Time with the boys

With the dad gone and two older kids in school I've had some enjoyable days just hanging out with the younger boys.  Ann Silva (who I met at church on Sunday) came and took us to some amazing sights all day and had a fun picnic lunch along the river bank.  Some places she took us to was Arapuni Swin Bridge.  It was so beautiful and we will for sure be taking the entire family back soon.

After that we took a short hike around Mnt Maungarautari.  Just enough to see what it was like in there so we could again bring the entire family back.  There are so many trails that we could have spend hours in that place.  It was amazing and so beautiful.  At the base of the mountain it was completely fenced off with a double gated door you have to enter.  They do this to keep out rats and other animals that might harm the birds and other animals and vegitation they are wanting to preserve.  Well done I say!

Other days in the week we spent going to the park, the library and relaxing reading our books.

The weather is so nice with it being summer here that we have been eating our dinners outside.  So why not have picnics for lunch?

 Then to finish off the week the kids had a "Sausage Sizzle/Pool Party" at their school at night.  Not keen on the sausage thing just yet we got take away for ourselves.  It was open to the community but it was mostly school kids and parents and all the teachers.  It was fun to see teachers racing kids and everyone socializing and having a good time.

Now it's Friday and we are looking forward to the weekend and more fun.  Maybe the beach.  Who knows?  Oh and yes, I did keep track of the week and Cordell was picked up on Thursday!

So confused?

What day is it today?  Three day weekends are so nice but is it just me or does it throw off your entire week?  Monday is like another Saturday so what does that make Tuesday?  It's not Sunday cuz we didn't have church twice.  So that would make it Monday starting the week new but then we are ahead of the week by a day.  Darn, I'm so confused.   I don't have the convenience of a iphone or fancy techy device hooked to my side to keep me updated with the world. 

Cordell had to go out of town this week and all I can think is "crap, don't forget to pick him up from the airport on Thursday.  Better yet, don't forget to remember what day is Thursday."  I taped a small piece of paper on the fridge with this on it "Thursday, 7:40" but then today I realized it means nothing if I don't know what day the current day even is.  Wow, my life is so laxed I'm not even keeping track of what day it is.  Is that nice or what?

So in an attempt to organize my days (yep, that's how simple it's gotten around here, keeping track of what day it is) I decided I need a calendar to hang up.  Hmmm, how am I going achieve that?  At home I'd have one.  No, I'd have a phone that would have it for me.  As a backup I'd print out a cute fancy one I'd found on some over achieving mom blog somewhere that I would soon add to my favorites bar.  I'd use one of my adorable bottle cap super strength magnets that can hold up a small child (I've been very tempted to try as a means of a time out location) to hold the fresh personalized and printed calendar.  But oh the days of home offices and home printers are long gone.  Not so much here!

Remember back in the day of say 5th grade when you needed a calendar or a picture of a country for the cover of the book report you'd been working on for days.  You had to free hand it on a piece of paper with rulers or any straight object if you couldn't find a ruler that hadn't been ruined by a marker, tracing over pictures out of a book, or use an overhead projector and dark room to draw what later could only look like Einstein's profile, hair and all.  Yep, that was me today trying to get a simple calendar made simply so that I wouldn't forget to pick up my husband at the airport in 2 days.

How I take for granted a printer and plain paper.  And without a copier looks like I'll be going through this ordeal two more times.  Oooh but I can trace Febs calendar to make it much easier.  But let it be known, brochures make for a good ruler. 

Agrodome, Voltage and Hot Pools

Hmmm what to do, what to do?  Our first Saturday in NZ and what is there to do?  PLENTY I tell you!  We have a long list to tackle while we are here so let's get to it.

We spent the entire day in Rotorua.  A beautiful city known for its thrilling activities, natural attractions, entertainment, shopping and dining.  We started at the Agrodome which would make any 4H member envy to no end.   This famous attraction features live sheep shearing, 19 breeds of champion rams, cow milking, lamb feeding, dog demonstrations as well as a full New Zealand dog trial.  Let me tell you what, they sure do give you the full experience.  Just take a look.

Walker chosen to go on stage to milk a cow.

Proud certificate for milking the above mentioned cow.

Abby chosen to go on stage to participate in a contest.  See who can feed a baby sheep the fastest.

Her reward for winning was all the wool from the sheep that was sheared earlier in the show.  Lucky us. :/

Who knew there were so many different breeds of sheep?

Next we drove to Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park.  This was a glorified petting zoo.  It had lion cubs to pet.  Although my hyper kids couldn't stand quiet long enough to be in the cage to wait their turn that we needed to leave.  The zoo keeper worried they would get the resting cubs riled up.  Fair enough.  Didn't want any kid to lose a hand at my child's expense.  So we walked on our merry way and found some other fun animals like deer, pigs, birds, wallabies, eels, alpacas, donkeys, goats and then the mother of all mothers, the lion den.  They had 6 lions (5 female and 1 male, can we say sister wives?) in the cage.  All though this one was surrounded with fencing and signs that said "warning, electric fence".  Oh great.  Maybe this will be the time my boys learn their lesson not to touch everything they see, everywhere we go!  Is it just my boys or is it all boys that are told "don't touch that, put that down, don't touch it, PLEASE!" constantly? 

So this is how we had to draw the picture in their head so that they would hopefully listen to us for real this time. 

"Hey kids, remember that scene from Jurassic park where the boy is climbing the fence and all of the sudden the fence turns on and ZAP he goes flying off and gets hurt real bad?" 

"Ya' mom, we get it." 

"Do you really?  Because this is serious and we don't want you guys getting hurt."

"So are you saying it's like that part in the Muppets movie when he gets shocked and gets burned up?" said younger kid

"I guess so, but do you all understand what we are saying?"

"Wooooooaaaaaaaa"

And wouldn't you guess, not even 23 seconds later guess who's hand is right up there ready in slow motion touching...the...fence! 

"N-N-N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O"

Stupid me.  Why would they put the electric part of the fence on the outside of the lion's den?  It was on the inside of the double fenced area.  But still, he should have listened.  Now the lesson of "don't touch" was void again!  Darn you false warning signs!


To rest from that dramatic experience we drove a little ways off to the Polynesian Spa.  Hot mineral bathing pools that smell a little less than desirable but feel oh so good.  We swam in freshwater pools that were filled with alkaline mineral water leaving our skin "soft and supple".  It was a great way to end our long fun filled day. 

 Can't wait to see what adventure next weekend has in store for us.  Lets just hope it does not involve high voltage of any kind.