Sick boy...

Ben came down suddenly with some virus on Sunday night - complaining of a headache and having a temperature. We spent the whole day at home yesterday and he ate and drank very little all day. Thankfully today he seems to have improved a fair bit - he ate 3 Wheet-bix for breakfast - although he's still saying he feels tired (but I suspect it is just the affect of not eating much yesterday).

Peter's 30th Birthday...

Was on Thursday. I made a 'Luxury white chocolate cheesecake' for his birthday cake (for those of you who don't know, cheesecake is his favourite sort of cake!).

Productive afternoon...

Both Peter and I were in productive moods this afternoon, which meant quite a few jobs got done (some which have been waiting to be done for a while). First I cut everybody's hair (except my own) - it was Joanna's first proper hair cut...it is now in a cute bob style cut. Then Peter cleaned the bath, shower and toilet and wiped all the fly spots off the ceiling in the kitchen (the stuff I couldn't reach when I did all that cleaning on monday). While he was doing that I pinned the side hems on the blockout curtain material to put in our bedroom (which I bought a couple of months ago). The kids happily played or helped out at times (Joanna helped Dad clean the shower, Ben passed mum the pins for the curtains).

Yummy dinner...

We just ate a very yummy dinner! Peter made pasta with a bacon and blue cheese creamy sauce. It tasted really good - well for our family who all like blue cheese. It was quite a heavy sauce, so one serve in a sitting was enough (although both Peter and Ben had seconds because it tasted so good). It was definitely a case of where quality ingredients resulted in a simple, but VERY tasty meal.

It was cold this morning...

Foggy and -4C... there was ice on my gloves on the way to work.
(And my wife thinks I'm crazy for still riding in shorts. Not sure why.)

An elephant on a bicycle.

That's the most memorable picture from the book I finished reading a few days ago. The book was "China Shakes the World: A Titan's rise and troubled Future". It was a very interesting read, written by James Kynge, who has worked as the Financial Times' correspondent in Beijing for a number of years. The first few chapters describe how China has got to the position it's currently in, a rising superpower. The last few chapters contrast this, looking at some of the challenges to China's continued rise (things like environmental degradation, the collapse of trust (in government etc), and a government sometimes struggling to keep control. China's economy was what was described as the elephant... it needs to keep going, because if it slows down, it will fall off the bicycle, and shake the whole world economy (and more).
It was a good overview of China, but there were a few things that struck me as a little wrong - one of the points was how China has contributed to falling prices in a whole range of sectors. One of the main examples he used was falling prices of mobile phones and other technology items. Working in the tech industry, I know that's not quite how things work... prices fall as products mature, regardless of what China is doing.
The other thing which was slightly ironic was how Kynge credits China's buying of US Treasury bonds with keeping American iterest rates low and therefore providing a boost to the American economy. Those same (artificially) low interest rates are at least part of the reason for the current economic meltdown.
Those are some pretty minor criticisms though - overall it is well written, informative and easy to read.
If you want to do some more reading about it, there's plenty of China blogs out there: Drorism and Imagethief are two that have well-written, informative posts.

Cleaning marathon...

We had real estate inspection today, so needed to tidy the house a fair bit as things were in a bit of a mess after last week (as toys couldn't live in their normal places in the playroom because it was being the guest room). Anyway my major task was tidying up all the stuff off the carpet (with the kids help) and vaccuming it all. Well I only managed to get 1/4 of the house done before they turned up for inspection - but continued to do the rest of the house after, as I wanted it to be all tidy and clean again. After I'd finished that job, I then wiped down all the kitchen cupboards - I'd been wanting to do this for ages too, but never got around to it. Ben helped with the bottom ones and then I had to get on a chair to do the top cupboards. It looks so much better now. Anyway, this meant I ended up cleaning from 8.15am (straight after breakfast) until 12.45pm (when it was time to stop and have lunch).
I then had to go grocery shopping this afternoon. And now I feel exhausted and have a sore back (which doesn't hurt if I'm sitting in my nice comfy recliner - which is what I'm doing right now).

Disco Dancing

We went to Ben's kindy disco last night. It was this term's major fundraiser. These enable the kindy to purchase equipment/resources and make improvements to the facilities (the teacher's salaries are paid direct from the government).
Ben had been excited for more than a week about it and had apparently been doing a lot of dancing at kindy in the mini disco area they had set up to get the kids interested. The kids were also encouraged to come in fancy dress - Ben went as 'Bob the Builder' complete with orange work vest, yellow helmet and tool belt with tools (thanks Aunty Di for the Christmas present!).
Both Ben and Joanna had lots of fun dancing, as well as eating pizza and other junk food (all sold to raise money).
There was also a 'mystery bottle' activity - pay $4, pick a number out a bag, and you receive the wrapped bottle with the corresponding number (all donated by kindy parents). Ben had seen the crate of bottles at kindy during the week and so had already decided before the night that he wanted to spend some of his pocket money to buy a 'present bottle' (as he called them). Anyway, his 'mystery bottle' turned out to be a bottle of Sweet Chilli Sauce! At first he wasn't too happy with it and wanted a different bottle, but he warmed to the idea and now wants to eat sweet chilli sauce on everything!
The disco only went for 1hr (6.30-7.30pm) which was perfect timing as the kids had lots of fun and were tired and ready to go home at the end without getting bored or whingy. And Peter and I enjoyed ourselves and were also tired by the end.
(Unfortunately there aren't any photos because we forgot to take a camera)

But I would walk 500 miles...

Joanna has developed a healthy interest in walking places by herself, instead of just getting a ride in the pram. This has included walking all the way home from Ben's kindy a few times (a 10-15 minute walk) and usually at a fair pace too. Ben likes to take advantage of this by hopping in the empty pram and getting a free ride home!

Still alive...

For those of you who have noticed we haven't blogged for a week and are concerned that we are sick/have fallen off the face of the earth, we are all fine and well. A group of students from the local Capernwray Bible College (it's down the highway, in Cambridge) doing a 'ministry week' at our church. So we have a couple of the students staying with us (a German couple), and am enjoying chatting with them and therefore not chatting on our blog as much.

When I grow up, I want to be a...

...Burger King lad. Here's Ben practicing his customer service skills on Joanna.

King of the castle...

Today Ben was pretending to be a king and wanted to build himself a castle. This was the result...The design included a 'bed' where the 'king' had a sleep.

The frown of concentration...

Joanna was busy building a tower out of a variety of objects she had found. I thought her frown and 'tongue action' caused by the intense concentration was cute.

Mum and Dad's turn...

Here's some more video of Peter and I getting a turn at going down the slope by ourselves.

Snow fun

Here's some video from last weekend's snow trip... we finally got around to downloading the videos to the computer. Listen out for Ben's giggling... it's very cute.

DIY box shelves

As some of you may know, we have a spare bedroom in our house. So far, it's just been used as a place to store toys, which means they end up all over the floor and rather disorganized, regardless of our efforts to keep them in boxes. So, we decided a little while ago to attempt to make some shelves to store the boxes so that everything could be kept off the floor at least (and so guests have some space in there!). We earn rewards points on our credit card which can be redeemed for Bunnings vouchers, so we headed off there on the 9th May to buy some MDF and screws and so on.
4 weeks later, this is the result. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might have! Having a router to do the joints meant that the structure was reasonably easy to do and quite strong - there's no bracing of any sort.
The slowest part was actually the painting - cold weather recently has made it hard to do. But it's now done. And overflowing already...

Morning at the museum...

Yesterday morning I went (by myself) to the Waikato Museum for the first time, to go and look at the 'Da Vinci machines' exhibition they have currently. It was great to spend a couple of hours wandering around looking at all the different models of the various machines that Da Vinci invented. There was an hour long video which was a biography of his life (concentrating more on his scientific stuff than his paintings. I found this a good overview and learnt a few things that I didn't know/realise before: All his writing is mirror image of 'normal' writing (because he was left handed - I assume so he didn't smudge the ink when writing); many of the projects (mainly artistic ones) he was commissioned to do, he never actually completed; he chose never to publish any of his work during his lifetime. I then spent the 2nd hour looking at all the models of the machines - some which were working models that I could touch. All the models were made with nicely oiled wood, which gave them a bit of a romatiscied image.
Afterwards I went and discovered a nice little cafe - Scott's Eupicrean - to have some lunch. A nice spaghetti with olive oil, parsley, chilli and garlic - it was delicious!

Listen to my heartbeat...

Had my 2nd midwife visit today. Had to do the whole past medical history, family medical history, previous birth history etc. (booking-in appointment stuff). Also got to hear bubs heartbeat - all is fine. My midwife is now going on holidays for about 6 weeks, but while she's away I'll get to have my 20-week scan.

Cold week...

I know I've already commented on the cold weather this week. But it has been unusually cold for Hamilton and especially for the start of June. It has dropped to -4C every night this week! I'm just waiting for it to warm up a little bit - it's not the cold nights that I have an issue with (a nice cosy bed with electric blanket takes care of that), it is that because of the extremely cold nights that the days take forever to warm up (to approx. 13C). It is then only warm for an hour or two, before the temperature starts to drop again (as the sun drops). I must say that it doesn't feel as cold to me as I thought it would.

I like internet grocery shopping!

With my usual shopping day (Monday) being a holiday, I didn't know when I was going to fit it in this week. Then in the mail yesterday was a voucher for $5 off delivery for internet shopping with my supermarket. ( I used the internet grocery shopping a couple of times last year). This was the best way to get it done, so while the kids were watching a DVD yesterday evening and dinner was cooking in the kitchen, I sat down and did the grocery shopping. Now I'm not convinced it's any quicker (if anything it takes slightly longer), but it is certainly makes the time more flexible (can do a bit then, pop off to put something in the oven, then come back and keep shopping). And it is great when it is delivered and all I have to do is put it away in the cupboards!

It's cold!

It was -4C when we got up at 7.30 this morning! And is still only 6C now at 11am! (actually 5C if you take into account wind chill). I think it is making my brain slow down - don't seem to be able to get anything productive done this morning.

Adventures in the snow

This past weekend was the last long weekend for a long time (until October), so we thought we'd better go away somewhere while we could. The ski-fields were making lots of noise about getting the best pre-season snow in decades, so we thought we may as well head down to the snow and see if we could go tobogganing - particularly seen as Ben has been super-keen!
We booked a bach (North Island-ish for a holiday house) at Raurimu, which is about a 20 minute drive from Whakapapa, the North Island's biggest ski area. The weather forecast was a little nasty - heavy snow, gale force winds and icy temperatures.
Saturday morning saw us driving down without any rain or wind and was rather uneventful except for Ben bringing up his breakfast all over his pyjamas. He's not getting any books to look at in the car again. We had lunch at the bach before heading straight for the mountain - we wanted to get up there while the weather was still reasonably good. It was overcast, but not raining (or snowing higher up), so it was pretty ideal weather. By the time we got to the top of the mountain, Joanna had fallen asleep, so Ben and I took the toboggan and headed down to the best patch of snow we could find. We had it all to ourselves for a little while - I think Ben's squeals of delight must have attracted some other people though - we were joined by a few others. Joanna and Mel joined us soon after and also had a few toboggan runs. The kids started getting cold, so we headed to the cafe for some afternoon tea, and discovered all the snow that had got into Ben's boots. Oops.
Sunday was supposed to be the worst of the weather, but we woke up to beautiful blue skies and very little wind. So we headed back up the mountain. Up the top it was a different story though - the wind was up, it was snowing, and the carpark was more like an ice-rink. We went back down to the same spot as the day before, which now had a fresh dusting of snow. The wind was just too strong for the kids to be comfortable though, so we didn't stay for long. We headed off to Ohakune (one of the little ski towns) for lunch. After lunch (and a tantrum from Ben) we headed back to the bach, where we had a pleasant afternoon playing and trying to stay warm as the temperature plummeted - it snowed, the snow melted, the melted snow froze. And the wind howled. Ben and I still headed out to play badminton for a little while - it was interesting when the shuttlecock only when one way - downwind!
Monday morning saw the wind still blowing strong, and the access road would almost certainly have still been closed, so we didn't bother trying to get up the mountain, we just packed up and headed for Taupo for lunch and then home.
All up, a very pleasant weekend - the kids enjoyed it (except when they were freezing cold, understandably! We did manage to keep them warm most of the time though...) and we got to see some parts of the country that we haven't seen before. Now just to get back there to enjoy some more snow...

Running... the next goal

After managing to complete the Rotorua Marathon last month (just), I've had close to a month's break from running to try and let my knee recover. I think it's now had long enough, so I've decided to try and start running again.
Only trouble is, we're now definitely in winter here... which means cold and dark in the mornings. Never mind, I went for a run this morning - it was -2C. Frosty. Getting out of bed is a bit of an effort, but just as well I don't really mind running in the cold.
The target: Taupo Half-marathon. My goal is to run a decent time (yet-to-be-decided... definitely faster than my 1h51min PB, but not sure how much faster just yet!). I'm not sure that Taupo in the middle of winter is the best time to attempt such a thing though - if the weather looks like it's going to be bad that weekend, I might give it a miss and try the Hamilton Half instead... at least the weather should be better by then.