Walks, Autumn Leaves, Playgrounds and Helicopters

I LOVE summer!!! Especially with two rambunctious little boys who do some much better when they can burn off their energy with running round outside, swimming and more running.
Therefore the minute winter starts to crawl up, I hold my breath and wish the months to go quickly. I'm a bit lazy so even though I say "oh yes, no matter what the weather they WILL go outside EVERYDAY", in reality that doesn't happen, as the thought of MORE washing etc etc just puts me off.

I've been making an effort to get out with the boys to do what boys do best....adventuring. This is what we've been up to........

VISTING PARKS

WEEKEND WALKS WITH DADDY

NAVY HELICOPTER VISITS @ DADDY'S SCHOOL
(We live @ school....one of the perks)

FUN WITH OUR FRIENDS FROM ACROSS THE FIELD

Airballoons Over Waikato

The past week has been the Waikato Air Balloon festival, a bit of a long standing institution around these parts. The kids have been running outside every morning to see how many balloons would be up in the sky and spending quite some time watching them drift on by. The festival is rounded off with the Night Glow on Saturday night. Here are some photos from the past week, the night ones are a bit (or a lot) blurry but that adds to the novelty...

~~Our 6th Anniversary~~

I just spotted some photos from our Wedding Anniversary back on January 19th.
So here is a post in hindsight.......

On our Sixth Anniversary we took our lovely children to their Opa and Oma's home for a day and night of fun with the rest of the whanau.
We headed off to spend the day doing whatever we wanted without having to think about feeding and napping little people on time. We popped in and said HI to our dear friends Dave and Rae on the way out to Raglan. Consequently we stayed for a leisurely lunch and a good catch up (at that stage they were waiting for the arrival of their firstborn Eva-Elise). We then meandered out to Raglan with a stop at the Bridal Veil Falls (55m high) and enjoyed the sights and sounds.












Then we spent a leisurely 3 hours out at the beach, Ken surfed, I read my book, we swam at 7pm and basked in the warmth of our summer sun.



All of this outdoors worked up a bit of an appetite so Fresh fish and homemade kumara fritters for dinner. Followed by a coffee at The Tounge and Groove.

What a wonderfully relaxing day, spending time together, just being.

Time like this is so refreshing to one's relationship and binds us closer together.

BLUEBERRY BLISS

It's Blueberry season here in NZ and where we live in the Waikato, it's Blueberry Country.
So off we went to pick some scrumptious blueberries with the whole family in tow.
We picked 7 kgs between 2 families. That may sound a lot.....trust me it's not, they are just too nice to leave hanging around.....even in the freezer. We have done Blueberry Smoothies, Blueberry and Lemon Yogurt Cake, Blueberry Pancakes and am planning Blueberry Cheesecake, Blueberry Pie and many more Blueberry Smoothies.....YUMMMY!!!

PRE-CHRISTMAS RELAXING!

Amongst all the rush and madness that Christmas has become, we decided to take a few (4) days out to relax at the end of the school term. We have friends who have a bach in Whiritoa and had kindly offered for us to use it if we ever needed to get away from it all.....and we did. We took our kids plus my Brother (J14) and my Brother-in-Law (T15). We had a lovely time as it was wonderfully quiet at the beach. Here are some photos of all that we got up to:

PLAYING AT THE BEACH

CATHEDRAL COVE WALK















ALL PACKED UP, RELAXED AND READY TO GO HOME

FANTASTIC FUN & FRIENDS

Karen and her lovely kids meet up with my little whanau every fortnight for some like-minded fellowship and play. The last time Karen was at our place in the Tron we visited the Hamilton Gardens for some fun in the sun and exploring of all the lovely gardens.
We visited the Japanese, English, Italian and Modernist Gardens and investigated The Sustainable Backyard, Kitchen and Herb Gardens.
We had lunch under the shade of lovely fresh green leafy trees and the kids just loved the exploring. Here are some pics of our afternoon out and about......

Snow Trip 2007

In the last weekend of September we spent 3 days down in Taupo with our good friend Glen and Sarah. Glen was our Best Man at our wedding so we go a little way back. We had a wonderful weekend and so enjoyed their hospitality!!
While down there.............

On the first day:

We Ate Crayfish...yum yum...........


Quite an education for JK and G(my sis)! Learning to get as much flesh out of the shell as possible and then having a sample......what a shame they weren't that keen on it.....wink wink GRIN! (more for me!!)

On the Second day:

We headed for the snow (which was nothing short of a military operation!!)....


Note the ash on top of the mountain, there had been an eruption the week before and if you look carefully there is even a molten rock flow.

We dressed up warm and caught a bus to the ski field from the car park.....................



We Tobogganed......




We Ate...............


We fought with snow (note JK hiding behind Glen....he's got the idea!)...................


We rode on the chairlift....................



We viewed the majestic scenery....................


On the Third day:

We soaked ourselves in natural hotpools............

A fabulous weekend, so much great fun and fellowship......let's do it again!