I am unreasonably delighted by this

Look.  LOOK!!



I would seriously like to buy a beer for the F&P engineer who must have been sittin' around in his cubicle one day, and decided to have a bit of fun.

In case this is not immediately apparent for the non-Kiwis, here is a reference.
 

A question and answer session

"Boys, what's a hot water bottle used for?"

Amiri:  "You put cold water inside it and then during the summer it gets hot so you get hot water and it won't interrupt your summer fun."

Arram:  "On a long bush walk, you carry it on your belt and you drink from it."

Boy, are they going to be confused when they discover some hotties in their beds* tonight.

*Oh yes, I am fully aware of the double entendre of that phrase for Americans.  I share it with you so that you can pause and blink for a second, as I did the other day, while discussing kids' bedtime routines with my Kiwi friends over dinner.
   

We had so much fun, we lost track of the time

It was rainy this weekend, so we got all the odds and ends out of the cupboard and did some imaginative play.  Which led to the development of this guy:

The Five-Fingered Hand Fish.

(You kind of had to be there.)

Why yes, I did superglue googly eyes to the backs of my fingers.  What, that's not how you spent your Saturday?
 

Packers vs. Bears

Happy Father's Day to the greatest Daddy and Grandpa.  A man who literally went to the ends of the earth for his kid.  What an amazing role model you are.  I love you, Dad.  Can't wait to see you again.

The old, 'Mom, I need a costume for tomorrow' routine

The children have been reading New Zealand authors recently.  Today, in honour of Margaret Mahy, it's Crazy Hair Day at school! We whipped up a crazy wig for him last night.

There's nothing crazy about this photo, except of course for the intensity of the play that preceded his crash.  I just wanted to include a photo of Arram too.

In which I encounter wee beasties

So here's what happened at home:





Then I went out for lunch and met a nice kitty named Trulia at the cafe.  She sat on my lap and purred while I ate.

After that I went to the beach and these things happened.

Mama, I made you something

It's a bit hard to read the second pane, but the entire message reads, "I heart you very much."  Aww.
 

I'm not sure what I'm more scared of...

...the peppers* themselves,

or the pests in my yard that are apparently capable of nibbling on them.

*Alongside a regular sweet pepper for comparison are three Ghost Peppers, the world's hottest chili:  400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce and used in India as wild elephant repellant.
 

They went thump thump thump

This is our feijoa tree.

And this is a feijoa.

I've decided they taste like strawberry-citrus pears to me.  I've been enjoying buying bags of them for a gold coin from neighbours who have unmanned fruit stands with honesty boxes at the end of their driveways.

But I won't need to do that for a while!  I went out and gave our tree an experimental little shake.  Here's what came tumbling down.  The biggest one is the size of a goose egg.

A quiet walk along the stream

I took myself off for a little explore the other day.  I started at the big sculpture that catches the sun.

There were feathers embedded in the path!

They were part of a neat story.

And there were fern-themed motifs too, because, it's New Zealand.

I walked past some horses.  Why isn't that big brown one wearing a coat?

I called him over and asked, but he wouldn't tell.

Their paddock was actually part of a cool equestrian centre.  Maybe the jackets were part of their post-workout cool-down.

I also passed a vineyard in the setting sun.  Which gave me a good idea for how to relax at home.

For a while, they were called Kangaroo Eggs in our house

Kinder Eggs are the best things in the world.  They aren't available in the US for safety reasons (small parts are choking hazards).  But here we throw caution to the wind.

They're foil-wrapped hollow chocolate eggs.

With little yellow capsules inside.  They open with a satisfying pop! to reveal toys.

Arram assembled a robot from his!

And Amiri made a wiggly hologram scene!

The pounce

I press the button and the garage door rolls up.  Its sound alerts the beasts and they burst through the door to sight their quarry.  I park the car and silence its engine.  The beasts interpret this as the signal to make their final approach.  Small hands grasp the door handle and wrench it open.  

Before I can defend myself they've swarmed the car and then they're on me.

I never even stood a chance.

The big cross-country race

All the kids competed in a cross-country race this morning.  It had been delayed from last term due to rain.

Here are all of the kids sitting on the new turf.  They are wearing their brightly-coloured pod t-shirts.

Then they walked onto the court.  See Amiri in the red?

They lined up, and then they were off!

We ran across to meet them as they rounded the front of the school.



After that they had to run around the school, loop around the neighbouring park, and then down the hill.  It was a kilometer, all told.  Four or five big kids ran with each of the younger groups as chaperones, to ensure that no one got lost.  While they were doing that, we scurried back down to the finish line.



After that great finish, I went out to give him a high-five.  I was so proud!

 

Is that the place with the gumboot?

We had fun farewelling the School Holidays with a trip to Kiwi Valley.  And yes, it IS the place behind the big gumboot on the hill.

We arrived a bit early and got to have a coffee before entering, which was a great way to get the adults properly fortified for the adventure.  Kiwi Valley is a working farm (you can even buy eggs on your visit) filled with sunshine, happy animals, and genuinely stoked-to-be-there teenage workers.  The first stop is the petting zoo, where you can hold bunnies and rats.  Amiri and Arram were not so sure about that, so after approximately 0.0001 seconds of arm-twisting I volunteered my lap for holding purposes and the children clustered around to pet my new little friends.

Then the Fabulous Five went for a tractor ride.

We drove through a field with cows, ducks, and a big warren of wild rabbits.  There was a great view. 

Then we did the big labyrinth.  In addition to finding our way out, which was enough of a challenge, we had to also locate the birdcage, the goat barn...

and the hidden man-made cave, which had a waterfall inside it.

Then we went out on the farm walk.  There were more goats out there.

And I thought it was funny how the sheep left clumps of wool on the fences.

There were lots of chickens and I simply HAD to hold a little chook.  He nibbled snacks out of the boys' hands.

And then it was time for the PONY RIDES.  They got their helmets on and lined up.

Amiri was an old hand at this, a seasoned cowpoke from way back.  (Notice how the pommel has a little horsey on it.)

Arram was a little more cautious and had some quiet psych-himself-up time before the big ride.

I accompanied him at first, but he excused me after we rounded the first bend and he explored the rest of the track on his own.

And because we had so much fun, then we did all of those things again.  And we patted the cow and the loud donkey on our way out but only waved goodbye to the pigs, because the sign said they bite.

  

Enjoying the earth

Look at all the wonderful produce I brought home from a neighbour's garden this afternoon.

We got limes and oranges, red guavas, baby onions, a little lettuce, and a whole armload of silverbeet.  Plus some flowers and fresh rosemary and bay leaves.  I would have taken some beans but honestly they were a bit too big and woody.  What a treat.
 

Echinoderm locomotion

At the beach we found some sea urchins.  They're good to eat but it takes a bit of doing.

We didn't eat them.  We just played with them for a while and exclaimed at how they wave their little spines around.

Then we set one down on the rocks and it made a break for it.  This is at 8X speed.

Well, Canadians heat their houses, so it isn't a Commonwealth thing...

As we approach winter, I've had to face the facts about this new house we're in.  There is no heating.  None.  No furnace.  No heat pump.  No bathroom heaters.  Not even any heated towel rails, for heaven's sake.

It's a house with zero ductwork whatsoever.  And single-paned glass.  Currently all our home heating is based on kitchen appliances and light bulbs.  And this is the norm here!  I just cannot understand how a country in which water freezes outdoors can have a culture that eschews insulation and central heating.

So I went off to The Warehouse and set myself up.  Here is what we've got to keep our 1500 sq ft house warm this winter:

A convection heater for the main rooms downstairs-- its interior looks kind of like a toaster with a fan attached.  It has a timer so I'll set it to get a head start on us in the mornings so the kitchen will be cozy when I stumble down in search of coffee.  I'll probably drag it from room to room a dozen times a day.

There's a little portable heater for the downstairs bathroom, and it ought to be able to blow the chill out of a bedroom pretty quickly.

And upstairs there's the old noisy heater.  It still pumps out the heat; it just makes a holy racket doing it.

Come and get us, winter!  We're ready!
 

Those arm-squeezers in every Wal-Mart pharmacy?

Yeah, they cost $4 here.

There are actually a lot of ways to categorise them

Amiri has started a seed collection.

He's got popcorn, various beans, spices, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and more.  Over the last week, he has spent at least ten hours absorbed with his collection-- sorting, labelling, funnelling them from one container to another.