Clock in the Merc

I realized on my way to yoga this morning that I'd completely forgotten to do a blog for yesterday! Oops! I'd planned on it, but then just ended up getting sidetracked online I guess and going to sleep! So I'm sorry if you were expecting it and were disappointed!  Just a funny fact, while driving back from The Costume Shoppe yesterday morning I realized the Merc does have an analog clock on the dashboard!  It all seemed so foreign, I never realized it was there! Since the stereo is newer, and there was no clock around it, I kind of just assumed it didn't have one, but surprise! There really is one there and it was set to the correct time as well! Good to know, I don't need to check my watch while driving!  It is almost as old as me! 1989...so not the set up I'm used to seeing in a car!  It still runs surprisingly well and even traveled all the way over here from England!

The rest of yesterday went pretty well, I managed to have a little afternoon nap after sorting out my halloween costume.  I went with vampire because it was the cheapest...only had to purchase fangs and blood, and can dress in normal clothes, although I did get some shoes...but I don't consider that as part of the costume costs because they will be worn again and again!  I went for a run in the afternoon, seeing as it was another beautiful day, and then yoga at 6.  Today ran similarly starting with yoga in the morning, some wandering around Auckland while waiting for the ferry, discovering some new side streets and cafes and shops, and then a run later this afternoon.  I managed to map myself out a route that's exactly 5k (according to google maps) so hopefully will get back into some sort of routine!  At least I've done 2 days in a row now!  Tonight the family had a take away dinner on Cheltenham beach/park because the weather was so nice.  Seems like half of Devonport had the same idea!  There were tons of families and kids running everywhere!

When we came home Libby called for me saying she had something for me, she'd checked the mail and was eager to see what was inside my package!  A nice little Halloween candle from Grandma, she never misses a Holiday!  (Thanks :) ) I also enjoyed how the candle was accompanied by a mummy card and articles about "The Kringle Candle Story" when the candle was made right in Bernardston, MA!  Also recognized Mike and his dad, from when I met him in Amherst, cruising around in his bright orange Lamborghini! However, it did inspire many questions from Libby...why does it smell like that?  Why did you get it?  What is the wax?  Why doesn't it come out of the there?  I tried to explain to her how at home I'd use it to put inside of a carved pumpkin to make it glow and show the design in the dark.  As they've never really done that here, it was an especially difficult concept for her to grasp.  I'm not convinced she actually understood what I was describing to her.  In fact, I think it seemed so surreal that she just gave up trying to understand.  She was like, so is it food??  Because they sell lots of pumpkin in the grocery store, already cut open and in pieces, kind of like we do watermelon sometimes, so really that's her only experience with pumpkin and she LOVES it!  I'll definitely have to make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving...not that it will be celebrated, especially not with a turkey (Julia doesn't eat birds)!  Can you please send that (your recipe) next Grandma??

I've hung my dolphin pendant in my window finally (just got some sticky hooks yesterday) and my photo montage that Susan sent me! I like that it's given my room a bit more life! I've also taken some photos of the new driveway all completed, although the surrounding landscaping/new grass isn't quite fnished/grown yet.

New driveway!

More new driveway! And that's their garage and appartment above it, currently rented by a German lady.

New wall hanging courtesy of Susan Lindsay!  Even has the other side filled for reversibility! 

Finally got the going away gift up, from Jimmy, Laura, David, Chris and Elise! And it catches PLENTY of sun!

Feeding the Ducks

Tessa feeding the ducks and random other birds!

Today after dropping off Reuben and Libby, Tessa and I stopped on the way home to feed the ducks some bread!  All the birds (ducks, pigeons, and some others) came towards the car when we stopped.  They must be used to getting fed, and be pretty well fed at that because they all weren't going crazy over the bread either!  A few kind of dominated the scene while the other stood back seemingly uninterested.  Tessa was on the ground feeding them until a few got a bit too close, then she climbed up to sit on the bench with me saying, "watch, watch" instead of being in the middle of all the actions.  One pigeon even got a bit ambitious and trying to fly up to take some bread from my hand, but I wasn't paying attention and it startled me and it ended up clawing my leg with it's toe nails... or talons I guess you could say...in the process.  Tessa ended up telling the birds to "shoo, shoo" a few times as well, thinking maybe they were getting too close. 

I got two more cakes made today for the school fair, but maybe a tad overcooked on the edges!  Tessa woke up earlier than planned today from her nap so she was outside with me while I was watering the new grass and veggie garden (while the cakes were in the oven).  She was happily sitting in her pram for awhile then somehow found mud...it was caked on her shoes, but she doesn't like when her shoes or dirty so she'd used her hands to get it off and then of course wiped her hands all over her clothes.  So I sprayed off her feet and hands and finished watering then went to turn the hose off.  When I came back around the corner from the tap she'd somehow found mud again, strangely I think without even leaving the driveway!  So that delayed the process a bit, which was only supposed to take 10 minutes!  I realized it was time to take the cakes out just in time, saving them hopefully, apart from the top layer on one corner of one...which was just a little darker than acceptable.  When they get frosted no one will notice!

The summer climate is looking very promising!  Instead of needing to wear winter boots and snow gear to school to be allowed out for recess, these kids have to have sun hats!  It's such a strange concept to imagine! Needing protection from the heat instead of the cold! 

Tonight was my first after hours babysitting duty.  Julia was home after dinner for bath time, but had to leave just after 7 for her book club.  Luckily she managed to successfully get Tessa and Libby to bed before then, so for my first time through I only needed to worry about Reuben.  He was pretty good about it too, after I read him a couple of chapters in his book, he asked me to snuggle him then went to sleep, right about 8 o'clock, then John wasn't home til just after 8:30, coming from a meeting.  Another successful day, even though school seemed to have made the kids extra tired.  Lots of whining and being upset went on, but after dinner they were all smiles playing outside on the swings and trampoline so mom could see a happy sight when she got home.  And bed time went a lot smoother than other times, probably because they all have some sleep to catch up on!

Amputated Lizard Tail

Reuben's lizard with the end of his tail cut off...

Today after school Reuben and Libby wanted to go to the skate park that's kind of in the middle of a field off the bike trail, so they loaded their skateboards into the car before school.  Today was another beautiful, WARM, sunny day!  There were some pretty decent skateboarders there, and of course Reuben and Libby are just beginners.  Libby even wanted me to come hold her hand while she rode on the board.  They mostly just played on the slopes a little bit using them as slides without their boards...then admired the other people doing tricks.  Then Reuben came running over with the end of a tail that was going crazy.  I thought it was just some weird kind of twitchy worm at first when he gave it to me, and then he came back with the lizard that it had detached from, still alive just slightly traumatized.  I've never seen one quite like it...was really skinny kind of like a snake with legs and real sleek and shiny! 

Tessa and I spent pretty much the entire morning in the park, but the swings were missing!  For some reason they had been taken away and the structure was surrounded by orange fence, so all that was left was a slide.  She still enjoyed that, kept wondering where the swings went.  While Tessa napped today I tidied and sorted some laundry out and started on the cake baking for the school fair November 6th.  Julia has already done a lot to help out and designed the signs to advertise, incorporating the kids artwork into them, and figured it wouldn't be so hard to make a couple of cakes to sell.  After saying she'd do it, however, found out that each person generally makes around 20 cakes and they have about 400 and are still the first booth to sell out!!  So she asked if I'd start today!  I made two chocolate cakes that will probably get frozen until the night before when they're all frosted.  I'm sure I'll be making 2 tomorrow and then two each day next week as well.  It will be hard not to sample any of them...

Labour Weekend

(just thought I'd spell it the way they do here! Also they just call it Labour Weekend leaving out the "Day")

Anyway!  Saturday morning I ferried into Auckland at 9:25...the last ferry before 3:25pm on a Saturday or Sunday.  We met at 11:30 to head to Waiheke Island on the 12pm ferry.  Luckily, Jenny's family's friend had an appartment right in the city center and wanted to swap beds with her for the weekend so we had a sort of "home base" in the city!  The weather was absolutely beautiful and we could not have chosen a better day to visit the island!  First time since I've been here that there hasn't been a single cloud in the sky! It was also beach weather, lots of people swimming!  We didn't make too many plans of things we wanted to do, just see the main beaches and what there was to see of towns, Waiheke is a really touristy-centered Island with TONS of wineries and vineyards to visit, but also very pricey and we all wanted to have an inexpensive weekend!  When we got off the ferry it was kind of just a whole ton of people trying to pile into the buses and then of course car and bike rentals and some other random side business men trying to load up their vans with tourists as well!  We decided this one guy (Kayak2 on the license plate) was entertaining enough to let him drive us to the first beach for $2 each...he told us a few stories, for example, his son came 5th in the Olympics for kayaking (hence the name on his van and in his phone number), the first non-European to place.  I guess it was worth it to ride with him the first short little way, to avoid being crammed like sardines into the bus...but then we would have had to call him up to drive us somewhere else if we wanted, which would have got pricey and he was also willing to cram lots of people in his van!  So we walked down to the beach and then up to the town to the bus stop.  They're supposed to come every hour, but tend to run on island time...we had each packed some type of lunch/snack to eat for the day as well so by this time most of us had eaten our lunch.  The bus finally showed up and we traveled to Palm Beach from Oneroa Beach, both very beautiful!  It was actually nice just to ride the bus across the island just to see the views and houses.  Next stop after palm beach was Onetangi beach where we actually just laid in the sand for awhile.  We caught the 6pm ferry back to Auckland (dropping off Laura in Devonport) and met up with 5 new girls at 7 for dinner at Mexical Fresh (a chipotle-like great find right in the waterfront next to the ferry).  So now there were a total of 10 of us.  After eating we were almost taken out in a limo with some guy who was celebrating winning salesman of the year that night, but he didn't quite have space for all 10 of us...we instead went back to our home base appartment where I introduced our new foreign friends to some of the many camp games in my knowledge base.  We thoroughly enjoyed tally ho, chicken goggles, and ferrari.  We had a great night out with our new group of friends!

Sunday was another gorgeous day and I spent some of the afternoon sitting by yet another beach.  A little cooler and breezier so not ideal for swimming, although there were people in the water!  Then a bunch of us from Saturday night went to Nina's house for a BBQ.  Her family was away for the holiday weekend and made sure she knew how to work the pool/spa and grill before leaving so that she could entertain people.  Everyone brought food so we ended up with more of a feast than a BBQ!  Her family lives in Orakei, also with a view of the Auckland skyline from the yard, very nice-looking neighborhood. 

Today, as it was a public holiday, I did not have kid duties so An and I went to Mission Bay (although we didn't quite make it all the way to the town because we parked pretty much in the next town over because there was so much traffic) to go to a market that was today only, 10-4.  It was yet again, another beautiful day, apparently a first to have such a nice Labour weekend weather-wise.  We wandered around strategically, making sure we saw each and every booth.  I ended up purchasing a turtle to add to my collection, figured I needed one from NZ!  And An bought a very cute little apron for her sister's daughter, who apparently is always trying to put her mother's on and help in the kitchen.  There was also a stand selling dog/cat accessories from colorful collars to leashes with visors attached and hats and clothing for your animals.  There were even three dogs sitting at the booth in chairs just modeling the items.  Either they were really hot and lazy or rather enjoyed showing off their strange looks!  It was another great, eventful weekend and the plans have already started for celebrating Halloween next Saturday night!  Although we're trying to decide what dress-up is like here in New Zealand!  We've heard a few different things from Kiwis...the Europeans always go scary, where us Americans dress up as anything at all!  Hopefully we come to a consensus and everyone else out is dressed up as well!

Oneroa Beach

Palm Beach

Onetangi Beach

More new friends!

Bailey modeling the animal fashions

Market in Mission Bay, Rangitoto in the background