sails than right out from the house.  After dropping the Reuben and Libby at school this morning I ferried over for Yoga, and thought I had a lot of extra time so took the Link bus in the opposite directions, thinking I'd get a nice little tour of the rest of the city that I hadn't seen yet.  Well I certainly got the tour!!  Much bigger than expected and ended up taking about an hour making me 20 min late for yoga!  Fortunately, there was no one there for class, just a few people doing their own practice.  So the instructor set me up with my own little sequence to do and was there if I had questions or needed help and came over and fixed my positioning every now and then.  And I got to spend extra time in positions I needed more work on.  Worked out pretty well in the end! 

This evening I went to "Tennis Extreme" at the club.  It's a clinic with one coach and 3 players (so 2 more other than myself) and lasts for an hour.  Just drills and constant hitting and fitness and a bit of doubles play, a great workout!  And it was coached by Mark Nielsen, one of New Zealand's former top players!  That was highly unexpected!  I knew he coached at the club and ran his program, smash tennis, out it, but doubted that he would be the one doing the adult clinics!  He's got lots of juniors to make top dogs!  Anyway, it was a great session and felt pretty cool just knowing I was working with such a quality player! 

Now for some photos...

Sky Tower from just inside the park

Jumping friends! To copy what Caitlin did on FB, Belgium, England, California, California, Germany

Some of Auckland from the Sky Tower

Our dinner in Orbit

Attempt at watching the sunset in the Sky Tower

Just after sundown