Jayden logged on to GO Storymakers today, which is a site for gifted children (and others) who love writing or telling stories. The site gives you a prompt to spark inspiration. Caitie wanted to join in. The prompt today was a ruin of an old abbey in England. This is what Caitie wrote:

If I was standing at that church I would see the sea. I would hear boats along the water. I would hear the woosh as the waves go past and the birds whistling. I would see the boats making the waves. I would smell the seasalt of the sea. I would feel the hard land.

How awesome is that for a six year old? :)

We drove up to Paihia on Saturday afternoon, stopping off on the way to drop off Callum's birthday present. We arrived in time to settle in our room (pretty plain but clean and tidy), then head out to find dinner. We ended up eating at this little Italian restaurant. It was quite casual, but nice. It felt like we were on holiday. :)
The beds weren't the best we've ever slept in, but like I said, the cabin was clean and tidy. We headed off to the 'meeting place' and got our tickets for the ferry. The kids loved the ferry ride.



Then we ate a quick breakfast in Russell before boarding the R Tucker Thompson. The captain was quite amusing in a Don't-touch-my-boat-ye-dirty-land-lubbers kind of way. All the crew were nice though and they were so good with the kids. Before we kind of knew what was happening, the kids were out on the rigging up at the front of the boat. Everyone was quite impressed with Caitie's bravery as she was easily the youngest on board, but of course this was typical Caitie. She and Jayden thought it was so neat.









And then, and then....!!! Dolphins!! We saw dolphins! They almost went right under the kids' feet! The captain said they see dolphins on about 20% (or was it 25%?) of trips, so we were so pleased we got to see them. Exciting!
The kids got to take a turn at steering the boat. They thought that was pretty exciting.









Jayden got to climb the rigging which he did really well.









The weather was overcast, but it held off for most of the day.
Caitie disappeared at one point, and then we discovered she was down in the galley helping the cook prepare lunch. Ha ha, typical Caitie!





Before lunch we stopped off at a wee island and went ashore in a little boat. The kids and Steve had a swim and I sat on the beach taking photos.





I noticed some little bumblebees visiting the flowers near me, and took quite a few of them. lol Can't take a photographer anywhere!



Back on board, the kids were keen to jump off the rope on the side of the ship into the water. Steve went first so he could catch them. Then Jayden. Then Caitie. Unfortunately when Caitie jumped in, she accidentally kicked Steve between the legs, and poor Steve was pretty much incapacitated for the next quarter hour, so no more jumping off for the kids!







Lunch was nice, then it started raining. Jayden and I went downstairs, where Jayden helped do the dishes (why doesn't he do that at home?!), while Steve and Caitie stayed up on deck (in the rain) and helped bring in the ropes and sails and whatever as we motored back to Russell.
Caitie decided she was determined to climb the rigging. Steve's not so great with heights, so he wasn't keen to take her up, and I couldn't do it with my sore back. Thankfully Kylie agreed to take her up.
Caitie went sooooooooooooo high up!! She was so brave. There was a man a bit higher above, and the other adults were teasing him that they were sending a 6 year old up to rescue him. Caitie thought that was very amusing. :)





All in all, the rain didn't dampen any spirits, and our trip on the R Tucker Thompson was all we had hoped for. I had two excited kids who were bubbling over with stories, a relaxed husband who felt like he'd had a holiday (even though it was just a regular weekend, not a long one!) and me with lots of photos (even if Steve took most of them except the bumblebees). A happy family. Awesome day.

It SNOWED today. In Auckland. Yes, SNOW in AUCKLAND! How crazy is that?!! We heard that it was predicted, then it happened. I snapped a wee picture out of my office window.



I know, it doesn't even look like it's raining in that photo, let alone snowing. But it was snowing when I took that photo dammit!! :)

The papers are saying that this is the first snow in Auckland in 72 years. How awesome that I saw it! Andrea was working in Grafton and she saw it too. And Jayden tells me that it fell on the school playground. Ha ha! Snow, in Auckland. I'm still gobsmacked. Never thought I'd see it. It didn't settle on the ground, the ground was too warm and it melted as soon as it landed. But it snowed...in Auckland.

For his homework, Jayden had to come up with words containing silent letters.

Elle: What’s your k word?
Jay: Knock
Elle: What’s your g word?
Jay: Gnash
Elle: What’s your w word?
Jay: Wrapped
Elle: What’s your h word?
Jay: Whale
Elle: What’s your b word?
Steve: He doesn’t have a b word. Can you think of one?
Elle: Numb. What’s your l word?
Steve: He needs an l word too.
Elle: Palm
Steve: Now he needs to write a story using the words knock, gnash, wrapped, whale, numb and palm.
Elle: Crap! Couldn’t we do a story about a knight with phlegm and honour instead?!

Caitie had her jazz dance competition today. Aunty Andrea came and watched with Eileen. Caitie watched her teacher a bit, cos she hadn't 100% memorised the moves, but she got a highly commended and we were very proud of her.





Doing her routine


The finish!


Receiving a wee gift from her teacher


Receiving her certificate from a judge

Hi all,
LOTS of the kiddies have been telling me how tired they are. Please try to give them a couple of early nights so they can make it through the day without asking if we can play sleeping lions!
Ciao for now!
Emma

Awwww.........!

'JDs passed his Te Reo Maori assessment with excellence today and he will be in an extension group for the rest of the year. His pronunciation is absolutely outstanding! He really enjoys it and seems very proud of his ability and achievements :)'

Ka pai, Jayden!

So. Today is the royal wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton. It is ALL over the media - newspapers, television (the vast majority of channels), radio and definitely the internet. You can't go anywhere without it being thrown in your face. Some people are genuinely excited, lots of women are keen to see 'the dress' and even more people are sick to death of hearing about it. I'm somewhere between the last two...

Except....

I was thinking about it, and realised that as family historian, this was an historic occassion that should be....recorded? I mean, obviously it will be recorded, but recorded as to it's relevance to our family history - what it was like to be around on this particular day in history, that sort of thing. Poppa Pete was at King George's funeral and Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. I know where I was when I found out that Barrack Obama would be the first black American President... You know, not the real relevance to our lives, but our point of view of this moment in history, for the generations that come.
But other than keeping a few newspaper snippets or whatever, what was I going to do? But wait....! Lynda is in London! So I asked her if she was going to head out and take photos and she said no, but when I observed that she was the only family member over there on this historic occassion, she decided that she would. She asked me to make her a list of photos she could take. After all, she's unlikely to get any photos of Prince William or any other member of the royal family. There will be tens of thousands of people there. But I was thinking about the photos we've got of the Queen's coronation. We have a photo of Mum dressed up (she was a young girl at the time), a photo of Dad and Aunty Sally dressed up (they were equally young) and a photo Poppa Pete took of the street decorations. So we don't need much. So I had a think about it and came up with this fun 'treasure hunt' list of photos for her:

- Someone crying
- A child dressed up special (bonus points if you get a little girl holding a bouquet of flowers!)
- Someone in a huge hat
- The planes flying overhead (see the timing list below!)
- The abbey, decorated or surrounded by people
- Buckingham Palace, decorated or surrounded by people
- I doubt you’ll be able to get anyone famous or the couple on the balcony, but you can try!
- Someone in royal uniform (eg a guard or footman, the official band, etc)
- Someone drinking champagne or eating wedding cake (they’re selling both at little stalls around London)
- Street decorations (eg banners, ribbons or flowers)
- Yourself, with a background that makes it obvious that you were there on that particular day
- A stupid sign like ‘We love you William!’ or something equally ridiculous that some stupid member of the public has made
- People watching the big screens

To which a guy at work added 'Photos of all the memorabilia for sale' and Steve added 'Photos of the family crests', 'A photo including the union jack' and 'Bonus points for a photo of a man crying.' Ha ha!

So it will be very interesting to see what she comes back with. I'm not a royalist, but I am a historian. And this, my friends, is an historic occassion, like it or not. :)