All New Adventures

Day one in South Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Lien H) — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 22:58:00 +0000

We hopped on a plane on Saturday for another adventure, this time to Seoul. We're staying in Insadong at a hotel that is rather quirky, to say the least. But it's right in amongst the action, and central/within walking distance to pretty much everything touristy.

Korea, like Japan, is highly trusting and honourable. Here are cratefuls of beer left on the street, protected only by nets. No one will steal any of it.

We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace. This place is massive. We only explored the grounds and didn't go inside. We'll do that at a later time when it's not day one and we're just exploring our surrounding area.

Wandered around and enjoyed the archtecture, the river in the middle of skyscrappers, and just being immersed in the Koreaness.

Other Honolulu titbits

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 00:51:00 +0000

Some interesting titbits we discovered traveling to this place. Firstly, Hawaii is expensive. Even when you don't take the exchange rate into consideration it's still expensive at face value...and don't forget, there's taxes and tips on top of the price.

We went for a walk along the beach near the hotel and saw this taco foodtruck. $4 taco, awesome. I bought one. It was practically a little larger than cigar sized. I also had to pay 20 cents more for tax. So $4.20. Yeah.

Everything is disposable. In the hotel rooms all cups, utensils...all disposble. Not only that but they also wrap the cups individually in a plastic bag. Each! They serve drinks from the bars in disposable cups. If you ask for a glass of water that's another disposable cup.

All the souvenir shops around our hotel vacinity stocked items made in Vietnam. I should have told them I was too hahahaha.

We discovered a great convenience store tucked away down an alleyway about 500 meters away. I found it on Google Maps and it had a really good rating. Stocked a range of stuff, including 2L of vodka for $15. Oh, by the way, the only thing that is cheap in Hawaii is over the counter liquor.

Cool story - when we came down from Diamond Head we were contemplating walking back to Waikiki. But then we saw the trolley parked up. We ran over and asked the driver how much it would cost to catch a ride back to the beach. He started explaining it was a tour he was doing, if we had booked, and that it was $25 each for the whole day and then $12 for one way...but I guess he got tired of explaining and told us to hop on anyway. So we got an awesome tour on a trolley back to Waikiki for free.

We just happened to be in Waikiki on the weekend of the 76th Annual Floral Parade on Kalakaua Avenue, and we got one of the best viewing platform - right from our balcony.

Jef went surfing. That has got us really excited about summer and going surfing up at Te Arai.

Pearl Harbour

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 04:13:00 +0000

How can we come to Honolulu and not visit Pearl Harbour! We woke up early and caught an Uber out to the National Memorial museum.

We had to catch a bus out to USS Missouri (BB-63). We spent a really long time here looking all around. It was so interesting and moving being here.

The battleship has seen some life, and the USS Missouri has a long history, serving through WWII, the Korean War, and the Gulf War for a 51-year long career. Most famously, the battleship hosted the surrender ceremony of Japan on 2 September 1945.

This is the first time I've seen a submarine. It's getting towed out by the tugboat. Pretty cool!

Aloha

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 08:15:00 +0000

Last week, due to a sudden one off public holiday given to us, we took an inpromtu vacation to Hawaii for a few days. Both Jef and I have been working like crazy and needed some recharge time.

We stayed at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani on Waikiki beach. For the first couple of days all we did was hang out in the hotel. The surroundings are full of eateries, so we certainly were not limited by choice.

Directly below our room was the International Market Place, an open-air shopping center. It looked spectacular at night all lit up.

One of the things we definitely knew we needed to do was to hike up Diamond Head volcanic tuff cone. It was a beautiful walk up to the top, but also extremely hot!

The view from the top was so beautiful.

Hello from Auckland

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 23:46:00 +0000

Hello hello. We're at home in lockdown since Tues 17th August at 23:59. Back to homeschooling. Back to me working in the kitchen to free up the new study for Kien. Back to trying hard to keep our sanity.

Back to rolling out of bed and being straight into work. Kitchen table and room can't stay tidy for long.

I see myself in photos these days and I look so much like my dad. I've always been under the impression I look like my late mother, but not anymore. Once I surpassed 30 times years of being on this earth my features morphed into my father's, hahaha.

I went for a walk. I finally got out of the house! One week since we went into lockdown. It was lovely.

Again this year, just like last year, we were in lockdown for my birthday. So didn't do anything special. Went to bed early, and that's about it.

Have a good evening wherever you are.

Schooling

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Wed, 12 May 2021 04:49:00 +0000

Wow, I can't believe we are already in Term 2 already! It's been hectic. Going to intermediate school is very different than being at primary school. The expectation is so much higher for students to take responsibility for themselves. I tell you, it's not been easy. A lot of adjustments going on here!

These are pictures from the first day at school back in Feb. Seems like so long ago now hahaha.

Kien is very fortunate that a majority of his friends from primary school are also at middle school with him. I won't say all his besties, because he's got one that was in the Maori unit at Freemans Bay and he is now at another Maori unit at a different school. But otherwise, all his other BFFs are at Intermediate with him. A number of them are in his class as well - which is so cool when we go out on school trips. In term 2 there were school trips every second week. I was able to be a helper for a couple of them which was really nice.

We went to Circability at Vic Park where we did plate spinning and juggling. Great fun for a lovely summer morning.

We caught a bus to Jump. We love trampoline parks. I couldn't resist and paid for myself to jump with the kids while the other adult helpers watched from the sidelines - except the mother in the picture who also jumped with me. She's the one that organised our tramping trips away so of course she will jump too!

Something different this year is Market Day at school where the kids get to be entrepreneurial. They come up with what they want to sell at their stall. They paid for a stall, and they got to keep all the proceeds. Kien teamed up with his mates, and between all 4 of them they managed to make some good pocket money. We're talking about setting up a stall on Ponsonby Rd so all the kids can do it again.

We've got a walking bus going on this year for a few of us who live close and/or are coming in the general direction. On the way home from school we sometimes stop for sushi or ice-cream (ice-creams are restricted to Fridays only!).

It's been fun walking the kids to school. Most of the time a couple of parents are walking as well - good opportunity for exercise! It only takes about 15-20 mins from home depending on how quickly we walk and how long we wait at designated pickup spots. I think Kien enjoys walking and talking. He tells me he has loads of things to say about a whole lot of stuff. But of course he ends up talking to me while going up the hill, and when his friends join us they will walk and talk together.

We found this baby bird on the footpath one day. I tried to help it but couldn't do much for it. An hour after I got it home it died. I cried. Then I put it in a box and waited for Kien and Jef to get home that evening. They burried it out the back of our place.

Home Economics

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 22:50:00 +0000

This term at his Intermediate school Kien has been doing Home Ec. I loved that option when I was at Intermediate school as well. Back in March when we went to Level 3 lockdown Kien was tasked with preparing some meals or doing some cooking / baking for his home studies. I decided to teach him how to make pizza, from scratch. Kneading dough was a bit tough though with his tiny hands. After a while I had to get in there, but other than that he did it all by himself.

Kien likes garlic pizza so that's what he made for himself.

Home schooling while we were working wasn't easy. I've been working in the kitchen so I had to have him next to me to keep him on task. We also use our windows as whiteboards.

Another session of baking on another day, and this time he made banana muffins.

Sometimes when he has a friend over we'll also do some baking. It's great! It saves me time having to do it, and it gets them doing something useful and off their devices!

What is this?

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:27:00 +0000

Hello, what is this blog thing? In my mind I had thought I was keeping this thing updated. But clearly, no. The other day my aunty in the States (Hi, Aunty!) tried to call me to catch up. She couldn't get through as reception was not great on my side, and she ended up texting me. We had not spoken in a while...usually we would be bumping into her and catch up on our travels or she would be down here. I admit I'm terrible with keeping in touch...sorry. I'm not great with actually talking on phones. I'm alright with texts so long as I don't forget to text back. Social media is just horrible these days - go on there to try and keep up with those I'm interested in knowing about what is happening with their lives and I'm bombarded with weird stuff and people pushing some agenda. After a minute of scrolling I'm out of there and need to punch something. Then it occured to me, duh, I used to keep those who were interested in what we were doing updated via this blog. Plus it was a really good way for us to look back and have the photos and what we were up to in one centralised spot. So I'm going to try again to reserect this thing.

Over the Easter break we went up to Mangawhai. We weren't sure how long we were going to go for - just played it by ear and hoped the weather was going to be awesome...and it was!

We were intended to relax and take it easy enjoying whatever was left of the summer. However Jef got motivated and ended up doing heaps of work.

He cleared a whole lot of trees and woody weeds that was in the Totara ngahere. He fixed the big mower and did a whole lot of mowing. Kien also helped out with digging out the dirt where the old stumps where. Between them both the ngahere is looking great.

There's still a fire ban at the moment so we cooked with gas for the weekend. Nice and easy.

Fabulous long weekend away. Every time we pack up and leave I'm always dreaming of the little place we will build up in the clearing and having amenities to enable us be there for however long we want. We've got very flexible working arrangements now, so it would be nice to be able live and work in Mangawhai for an extended period of time.

Pauanui in March

In the last weekend of March we spent the weekend in Pauanui at our friend's bach. We were there last year right before the first lockdown, so it was only fitting we go down again, one year on.

Each morning I'd wake up for the sunrise and walk down to the beach. The difference here I've found, as opposed to being up in Mangawhai, is that there are a few people who go walking on the beach in the mornings as well. Up at the beach close our our place in Mangawhai you'd be surprised to find 1 person at sunrise, unless they are a keen for catching fish.

We were lucky enough to have her brother down there at the same time as us, and he brought his toys. I've definitely fallen in love with jet skiing, and Kien too, I think.

Our weekend in Mangawhai

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 22:48:00 +0000

What a great weekend we had up at the property. We took Kien's friend up with us. The boys were enthusiastic to stay in the tent which was super. They also spent a bit of time in the container playing on the strung up mattress - pretending they were riding on a horse, then it morphed into them during the war and being in a submarine topedoing the Germans. It was really interesting listening to them.

Some pics from the weekend.

We went to the local butcher and got a beautiful little pork roast. So we chucked that on the fire with a carrot and some spuds. Our dinner was fabulous.

The boys had sushi we picked up on the way up. Yes, make life as simple as possible. We all had a great time away. I love it up there.

At the beach before lockdown

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 23:13:00 +0000

We were at a friend's bach in Pauanui last weekend; the one before the lockdown period. It was really nice to get away from the madness for a little bit. There place backs onto a reserve, and was about 5 minutes walk to the beach. We headed up on Friday night straight after work. I had debated staying longer than the weekend as we had anticipated working from home, but without wifi on the property it meant having to hotspot our phones, and we didn't really know how the situation would have unfolded through days to follow. So we made the sensible decision to come home on Sunday night. It was a great weekend away.

Tramping the Waitawheta tramway

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 02:36:00 +0000

Kien's friend, Natalie, decided that for her 10th birthday party she wanted to go on a weekend tramp with her friends and stay at a hut. So over Waitangi weekend that's what a group of us did.

10km tramp along the Waitawheta tramway, with lots of stops at riverbeds, and many swing bridges. Luckily that Saturday was a little overcast, and we even had a sprinkling of rain, so we all managed to stay relatively cool.

Initially Kien was petrified walking over the swing bridges, but by the end of the weekend he was a pro.

We arrived at the DOC hut in the late afternoon, and the kids ran around playing tag/hide & seek. They also managed to forage a big bowl of blackberries for our breakfast. We were served spaghetti bolognese, which tasted amazing at a hut with no electricity in the middle of a forest.

What was also amazing was that the kids did all the washing up as well! So cute seeing them in the dark with their head torches.

We all turned in relatively early for the night. Jef decided he wanted to brave the wilderness and risk being attacked by mosquitoes and possums.

I didn't get much sleep. In a room full of people rustling around in their sleeping bags it wasn't easy to switch off. Kien also decided he wanted to sleep under the bunk for some reason, and I didn't have the energy to argue with him. Needless to say he changed his mind after midnight, of course!

After breakfast we cleaned the hut up before heading back.

We stopped along the way for a couple more swims.

When we got to the car there were cold beers and a feast waiting for us. This definitely was not their first rodeo. Natalie's parents had a chilli bin packed full of goodies.

This trip was so much fun. Kien is very keen to do some more. We're building up for Tongariro crossing, when he's ready.

Pre birthday birthday party

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:53:00 +0000

I didn't feel like doing anything large this year for Kien's birthday party. It's just too hard at this time of the year. I asked him what he wanted to do, and he was really keen for a room escape challenge. So last Sunday that's that we did with a small group of his close friends. They truly are such an eclectic mix, which makes it very interesting when they get together.

We had to split the group into 2 teams to go to 2 separate rooms. Kien was in a room called "The Bach" and the other group went to "The Shed". They had an hour to solve clues to open locks and get out. I was locked in with Kien's group, and they were so excited throughout the whole thing. We managed to get out, but with lots of help from the game master, and with extra time as well.

All round we had a great day. Kien and his friends enjoyed it - that's the main goal. Tick, another parental obligation fulfilled.

La Boca, Recoleta and Argentinian parrillero in Palermo

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 12:49:00 +0000

Yesterday was pretty much a write-off as it rained and rained all day. We stayed inside and slept until 1pm local time. When we finally left the apartment it was for food, booze and berries. I tried some empanadas from another store - good to try the various versions around.

For dinner I specifically wanted to have Argentinian BBQ. Jef found a local one a few blocks away. By day we would have totally missed it. But when we arrived last night they opened the gate and we stepped into this cool joint; wonderfully smokey and humming with people drinking Malbec and eating meat - lots of meat.

Today the sun was beaming down in Buenos Aires, and perfect for us to go sightseeing. Thank goodness for Uber - it makes getting around a whole lot easier when there is a language barrier. Our first stop - La Boca, famous for its colourful houses and pedestrian street, the Caminito, where tango artists perform and tango-related memorabilia is sold.

Theese photos are of the side streets away from the main area, Caminito. We intended to have lunch here and perhaps watch some tango dancers on the streets. However, with the hoards of tourists, and hawkers with leaflets for their restaurants to pursuade you in, and no sign of any tango dancers "in the wild" (they danced in a small area of a restaurant and only for patrons of that particular restaurant), and dog poo all over the sidewalks - we decided to grab our Uber out of there.

Next stop - Recoleta Cemetery. But first, lunch.

Yeah, we couldn't finish it. Didn't realise how much meat they were going to give us!

Off to see some ornate mausoleums at Recoleta Cemetery. In the heart of the richest area of Argentina, these families much have some big bucks to be here.

The most famous of tombs here, of course, is this one, belonging to Eva Peron.

We walked through some markets before walking back to the apartment, stopping at a nearby park to eat some strawberries. Kien has been in berry heaven here.

We flew away

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 09:42:00 +0000

Wow its been a busy weeek. With hardly any sleep I don't know whether its just jetlag or catching up, but oh my, I'm so tired. We flew away on Wednesday to the other side of the world, and we were fortunate to be able to do so with beds, making the journey a lot easier. We slept pretty much the whole flight - well, Jef and I did. Kien said he eventually decided to sleep, but he had no idea what time that was.

After waking up in the afternoon on Thursday we decided to explore the neighbourhood and see what was around. Have to get some cheese from here tomorrow/today.

Had some street food from this place. He had a bbq going and it smelt devine. He made us some steak and egg sandwiches (some sort of meat, not too sure what).

Kien was facinated with the trees with spikes. He took these pics to show me.

We walked around the beautifully manicured rose gardens with the wind blowing and the threat of rain looming.

Our week in Buenos Aires is off to a good start.

Great Barrier Island during July school holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 05:24:00 +0000

Yes, it has taken so long for me to get around to posting some pictures from the last school holidays. We were invited to join our friend, Nova, and her son, one of Kien's best friend, to stay with them at their property over on Great Barrier.

One little plane ride and we were there. One short car ride, one river crossing, and one hill climb to get to her property on the cliff.

From the house we could walk straight down to the rocky beach below.

Then (when the tide was right) we were able to walk around to the other bay.

And someone else likes to be carried too when they've had enough of walking.

End of term 2 already

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 21:48:00 +0000

Wow, half a year down, and the end of term 2 for Kien. He's had quite a good term, and came home with a couple of certificates in the last few weeks.

I've also established a way to make sure Kien does his own keyboard practice and I don't nag him. We write up a contract together and negotiate how many points the practice is worth. Then it's up to him to hold up his end of the contract if we wants those points. It's been working very well.

Last weekend we were out and about and decided to stop in at the Auckland Domain for a bit. Always a good time here.

Bike ride around the city

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 07:06:00 +0000

The other weekend we went for a bike ride around the city. It was great that most of the route was on bike tracks, and I'm looking forward to the future when we'll be able to ride everywhere in Auckland without fearing for our lives with getting hit by cars on the road. The bike track at Spaghetti Junction is smooth and nice to ride on.

There are a number of forks on the track and we took the one the leads to Quay St and back through North Wharf.

The light was so great when we got to the bridge. We stopped for Kien to have a runaround.

Then we rode home via Victoria Park for a climb and a dangle.

Kien plays Skip to My Lou

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 02:52:00 +0000

This year I got Kien a new keyboard teacher who comes to the house every week for 30 minutes. Its been so great! Kien has made tremendous progress with his reading of both the base and treble clef. I've only ever learnt on the treble clef, so its been a learning curve for me too.

He's just finished learning this piece. He insists on memorising his music, which the teacher says he doesn't have to do, but Kien thinks its a lot easier to play if he can commit it to memory.

Visiting the museum

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 02:48:00 +0000

I swapped my day off to be Wednesday last week due to the teachers strike. Kien had his buddy over for the day and I took them to the museum. We had stopped to grab some sushi so we could have a no fuss picnic lunch.

Kien loves to climb. He'll climb anything and everything that looks climbable, and dangle or jump off.

We spent at least a couple of hours here. We explored all our favourite exhibitions, especially WWI and WWII areas. The boys pretended they were fighters, intercepting enemy intel and calling in reinforcements. They ran around and verbalised everything that was going on in their brains.

Always a good time at the War Memorial Museum, especially with boys who love it as much as I do.

Weekend in the bush and at the beach

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Mon, 27 May 2019 09:22:00 +0000

What a fantastic weekend just gone. We went up to Mangawhai and friends came and hung around with us.

We drove up late Saturday morning and arrived in the village around 1pm. We try to get here before the butchers close so we can pickup the most delicious meat for the BBQ. Unfortunately they are so popular that they ran out of Jef's favourite, chump chops. We picked up some pork and fennel sausages and some peri peri hot wings instead. Went to our local beach on Saturday afternoon.

In the late afternoon our friends were at our property so we made our way back there. Now, Manon, a.k.a. waldokiwi, can take some seriously good photographs. Thankfully she is more than happy to share, and she puts me to shame with how keen she is with her art. These photos all came off here camera, and without these, I'd have nothing to show for this weekend.

No words required - the photos says it all.

Out of office

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Sun, 26 May 2019 19:42:00 +0000

My day out of office last week was spent sitting behind a Captain and a First Officer. I flew 2 sectors with 2 different sets of crew to Wellington and back. I was there to support a digital product trial of a piece of software on the iPad.

Pre-flight checks in progress.

Taxi-ing out from the gates.

Coming into Wellington.

Coming into Auckland.

It's nice to get out of the office once in a while.

Shanghai

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Sun, 26 May 2019 07:24:00 +0000

We were in Shanghai for a couple of days before we caught the cruise. We stayed in a hotel that was away from the touristy Bund area, but close enough that we could walk there, but also have interesting stuff to see around us.

We dined at some awesome local places where we had no idea what we was on the menu and no one spoke a spec of english. We would point at other diner's food that we liked the look of and hoped for the best.

We were walking around and saw a couple of guys wrangling snakes from a rice sack into cages that were already full of snakes. Some of those snakes seemed pretty angry too.

On the afternoon of our first day we walked to The Bund area. Any postcard of Shanghai will show this city scape.

No sooner had we arrived and it was time for us to set off again.

We enjoyed this city very much, and when we get a chance we'll come back here for a visit.

When cruising

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Fri, 24 May 2019 21:06:00 +0000

This last ship that we were on had a lot of interesting features and things to keep everyone entertained. One of our favourite places served up these:

Made by these:

The robots did an awesome job, but pity whoever loaded up the mixers used pineapple juice instead of orange juice, and diet coke instead of regular.

Usually when we are cruising we tend to rock up to the buffet whenever its open at whatever time to have whatever meal. But since this ship was so busy at the set dining times there were always long queues. So we ended up going to the restaurants instead. We were very lucky to get great tables with windows - I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Jef and Kien's colouring and the shape of their eyes - I'm not kidding.

We had a lovely waiter one evening who showed Kien how to balance cutlery on a toothpick.

The cruise director and team print out a daily activities schedule to leave in everyone's stateroom every day. We try to attend activities that look like fun and we would all enjoy. We did some origami for one activity.

Kien entered a Jenga competition and was crowned the Jenga King - he was the only kid left in the competition and ran out of time, so there were (I think) 4 winners.

We enjoyed spending time in this place aft of ship. They held lots of activities and shows here. There's a cafe adjoining where we'd get breakfast and lunch.

Kien would hang out in one of the egg seats and play with his Pokemon cards or iPod.

Sometimes he'd pose for pictures with random aunties. Actually, this happened quite a lot. The Asians love Kien. They'd whisper and point and smile at him, and a lot of times they'd take pictures of him, and with him.

They'd invite him to join in on their games when he's hovering around watching.

One thing I signed Kien up for was to have a go at the trapeze. This little guy is scared of heights, but he agreed to do it. They strapped him and he climbed up there.

He froze up when he got to the top and couldn't go through with it, but we told him how proud we were of him for even attempting to do it even though he was afraid. That's ultimately what its about - pushing through and trying instead of not giving it a go at all.

Okinawa

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Thu, 16 May 2019 08:02:00 +0000

On day 3 of our 5 day cruise we got to Okinawa really early in the morning.

I was somewhat surprised being here in Okinawa. I guess I didn't know what to expect since one of the main reasons I wanted to visit here was because of Mr Miyagi, the karate master from The Karate Kid in 1984, who described this ancient mystical island. I was sold, and Okinawa was on my to-do list. Well, it certainly wasn't what I expected; being dropped off by the bus smack in the middle of tourist central, we could have been in the middle of Hawaii. So we went off the beaten track and found some ancient ruins along the way.

The stone gates of Sogenji Temple wasn't far to walk to. It was nice to sit in the shade of the impressive Banyan tree that smothers the steps that once led to the temple.

We also wandered around in search of a local FamilyMart. These are like 7-Eleven stores, which we also see around, as well as Lawson stores. But Jef's favourite is FamilyMart.

After we had a break and some sake at a little park we found near the FamilyMart, we walked through an overgrown access way and found a tomb.

We then walked to a playground where there were some more ancient ruins. I've tried googling where this is but I can't seem to find the name of it.

Weekending

noreply@blogger.com (Lien - all new adventures) — Mon, 13 May 2019 09:10:00 +0000

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a lovely day. The boy that gave me Mother's Day gifted me these creations.

The card was made at after school care. He told me he made rock heart by rubbing it on concrete to create the shape. So fabulous! I love it.

Play date in the sky

On Saturday afternoon Kien went up to the Skytower will his friend, Arlene, and her parents. How lucky he is to have such a cool play date. Thanks, Manon, a.k.a. waldokiwi, for taking these awesome pics.

Te Arai beach

The previous weekend the weather forecast looked so good, and I really wanted to head north as a result. Jef had a number of things to work on, and Kien needed to get back early Sunday for a long overdue play date with 2 of his best buddies from school. So we took both cars and zoomed up to Mangawhai.

On Saturday afternoon I took Kien to our local beach while Jef worked on the tractor. Initially Kien could not understand why I brought his wetsuit, let alone make him get into it. I told him I know him well and left it at that. We got onto the sand and he played around for a bit.

Then, of course, he just couldn't help himself. It went from testing the water, then jumping waves. He spent ages building a pool and testing whether he could build a barrier so the water couldn't get in - just like we did at Hot Water Beach.

I regretted not bringing my wetsuit as well!