Swimming!!

It's been such a beautiful weekend weather-wise, I went swimming in the ocean today!!! In Whangamata in the Coromandel peninsula.  The water felt pretty chilly walking on the beach in the early morning, but by later in the morning, after a little cricket on the beach (apparently that's what Kiwis do on the beach, play cricket) and standing in the sun, it didn't feel cold at all!  It was also a really pretty drive back through the Coromandel range, seeing some more of the country. 

Yesterday, while the family was at Libby and Reuben's school fair I watched Tessa, well stayed home while she slept during the afternoon.  She went down at about 10am and slept through til 2pm!! That was a crazy long sleep for her.  I'd planned to take her down to the fair when she woke, but the fair was over at 2, though no one came back home until just after 4, after packing up and chatting and everything. 

Friday night firework spotting didn't go so well in terms of seeing a big show in the sky, however, there was a constant show going off for hours from almost everyone house in sight!  Everyone just put on their own personal shows and neighborhoods started to smell like fireworks.  It was pretty cool to seem them all from the Bayswater marina, seeing them all go off in Devonport and across the bay to the other side as well!  I guess it's only legal a couple days before and after November 5th. 

Lazy Days Off

Yesterday and today were pretty lazy days, apart from the usual run and yoga yesterday, I've just been watching Ellen and researching and planning for future trips!  In a couple weeks I'm planning a trip with some other au pair friends to Waitomo, Taupo and Rotorua with some adventure activities planned!  We want to do both black and white water rafting (one is through the caves) and a sky dive and then go bask in the bubbling mud pool in Rotorua! 

One thing I can't believe I didn't realize until today (because I was making some chicken and expecting there to be some left over for sandwiches or something), there is NO mayo/miracle whip/salad dressing, whatever you want to call it, in this house! And there hasn't been since I've been here!  I guess I've just learned to make sandwiches with pesto or humus or something like that instead, or just learned to accept the dryness...I guess I didn't miss it too much seeing as it's taken me almost 2 months to notice!!  But now I'd really like some on my future chicken sandwich. 

The cakes have all been successfully frosted and delivered to the school for the fair tomorrow!  I ended up only making about 6, Julia made two and then Elsie, her mother made a few and some cupcakes.  Not sure we made the quota of 20 but that was kind of an outrageous goal! 

Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night which basically means there is just a lot of noise and fireworks!!  I actually saw a few down the street last night coming home from yoga.  Everyone tends to stretch out the celebrations a bit.  It's not actually a holiday off work or anything, just a night of bright and loud displays.  Let's see how Auckland compares to our 4th of July exhibitions. 

Couch Surfing

Last night I went to the couch surfing meeting at Buffalo Bar in waterfront district in Auckland.  It's a weekly gathering for travelers mainly, or anyone who wants to come by.  It's organized by the couch surfing community and just a place to mingle and get to know some new people really.  I went with a neighbor I recently found out I had, Sophie, from Switzerland, here to study beauty therapy, and Reanna, who was out for Halloween with us on the weekend.  It was an interesting experience, no Kiwis at all actually!  There were a group of people who set up to play beer pong, then asked the crowd if there were any Americans because they didn't actually know any rules!  I seemed to be the only one so I explained the basics of how to play and some specific rules and they kept coming back to me and asking me different "what if.." questions. 

Yesterday was a pretty regular day.  In the morning when I'd come up to my room to get my shoes, Tessa followed me up with her dada and gaga in had saying "cot, cot" because she knew she needed to put them back in there!  She's so good about leaving them there with me.  As soon as it's just mom though, she thinks that she can have them! Or as soon as mom walks in the door after work, that's the first thing she asks for!  After dropping off Libby and Reuben we went to Narrow Neck Beach to play on that slide and swings for a little bit, then came home to have something to eat (morning tea) and put her down for her nap, but she wanted to go have it in the park, and pulled out the container to pack food in herself.  So we packed up a snack and took the pram to the park near the house where she eat and played on that slide. 

Baking, Baking, and MORE Baking!

This morning Reuben was complaining of feeling sick, so he stayed home from school today, but Julia stayed home as well for an extra day of recovery, so I dropped Libby at school (although we realized later maybe she was the one that should have stayed home) and brought Tessa to the first day of Summer Fun Playgroup down in the park in Devonport.  She was mostly just interested in the usual slide and not so much in all the provided toys and play equipment that isn't normally in the park.  She did find a Tessa-side bike to ride on for a little bit, but then preferred to watch two dogs playing with each other and chasing some birds away.  There was a bit of an incident up at the top level of the play structure.  About 5 kids had climbed up there and one little boy was biting people trying to get through and make space for himself I guess.  So all kids of crying and screaming came down and moms had to climb up into the small closed-in space and retrieve their kids.  A couple were not too happy about it at all and stormed off.  Luckily the woman who's son was biting people realized it and took him out as well, after the second attack.  Meanwhile, Tessa just stood and observed all of this from the lower level of the structure, keeping her distance from all the drama. 

We came home, had some lunch and both her an mom took a nap.  Reuben had a pretty quiet day playing on his own and doing some school work on the computer.  I set out to bake 2 more chocolate cakes and then Reuben decided he wanted to do something special to make mom feel better!  So then we made some choc chip muffins as well to surprise her!  They were out of the oven by the time I brought Libby home from school so everyone enjoyed a nice little snack.  Surprisingly, Tessa happily came with me to go and get Libby, even though mom was home!  We both expected she wouldn't be going anywhere, but when I asked if she was coming she said "yup!"  She even glady put gaga and dada back in her cot where they belong during the day!  As soon and mom comes home or is around she runs and gets them, but she knows when she's with me she isn't supposed to have them, and follows this rule very well!

After dinner, we watched America's Funniest Home Videos, a popular one with the family.  It's funny they watch ours and don't just have their own program! 

Blog Stats

Just thought you may like to know...I was checking out my blog stats recently, as I only discovered awhile ago that it even existed...and I have blog readers from 9 different countries!  The US is the biggest contributor with over 1200 of the view, the UK is next with over 100, then all with under 100 come New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Russia and Kuwait.  I like that I am able to check the stats to see how many views I get and even how many views each post gets, otherwise I really wouldn't have any idea how many people are reading!  Pretty interesting!

Anyway, this was a pretty typical Monday, apart from the fact that Julia was home ill in bed all day, so the kids were surprisingly pretty quiet this morning!  Made it to school on time, although Libby decided she wanted to ride in the "boot" or trunk of the car (don't worry there are seats, the ones that face out the back!)  So while Reuben (and Libby really) wanted the music turned up, it was impossible to hear her when she tried to have a conversation.  Also I think Halloween festivities and a little bit later than normal bed time tired her right out!  She was nearly asleep after the 15 minute drive home from school today!  It took a bit longer than usual (only about 5 minutes normally) because there was a ton of traffic leaving Devonport at that time.  So mom decided it was probably a good idea for her to miss her touch rugby game today, and give her and Reuben some time apart as well because they were starting to really get on each others' nerves.  So I brought Reuben to his touch game while Libby stayed home with Julia.  His team lost, but they were playing the best team in the league and because the teams are made up of people from the same school, there aren't too many teams of all the same aged kids, so often they play against kids 2 and 3 years older.  For example, today's team had at least one 10-yr-old on it (as I'm told by Reuben) and he's only 7!  He did pretty well chasing down their one speedy kid for being so much younger!

After I dropped the kids off this morning I ferried over to yoga, and had a semi-private class/own practice session.  It was just one other person and I so she kind of personalized the class and we did headstands!  I managed to balance right away (as opposed to leaning my feet/legs against the wall bars) for the 10 long, slow breaths as requested, so felt pretty accomplished with that!  After I just sat and read my book while waiting for the ferry back, had some lunch and went to tidying after the weekend bomb hit the house.  This evening after dinner I went to another "Tennis Extreme" session, nice little hour long tennis workout!  And Mark asked if I'd like to do some after school coaching as well!  Unfortunately, it starts at 4 and I am still busy then, and have already filled my Thursday and Friday slots with yoga and swim instructing (starting soon)!  Oh well, always something to have for the future should time open up, I guess!  Oh! And they call 2 v 1 doubles "American Doubles"!! haha hilarious, what we would call Canadian or Australian or some other country doubles!  I thought Mark was just making fun of me or something when he said that, but I was like, you seriously call it that?!  And yes, they always have!

Halloween Auckland Style

Tiger, Corpse Bride, Vampire, Zebra, Vampire

Saturday afternoon I took a trip up north to Puhoi to The Art of Cheese factory and then to a honey-making place to watch the bees in action and do some honey tasting.  There is every possible flavor of honey you cold think of!  I also tested out some lip balm made from honey, thinking it would be similar to Burt's Bees, but it just didn't compare!  And in the store one tube of regular Burt's Bees lip balm is about $11!!! So I think I will soon be requesting a package to stock up on that at a more reasonable cost (please).  It was nice to see a bit of the country side and more hills not occupied by tons of houses.  On the drive back we stopped in Wenderholm park for a little look around and then also stopped to look over Orewa beach again.  It was a completely different sight from the last time.  The tide was almost all the way up and there were a ton of kite-surfers as the conditions were perfect for them!

Saturday evening a few of us went over to Rachel's house to have some dinner and get ready in our costumes to go out in Auckland for Party Central.  A $10 ticket granted entry into 10 different bars/clubs, each with a different Halloween theme, so once you had the stamp from the first you were good to go in the rest!  We met up with the rest of the girls in town and hopped around to most of the different places.  Halloween definitely isn't as big here as it is as home.  I'd say only about half, maybe even less, of the people that were out were dressed up.

I had a nice lazy Sunday morning and then went to play tennis, club doubles, this evening and enjoyed the nice sunny weather.  The kids went to  their "monster mash" event and then came home a did a bit of trick or treating, but apparently there aren't too many people who go out and do that either.  As I understand it anyway, over the last few years, Halloween has begun to take off and become more widely celebrated.

Then there was a little pre-bed excitement, we saw a hedgehog come and sniff around Smudge's food dish outside.  Apparently it's a rare occasion to see one of those cute, little, spiky things waddle up.

Overlooking Wenderholm Park

Kite Surfing at Orewa

Rachel, An and I