Kittens

Trace and I decided to get Kittens for the kids, as an early xmas present last year.. and aren't they cute. They've almost double in size in the 8 weeks we've had them but have firmly established themselves as part of the family.

Picked up and ready for the trip home

Jessie May

Lion Crocodile

Finley got a boy and named him Lion Crocodile and Harriet a girl named Jessie May ;-)

Not that I've had cats as pets before but I think these 2 have to be the most chilled out felines I've encountered. Maybe it's because they've had the kids picking them up for cuddles from day one but they don't seem to mind one bit.

Currently they are getting used to the cat door and we've almost done away with the indoor litter trays (hurray!). Overall the whole process of getting them used to the environment, peeing and pooing where they're supposed to and leaving them unattended (when we're both at work) has gone remarkably well with only the odd accident here and there. 

Can't imagine not having them now.. ;-)

Lion on a sleeping Fin

Finley gets a kick start

It took some bribing, much cajoling and finally the purchase of arm, knee and wrist guards, but Finley is now up and running, riding his bike! (well Harriet's old bike that we spray painted blue ;-).

With $20 in his back pocket and with full extremity protection on, Fin has gone from "I hate my bike" to "I want a new one". He was so good at riding his scooter that the bike had really taken a back seat and was always in the too hard basket (once the training wheels came off). He was also in the shadow of his big sister  who has been able to ride for a few years and possibly wasn't helping his confidence by showing him how easy it is..

But it looks like there is no looking back now and a new bike purchase (well, second hand from Trade me) is on the horizon. Hopefully family outings on with all of us on bikes will be on the agenda soon. Looking forward to that.

Finleys 6th Birthday

Fin was up at 6.15am today and into our room "can I open my present from Grandad Iain and Grandma Lesley?" (after failing to get into the front room where he left the present yesterday...). 

6.15am isn't bad for him as recently he's been getting up at 5.45am!

Harriet open the doors for Fin to get into the front room and within seconds the present was opened and he was the very happy owner of Kai's motorbike Lego set (Thanks Tauranga Grandparents).

Next up was our present for him, a remote controlled off-road buggy. Unfortunately (or fortunately) it requires 6 hours of battery charge before first use, so it was off to school before testing it out. I'm use it was get a good workout once he gets home. 

Looking at doing a pretty quiet family dinner (of fish and chips) tonight, with the main party on Saturday. Fin wanted to go to the Zoo with a few of his mates.

[Update] Lusie, Graham and Deb and kids all came over for dinner, which was indeed Fush and Chups. Fin got a spiderman glove (that makes a swooshing noise when moved around) from Luise, some more Lego in the mail from Pops and Joy, the game Mousetrap from Debs and kids and also a T-shirt from the kids next door. 

Fin had a great time showing off all his presents and mainly played with Louie all night. When it was time for everyone to leave, Louie and Fin snuck into the front room and tried to get a bit of computer time in. This was quickly shut-down (as it was already past 9pm) and Fin didn't take that too well and went off to his room and disappeared under the sheets. Then he started yelling out that his birthday was "ruined" and that he didn't get enough presents (hopefully he was just a bit tired and having a vent but sounded like a bit of a brat ;-).

He still has Saturday at the Zoo to look forward too.

Trip to the Principal's office!

Finley had his first (and probably not last) trip to the principal's office last week. He had been very grumpy leading into the Tuesday in question, and generally not doing as he was told (Trace said he was a absolute nightmare while walking to school and back). Lack of sleep maybe?

The story we got was that Fin wanted to play with a boy at school but he had changed his mind and decided not to play with Fin... so in Fin's own words "I had to punch him in the stomach". Surprisingly (to Fin at least) this action didn't encourage the boy to play with him but earned a trip to see the principal instead.

Pleased to report that since this incident, Fin (and Harriet's) behaviour has improved ;-)

Recent Quotes...

The family has just had a round of worm tablets as Harriet had found some little white ones in her poo (nasty, I know...) so we asked Fin "have you seen any worms in your poo?" to which he replied "I haven't been eating any worms..."

Fair enough!

10 year anniversary!

Gee, where did that go? October the 7th, 2010 marked our 10 year wedding anniversary so what better way to celebrate than dropping the kids off at my mum and dads and heading to Rotorua for some quality RnR. These days "quality RnR" usually means packing up the cycles, getting a good ride in and going to a cafe for a flat white/Pot of tea, hot chips or muffin etc. With Trace in training for the Rotorua half Ironman and me for the K2 we were pretty keen to get some long(ish) rides in and being in Rotorua Tracey could ride the bike course itself. So that's what we did. On Friday Trace started with a dip in the lake, then onto the bikes and out towards Whakatane (turned around at about 40kms) and on Sunday we rode around the lake (which was very nice). Inbetween exercise we lay around and watched the Commonwealth games on TV (and some movies), walked around Rotorua looking at the sites, had a spa (which was a little disappointing as we're in the biggest thermal area in NZ and the spa wasn't a natural spring?) and got plenty of takeaways so we could just mooch around in our appartment doing nothing... All in all a great, relaxing break... Thanks a fantastic 10 years babe!

2010 - Review to date

Well here I am again.... I always seem to be doing a "catch up" post and can't believe we're a quarter of the way through the year already! So I won't bang on about "I have to post more often blah blah.." and just be happy that I'm getting some of the "Family Race" experience down on paper (so to speak).

Anyway, here goes a review of life since the last post (only 6 months ago..)

Xmas 2009

This year is was our turn to spend with my mum an dad down in Tauranga. We had a great time with pretty good weather for the week, lots of good food and drink and got in plenty of trips to the park and beach (which we always do in Tauranga. It's a great place to visit and Trace and I keep saying if we were going to move from Auckland, it's most likely to Tauranga).

The big difference for me this year, over xmas, is my new found love of exercising (or rediscovered love of exercise but we're talking about nearly 15 years of not doing much). I've really got into my cycling this year and loving the "feeling fit" feeling (it's probably more the endurance endorphins that I'm loving...) but found that I've got more energy, sleep better, I'm more alert and more active with the kids, so it's got to be good.

Ever since we came back from the UK in 2002 I've been threatening to get back into some form of exercise and always ended up trying running and nearly always ended up with the same result, shin splints (or "can't be arsed" syndrome). I'd get the shin splints if the running was going well.. I'd build up to about 8-10k runs and just be starting to get fit, then my lower legs get tight, then sore, and then downright painful and the only cure was to ice, massage and rest. So then I was back to square one. (I don't think we need to go into "can't be arsed" syndrome but basically I never got fit enough to get the "need" to exercise feeling that I've got now).

So what changed this year? (or last year now as I'm so out of date). Well it was about Feb last year and I was having a browse on Facebook (probably in work time but we won't go into that) and ended up looking at some photos posted by Glenn MacLachlan (actually posted by his wife Debbie, as Glocks isn't terribly computer literate). The photos were of the Wanaka Challenge and Glocks did the cycle leg, a mere 180kms! but I thought if Glocks can, I can (maybe not 180k but at least enough to get fit). Then another mate that I used to work with (who is 10years + younger than me and already a good cyclist) signed me up for a 100k ride from Rotorua to Taupo, so I now had a goal... and the rest is history. I did the ride (albeit crook from the flu but I'd told too many people what that I was doing a 100k ride that I couldn't back out) and my competitive nature kicked in. Another ride was signed up for, training plans were made etc etc with the pinnacle of the year coming with the Lake Taupo cycle challange, a 160k ride. Once I signed up for that, I was well and truly hooked. (We're hoping that the Taupo ride will be an annual thing as we had a great time and talked some friends into doing it as well which made for a very social weekend).

Now that I've had a good bleat about my personal health, time to get the blog back on track... to Xmas 2009. Once we had our week down in Tauranga, we returned to Auckland for New Year's and we're all sound asleep by 10.30pm (being the party animals that we are). On the 2nd we were off camping for a few days with Tracey's brothers family (Lyndon, Layla, Baden and Zayde). This was the kids first real taste of proper camping, as it is a doc camp so only had the basics of running water and a long drop loo.

Kids loved it, made friends with the other kids (generally stealing their toys and telling them what to do... harriet) and survived fine without TV and playgrounds and looking for junk food every 5 mins (which is one of their favourite things to do when stuck at home). Interestingly it was the older kids (Baden and his mate who are 10) that got bored and hung around the camp a lot and wanted to be entertained by us adults. Maybe they can't do without the playstation, dvd's, gameboys etc at that age?

In late Jan, early Feb, the whole family had a trip down to Dunedin, the official reason was a Masters cricket tournament but was a good excuse to catch up with the boys down south and basically have a cheap holiday away (thanks to Sherb for putting us up!). So it was sight seeing and family time during the day then from 4pm it was cricket playing then beer drinking.

Highlights of our daytrips were: Seeing seals, penguins, albatross etc down at Tiroa heads on the peninsular (but the kids enjoyed the ice cream, hot chips and the park on the way back the most i think). Train trip to Middlemarch see: http://www.taieri.co.nz/, again the novelty wore off after a couple of hours but we (Trace and I) really enjoyed it. And a visit to Cadbury world (tour of the factory in Dunedin), where the kids obviously loved the chocolates but were pretty much bored with the details).

Everyone has a great time and will be definately back in 2012 for more Masters Cricket.

P.S. sorry for lack of photos but camera had packed up and so had my good phone... both replaced now

P.P.S this post has just been finished in Feb 2011 so only about a year in the writing... at least it's something ;-)