Time to brag

Here's my big boy's arts and awards.

Art at home, across a variety of media...

Creativity at school...

And at the library!

Now for the awards.  Amiri is clearly a well-rounded individual.  First is his certificate from another successful term of physical skill-building at Playball.

And here's his sticker chart from his classroom-- he gets a sticker when he's 'caught' displaying his school values, and he filled up the whole thing over the year!  He got a little ducky puzzle and some yellow mini building blocks as a prize.

And here are some excerpts from his report cards.  OH MY.  What an amazing young man we have.

 

A pretty cool adventure

I was sitting around the house this afternoon, feeling all bored and too hot and a little grumpy.  So I rousted everyone out and into the car because We Are Going On An Adventure.  I had this notion to go and find a particular waterfall.  But we ended up in Piha again by accident.  Oh well.  There are worse problems to have.

It was windy but the boys figured out a work-around.

And they did some mad log-rolling down the beach.  When they ran out of steam we did some hole-digging and some shell-picking.

Our drive back home took us past Karekare beach.  Because I was driving, I decided I'd take a detour down there.  Conveniently, my passengers were willing to accompany me even though this was another of those 'breathalyzer*' driving scenarios.  I've nursed a serious regret over the months since we were last there that we just got outta Dodge on that windy day instead of making lemonade and driving another two hundred meters past the beach and into the bush.

Because that's where there's a waterfall.  (Yay, I got to see one after all!)

And oh my, what a waterfall it was!

With even a lagoon for swimming!  Like Hawaii except better.  OK, this is seriously a must-see.  If it's this breathtaking on a rainy day (it IS a rainforest, after all), can you just imagine what it would be like when the water and sky are turquoise-blue?



*  So named because the necessary motor skills and reaction times required by the road will automatically select out any intoxicated drivers.

Christmas in the South Seas

We had an AWESOME family Christmas.  Here's a new tradition, since we have a yard for the first time in the boys' lives:  sprinkling reindeer food on the lawn so Rudolph can have a taste sensation when he takes a nibble on the grass.

Reindeer food is a secret family recipe.*  The boys spread it very nicely, and we left a couple of carrots as well because those reindeer will really need the energy for their long flight.

The next morning was of course a big hubbub of torn wrapping paper and delight.  The boys snarfed into the candy from their stockings before their eyes were even fully open, and they lapsed into some sort of overstimulated toy-induced Christmas delirium before breakfast.

Here they are enjoying their Angry Birds roller coaster, and do you notice how the plate and glass on the table are suspiciously empty of milk and cookies?  (The carrots and reindeer food also disappeared overnight.)



And here, they're off to the races!



*In each bowl:  Three tablespoons of oatmeal, 1/2 teaspoon of round multi-coloured cookie sprinkles, and 1/2 teaspoon of long multi-coloured cookie sprinkles.   Lovingly stir until proper reindeer-suitable flavour is achieved.
 

If it involved a squeegee, he'd do this all day long

Here is how Helpful Arram washes the windows.

Step 1:  Thoroughly wet the glass with squirtgun.

Step 2:  Wipe and repeat (all afternoon).

The remote tip of the Waitakeres

First, we drove waaaaayyy out west.  When we got to the sheep paddock, we turned off the 'main' road and headed into the hills.

We were on our way to Whatipu, a beach on the farthest, wildest reaches of the Waitakeres.   I would have described our one-lane bumpy road and its view as 'ludicrously spectacular', had I not been so busy foiling its attempts to actively murder us as we drove.  This merry little gravity-trap path through the forest primeval involved a lot more vertical action than I had really been prepared for, and angles that were acutely attention-grabbing, all with sheer drop-offs on alternating sides with, naturally, no guardrails and far too much opposing traffic for my taste.  Then it turned to gravel.  And when we saw the sign stating, 'Road Narrows', we were all, 'How??'

But because I was too busy staying on my side of the road --at like 17 kilometers per hour-- to have the spare mental capacity to bother being unnerved, we arrived safely.   Although before I got out of the car my folks had to fetch the tire iron to pry most of my fingers out of the steering wheel.

Here is a link to a map of Whatipu's place in the world.  Along the way we stopped at a lookout to get a glimpse of the beach we were on our way to.  There it is down behind the mountain. 

The photo below was taken once we got to our destination, looking inland.  This is the other side of that same mountain.

There are maybe a dozen little baches in this valley.  Some of them are over a hundred years old, the remnants of a logging village that in its day was only accessible via a twice-weekly ferry.  And here I'm waxing hyperbolic about this place's remoteness; times sure have changed.

The intervening years have also changed the landscape.  When it was built, this little house was so close to the coastline that it was covered in salt spray.  But the ocean currents shifted over time and deposited an immense amount of black, volcanic ironsand here.

When I say 'an immense amount of sand', I mean it.   The spot where I stood to take this photo used to be underwater, yet today the foot track through the grassy dunes to the beach is a full kilometer long.

It's a really interesting walk because in addition to all the scrubby vegetation, there's all these cool outcroppings along the way.

And when we did make it down to the water, there was this big sleeping-turtle island.

Which was composed of rocks the texture of cheese-graters, surrounded by heavy surf.  I created some dark amusement for myself by envisioning the fate of hapless shipwrecked mariners desperately attempting to clamber ashore here.

It looks like the landscape is composed of a cheap, chunky concrete.  Dropped from some enormous, careless cement mixer.

It has a name--Piha Conglomerate--and it's a wild mix of high-iron-content volcanic stones held suspended in sedimentary mortar.

Some of the larger pieces were used as the foundation of the loggers' tramway, which is now pummelled into practically unrecognisable remnants by the waves.

Because it was there, I clambered up to the top of the cliff and had a look-around under the low, threatening clouds while the wind attempted to knock me off.  (Turn your speakers down, the wind noise is maddening.)



And when I came back down the sun came out and suddenly Whatipu was a totally different place!

The big rocky whatevers looked a lot more friendly under the warm sun.

And I had a little flop down on a dune and was all, 'hello, sunshine'.

I especially liked Whatipu's lighthouse, with its Dr. Seuss entrance.

All the Christmas traditions

The boys learned valuable cookie-decorating skills...

And MAN did they put them to good use!

And we had a trip to see Santa in the mall.   You can't see Arram in this photo, of course, so you'll just have to imagine his verbal accompaniment to this photo:  "No!  I don't waaaaaaaant tooooooooo!"

At a super-fun birthday party

They got to dress up (in their Halloween costumes again, naturally) for our next-door neighbour's fourth.  Here they are playing Pass the Parcel.

They both got stickers and paper crowns as their parcel loot.   And, later, goody bags that included squirt guns.

The birthday boy received his body weight in Legos.
 

The big gun

Just sitting there and completely unexplained, there is a big WWII anti-aircraft gun on one of the corners in Henderson.  After church we stopped to look at it.

There it is, aimed at the train station.  (Although it looks pretty powerful.  Maybe it's actually aimed at the mountains beyond!)

It needs two gunners to operate it.  Here are our fine lads having a go at protecting the home front.