Our Fisherman

Today at the kids holiday programme, Youth Town, they went to Waiheke on a fishing trip. The kids were so excited. It was funny, but when I waved them off on the bus this morning I actually had a lump in my throat, they looked so little compared to the other kids. They had a great time, the weather was fantastic after all the crap we have been having this week I was worried. Nicola didn't catch any fish but she had a great time anyway. Daniel caught 2 snapper, 1 had to go back, but the other......... guess what they had for dinner??

Look what I made last night :)

I went to Scrapaholics to look for some chipboard albums, but fell in love with the new "Once Upon a Princess" Cricut Cartridge.

I HAD to make the castle straight away. I wasn't sure how well it would work so I didn't use flash paper. It requires 7 sheets of 12x12 (max size 208mm). I have aleady made modifications to the original, it isn't very stable, so I made another floor in the bottom. Now I need to figure out how to modify it in Design Studio or SCAL cos it needs a few more mods (see the floor going thru the windows over the door?) Nicola thinks it is very cool, but not big enough for even her mini barbies, so guess what I will be doing next?

Sights of Summer...

Day 6 Progress so far on my trellis. Who's idea was this? Oh yeah it was mine. It looks great, but is very time consuming. Day 7. Kids 'helping' paint. Nicola was such a good helper, handing us brushes, getting us drinks, & actually painting, Daniel.....(it was more for the photo, he didn't want to be left out.

Day 8. Nicola reading the Weekend Newspaper by the pool. I was wondering where she had got to & when I found her I asked her what she was doing "I'm reading the paper"....ok.....ask a obvious question....get the obvious answer.....

Day 9 this is what summer is about...kids in the pool with their friends :) Day 10. The L&P truck giving out free drinks at Eastern Beach

Geocaching

Daniel has been nagging us for awhile to get a GPS so he can go Geocaching. They did it at Cubs last term, so now Mum & Dad knew a bit more about what he was talking about. For those of you who do not know Geocaching is basically modern orienteering, however they use a hand held GPS instead of compass (not the type you have in your car, it has co-ordinates, minutes, degrees, altitude, distance to target, distance traveled, etc). So we got him one for Christmas (thanks Craig). Anyway there are Geocach points all over the world, so we found one we thought looked interesting to give a try last Tuesday. It was south of Kawakawa Bay at a beach you could only get to by foot at low tide by climbing around the rocks. I knew Scott would love the drive out there in his new car (RX-8), lots of windy roads. Low tide was at 2pm, so the 4 of us drove out to the end of the road for a picnic lunch, then off we trekked. Getting around the first set of rocks was easy enough. Nicola & I couldn't keep up with the boys, but they waited on the beach for us. The next bit was more tricky. It was getting very hot & sticky so Nicola & I took a break in a shady cave which had a rock pool in it. We spent ages watching the (at least) 13 starfish, they move remarkably fast, & some shrimp (can you see him in the bottom pic?).By this point the boys were miles ahead, we could no longer see them. It took ages to pluck up the courage for Nicola & I to climb the next bit (her legs are short & I was scared) I thought that the next beach was just over that next climb....but no! So we abandoned all hope of catching up with the boys & decided to go back to the beach & wait for them to come back. Of course that was easier said than done. The really tricky bit we had just climbed looked like a shear cliff when it was time to go back down. Nicola was happy enough, but I got major vertigo at the top. I couldn't watch her go down & she kept looking at me for reassurance (I thought I was gonna have to get rescued) I kept having visions of Nicola slipping, luckily there were allot of people fishing near us & some kayaks, but still.....Eventually I just had to have a go & it didn't look so bad when u were down there. So we made it back to the beach & found a set of stairs going up the hill....hmmmm I wonder......but the website says only access around rocks at low tide........So I sat in the shade & Nicola went paddling in the sea while we waited....and waited....Being a typical worry-wort my mind started going full speed at all the things that could have happened to them. It was an hour past low tide, but people were still fishing off the rocks. They had the cell phone, water, GPS & car keys (I had camera) So I was half expecting a Westpac helicopter to come swooping down with them on board any minute, but they came down the stairs behind me (the website obviously hasn't been updated), THANKGOODNESS!!!!! The boys were fine of course, but the ironic thing is the never found the actual cach, they got to the co-ordinates, but couldn't find it :( So off we all went back to the car & Kawakawa Bay for a well deserved ice-cream & drink, then home for a swim.

My Girl.....

Look I made my own bling words!! (using Kaiser Rhinestone strips). The paper is from DCWV Madly in Love paper stack I got from the Warehouse the other day. The frame is co-ordinates card that has been Cricut & then cuttlebugged & sanded. The butterflies are from the Stampin' Up! Embosslits Beautiful Wings (aren't they cute!)Nicola asked me to add the word 'little' to the title because she has grown a lot since then :)

Day 2 & 3

Our Happy (not) Hot (not) boy (2 Jan)Our little fish (3 Jan)

Welcome 2011

We went up to a friends bach for New Years at Snells Beach. They had a black Labrador puppy staying & Nicola got over her fear of dogs so much that now she wants one! They had lots of fun taking him for walks etc. This is a pic taken on Scott new iphone of the 2 kids playing on their own island, hehe. We also saw other frinds of ours that live up there. They took the kids kayaking & sailing. Nicola even said she enjoyed the 'bumpy bits' (waves, as the wind picked up alot.) She was pretty good at kayaking to. Daniel showed us what he learnt at Cubs kayaking the other week. I got burnt :( the first time I can remember ever getting burnt. We ate & drank to much & spent alot of time just lazing around the house :)

I was thinking about doing the 365 scrapping challenge. It is to take a pic a day for a year. See pic number 1 above for yesterday.Just took pic of sunburn for today will upload later ......