New house 2

Tom was very keen to show you the house as he made me take a photo of every room. It has 4 bedrooms and a study. Three toilets with 2 showers and a huge bath. There is 3 living areas next to each other heated by a stove/fire which sounds interesting at least its heat! The double garage opens onto the paved area where the boys are very keen to practice their basketball skills. There is almost a separate area for our future guests with a bedroom and bathroom down one end of the house. We are going to keep everyone together upstairs. You may have noticed some odd furniture, hopefully that will be gone tomorrow.

New house!

We always knew our house in Greenhithe was going to be short term as we found out about other areas but not this short!! For the last month or so we decided that if a house came up near Campbells Bay School we would go for it. Its 'the' area to live so these opportunities would be very rare indeed particularly decent houses. The problem was that the estate agents said we couldn't seriously go for any unless our current property was rented out.

We didn't expect this one to go but it went really quickly giving us 2 weeks to find somewhere! Cue, panic. I hated it as there was plenty of properties but all were pretty bad and we have got used to having a big house. By chance a colleague hassled me into checking on the Internet for properties and this one had been on for literally hours so we chased it up.

Harcouts (estate agents) said they had lots of applications and we just had to put one in and wait to find out who they preferred as tenants. We felt like the dream was over but they choose us! Fantastic we thought, as long as they did not have an offer to buy within next 48 hours it was ours. That was weird but hey what are the chances of that.

They had an offer the following morning which meant we had to wait another day, another day drifting by leaving us only 7 days to find somewhere if it didn't go through! We didn't sleep well that night. It all fell through and the property was ours, finally. Yippeee!

Rainbow's End 3

As you can see it was business as usual. We have loads more photos of all the boys laughing on the jumping star as they loved it so much. They had another hour and a half before we were kicked out! Over 3 hours of a 5th birthday and we weren't stressed, now that is impressive!

Rainbow's End 2

After about an hour we needed to chase them and get them to eat. The park have an area in the castle for you to sit and they provide the usual nuggets and chips! Fran spent hours creating the monster cakes and they looked (and tasted!) awesome. We didn't know what to do with them so we asked the kids to use their hands and tuck in! They took a while to get going as they couldn't believe their luck, all the smarties disappeared first? What is it with those things?

Rainbow's End

For Tom and Ollie's 5th birthday party we took them to NZ's Premier (only!) theme park. It was a bit of gamble as we were not 100% sure of what we were going to get! However, it paid off as we had an awesome day.

Firstly, the weather continues to be fantastic, absolutely beautiful blue skies and warm. Secondly, they had a semi-contained area called 'Cadbury's Castle' which was for 5 year olds. It had 7 different things they could do but the beauty was they could do it themselves! They just strolled around and chose the ride they wanted. Amazing. No queues, straight on once the ride had finished. It was unbelievable.

The rides were a real mix but the 'Jumping Star' was very popular as they dropped suddenly a few inches and the dragon roller coaster just looked the part. The kids enjoyed the freedom more than anything else.

Goodbye Kindy

Thomas and Oliver had their last day at Greenhithe Kindergarten on Friday. It was a fun day which started with huge excitement.. a visit to the pet shop! It is a tradition to buy a gift for the Kindy when you 'Graduate' so even though Ollie wanted to buy a whale, we settled with a fish. Of course, when we saw the huge choice in the Aquarium section of Animates, we had to buy 2 fish and plants! So with fish in the boot, in bags, we went to Kindy for the last time.

The boys set about the birthday rituals making a crown, a playdoh cake with fresh flowers and 5 candles and a Happy school days poster! I was relieved that they knew what to do as I admit I was a little lost. But after a few near misses with a hot glue gun and LOTS of glitter, we were almost there.

Then came the time to sit in the huge '5 years old' chair. Tom went first then Oliver and the had to blow out candles from 'cake' and then stand up and check they were 5! I was a little worried at this point, as being boys who knows what they might do! But both were angels and did a little twirl.

They also had a great time giving out lollies and balloons to their friends and saying goodbye. A huge thank you to all the teachers for their great patience and kindness.

AC baths and Scooby Doo!

As we were exploring Taupo we found details for AC baths which was described as 'thermal baths' and Ollie spotted slides in the photo so we had to check it out. In fact, the place was brilliant with not only a couple of long slides but a tarzan rope and 'bombing' section! As you can imagine the boys were in heaven particularly as all the pools were piping hot!

We left our lodge in National Park at 5 pm and arrived home at 10 pm which was great time. We left on the Thursday as we had tickets on the Friday morning for Scooby Doo stage fright. It was at 'The Edge' in the centre of Auckland so we needed plenty of time to get there. As it happened it only took us 25 mins to park right next to it!

The show was great although a little strange at times but it had all the things you would hope would be in a Scooby Doo show such as eyes in the dark, in and out of doors, chased by a ghost (who looked great) and scooby snacks. Daphne was not what I had hoped for though.

Taupo 2

After eating we decided to briefly explore the town and let the boys play in the nearest park. Taupo had a great feel to the place like a small town but there was lots of extreme sports available and is obviously popular with backpackers. There seems to be loads to do so we will definitely come back.

Mt Ruapheu Pt 3

After a long day we decided the boys needed a little light relief as they had done such a brilliant job of learning to ski. They can all turn and 'pizza' (break) now.

We hired a sledge and hit the sliding slopes. I don't remember ever sledging and my inexperience showed as I shot down the slope hit a few bumps and nearly lost Alex and Ollie as they bounced around. It was a great workout for them, and us, as we had to make our way to the top each time and they wanted to carry on for well over an hour. We had an early night that night.