Trick or Treat

Our costumes were a huge success and the Tazling was on form tonight.  Where ever she went people asked if she was wearing a wig or not.  We only went trick or treating up the one side and down the other of our street, but that was enough for me.  Every house we went to, Taz gave them a commentary at the top of her voice and without a pause at all, that went something like, "Hi, my names Tamsine but I'm Merida for halloween its just a costume and my dad gave me a green glowstick and my little sister Heidi is one of the naked triplets, thanks for the candy, have a spooky halloween."  It was fantastic.  

Little Miss H was a little trepidatious at first, until she realized that people were putting candy in her bucket.  After the first house she came running up to me with this shocked expression on her face showing me her bucket and said, "Mommy.  Candy."  That was all it took for her to get into the spirit of things.  She was so excited that she was getting candy that she exclaimed "CANDY!" every time she walked past someone.  I had a good laugh.       

Happy Halloween

As a non-native to the USA and growing up in a country that didn't celebrate Halloween, its one of those kinda, little bit, strange but also kind of awesome traditions in this country.  I've never really gotten as into it as my friends here, but this year I'm trying to make a little more effort.  Two reasons for the extra effort: 1st, the munchkins (especially the Tazling) are very excited about the prospect of Trick or Treating and getting (as my child put it this morning) other kids to give me a whole bunch of delicious candy. 2nd, this is the first year I've actually had a house that will get Trick or Treaters, so in an attempt to not get my house egged I am getting a little more into the spirit.

Here is my attempt at decorating my front porch.  I'm assuming I'll get better at this....or not.       

New Zealand Day Nine: Part One

Thursday 16th August:
 
NZ is the home to the Lord of the Rings films, and now the new Hobbit film.  I was so excited that we might get the opportunity to tour the WETA workshop, but alas it was not to be.  Actually, I wasn't prepared to drive from Auckland to Wellington for eight hours with two little kids.  But, happiness and delight, the set of Hobbiton was only a couple of hours away and they did tours there, so we kept Jen's kids out of school for the day and completely got our geek on.  It was so much fun, and made me want to get back onto a film set again.

 Setting out at 8:30am

 Arriving at Matamata Farm and saying "Hi" to the sheep

 Cool old truck the kids enjoyed playing on

On the set

 

 

 

 Bagend with the completely fake Oak tree above it

 

Dancing at the party tree

 

 After the tour Taz got to feed a bottle to the lambs - she was in heaven

Leaving Matamata

We had a quick picnic lunch in the car on the way to our next stop.  Apparently being a geek took its toll on a few of our party.  Good times!

New Zealand Day Eight

Wednesday, 15th August:

We took a drive to North Head Reserve.  It was a system of old military bunkers used up until 1996 when it was turned into a reserve for tourists etc.  It was really cool and had some amazing views of the city of Auckland across the bay.  It reminded me so much of Cape Town.

New Zealand Day Seven

Tuesday 14th August:

The men wanted to go fishing, so Jen sent her kids off to school and we just stayed at her house relaxing.  It was nice to just chill.  At one point Taz was watching a movie when she came over to me on the couch, lay down on my stomach and promptly fell asleep.  I think my little girls needed a down day just as much as I did.

 

Meanwhile, the men were not having as relaxing a day as we were. They launched the boat at Kaiaua three hours before low tide, but because the inlet was in dire need of dredging, the water dropped before they realised what was happening and the next thing they knew, they were completely stuck in the mud.   They launched at 7am and only managed to free the boat at 2pm. The men spent the day literally waiting for the tide to come back in so they could get the boat out of the mud.  HAHAHA.  I laugh, but that is a really sucky thing to happen and what a waste of a day.

 

The boys got home from school and so Jen and I decided to take the kids to Sunset beach for a little bit of an outing.  In Jen's words "We set off, all jolly in our journey, enjoying the rainbow we saw along the way ..."

We were about 2km from the beach when we realised the petrol light was on! We had been at the petrol station to fill up the night before but Jen had forgotten her debit card in her camera bag, and I didn't have enough cash on me so we decided to just fill up the next day.  We had forgotten all about the petrol situation before setting out for the beach.

Well, with the nearest petrol station 31km away, we couldn't even risk the remaining 2km to the beach and back, so we just had to turn around and drive back, praying that we would make it.  Noah was feeling a bit car sick and really needed to hurl and we couldn't even risk stopping because we didn't know when the fuel light had come on, so we didn't know how far we would get before running out of petrol.  Jen had formulated a brilliant plan though.   If we ran out,  I (thats right - me) would have to walk to the nearest petrol station fill up a tank and then walk back to the car.  I know, brilliant, right?  Anyway, we were in the middle of nowhere and the kids were all stinking mad that they didn't get to play on the beach like they had been promised so there was much whining, whinging and petulant tantrum throwing in the back (not to mention the disturbing noises of the car sick one.)  But, after much prayer and gripping of the dashboard, we made it to the petrol station and then just straight back home again.  Little bit of a let down to say the least.

That night Jen organised a babysitter so the four adults could go on a double date (a first for Jen and I).  The food was divine, but it was the dessert that I still dream about.  We ordered a sampler platter of creme brulee, dessert pizza, chocolate cakey divinity and a sort of berry crumble, and they were all served with ice cream, fresh cream and a black berry compote of sorts.  We didn't have time to even snap a before shot we got stuck into it so fast.  Hmmm, heaven.