Cooking dinner for Bunny

Here she is cooking dinner for Bunny. I wonder what it is going to be...

Mmm, yummy, Ginger coffee beans and corn.

Mary's birthday

We play all day, we fight all night

Lately, Mlle has been a right monster at bed-time. We're making progress on getting her to sleep...



... next week, we'll work on getting her to bed.

Fiji holiday

This year we had our winter holiday on Malolo Island, Fiji. It was well timed; Andy and Georgia were not well at the start, as evidenced by the first photo, and we'd all had a terrible week of poor sleep before the trip. But a few days in the sun sorted that out.

Below are some random photos. I think they're all taken from about the same spot, and have a hammock and beach theme, because we didn't go far.

Snorkeling off the beach was great, with plenty of colourful reef fish and interesting corals. I did four scuba dives, and since they were dive numbers 3-7 for me I clocked up all sorts of firsts and personal bests: first shark; first turtle; deepest dive (27m); longest dive (55m); first puke over my dive buddy (it was rough, ok).

The trip back was by floatplane, which was fun.

The only post in July

Mlle's new school bag:


...and feeling a little poorly

Reading Old MacDonald

Hunua Falls

Hiking in the Hunua Ranges:

Gee, hasn't she grown

May

The big event in May is that she is out of her cot and into her "Big Girl's Bed". She absolutely swims in it, so I think she will be in this one for many years yet. The transition was pretty easy; she comes downstairs a couple of times each evening, but except for the first few days she has been ok in the mornings. She now trots into our room around 6.30 or 7am and declares "It's morning time!". This is a nicer wakeup call than Morning Report, even with the bird calls, and nicer than my Radiohead CDs.





Andy came downstairs one day recently, suspicious because it had been so quiet. This is what she found:



Mlle had gone to the fridge, got out an egg, cracked it open and was about to cook it on her toy stove.

Evidence that Generation Z (or is she AA?) can multitask - storytime and texting at the same time:

Mother (Gen X, just) is having enough trouble on the one task.

Wellington with the Stantons

We spent last weekend in Wellington, staying with Guy, Jack and Katrina. Georgia and Guy got on well, after an initial bit of shyness. Both loved playing with Guy's trains.

Jack and Dave went flying, whizzing past Mt Tapy at 10,000 feet. A very nice flight, where we got to see some spectacular scenery, including valleys in the Kaikouras that would seldom be seen, and experienced the full range of Air Traffic Control, from the most helpful to the most grumpy.

We also visited our old Paris friends, Mark and Bad Jo, and Paul and Anne-Marie.