Scooters from Aunty Sam

We finally used the lovely scooters Aunty Sam bought the boys for Christmas. Their friends, Blake and Jacob, used their old scooters so they could join in on the fun. We found a pretty good route to Brown's Bay where they can stay on pavement to scoot to their heart's content, which was until the first steep hill! Brown's Bay has a beachfront with a wooden deck so they had a great loud track to ride up and down while mummy and daddy got a coffee. The scooters are a lot posher than their old ones so hopefully they will last longer as the old ones kept falling apart, a little dangerous going downhill!

Mini golf in Albany

Every year we purchase a huge book of vouchers and the money goes to charity. There is only a month left so we decided to use some up and one of them was mini-golf which we have not done for a very long time. After 10 minutes of playing I realised why, chaos and tears. Every hole was a traumatic experience as there was either a problem with the ball, club or just me! Things started to settle down by the eighth hole and Oli got into rhythm and had a couple of hole in ones! He started to celebrate with a dance which wound the others up! Sam was with us and fortunately he was really cool and didn't care whether he won or not and this rubbed off onto Alex, they had a great time. Once Tom was allowed to do anything he wanted he calmed down. We found a gecko and Tom insisted I took a photo.

Train ride in Coromandel

I have covered this trip before but these photos are from the camera on the phone. There was a bit of wait before our train was leaving so we explored the pottery but Oli was not too impressed. The train came to stops and reversed, one of them was over a cliff - not at all worrying! The ride ended at a wooden tower called the 'Eyeful Tower' because of the fantastic views. The boys loved the train ride and were totally enthralled the whole way. They celebrated surviving the trip with an Oreo ice-cream and Alex was thrilled to find the letters imprinted in his ice-cream.

Walk around Lake Pupuke

May's weather in Auckland is extremely changeable so we prepared for rain and hot sun! When we started the walk it was raining and the boys were fully prepared with their raincoats. By the time we made our Christchurch donation and reached the lake it was raincoats off and in our t-shirts! Then raincoats were back when we found a trampoline, perfect for a walk around a lake. When we found a swing the sun was blazing again but Tom was now fed up of taking his coat on and off so he refused! We finished the walk at Columbus Coffee with a sausage sizzle and 'fluffys', the boys were very happy.