Kids update
Louise and Daniel have been busy over the past couple of months. Here are some of their best bits:
Daniel had his first visit from the tooth fairy, lots of wiggling finally yielded a result and he’s now busy helping the second one along!
School is also hectic – final term of the year and the run up to Christmas means that there is plenty going on. A couple of weeks ago the junior classes took a trip to the Canterbury Agricultural Show, there was plenty to interest the kids: a big hit with everyone in our group was the police dog demonstration complete with burglars (dressed in stripes of course) and the ensuing chase and catch; Daniel also enjoyed the tractor races and Louise loved seeing the horses.
Sports still feature highly in our weekly activities, they both swim once a week and we are all looking forward to the opening of the outdoor pool next to the school this coming weekend. Louise is still horse riding and is now also having sailing lessons – last week was capsize practise! Daniel has just finished soccer and is now having tennis lessons.
A few weeks ago, Louise was singing with her class and about 400 other kids at the town hall and this week Daniel’s class put on a mini show in the school hall: last term his class did a science topic about the weather, they then carried this into art this term, making paper mache masks with weather themes (Daniel’s mask depicted lightning) and they are now using them in drama.
This past weekend was the Lyttelton Rose Show at the local church. Louise’s class had made bonnets and animals from vegetables. There were loads of flowers and some impressive looking hand made cakes which were later auctioned off. For a small community, Lyttelton does pretty well.
In between all this, we managed to web cam with friends back at home the weekend. Louise can spend ages speaking to her friends – 7 going on 12! Daniel and Rhys roar at one another!
More kids photos
Stormy waters
If reading our rambling journal usually provides a light hearted accompaniment to a coffee break … this one’s not for you. We have done some interesting stuff since our last update but I’ll put that in my next installment.
The last 15 days have been a pile of crap. From the amazing highs of Mt Cook, the lows have been difficult to bear. We are now coming out the other side, not completely unscathed but back to seeing the positives and able to laugh about the blindingly obvious choices that we made so much hard work of!
So where do we start? How about the following list:
The house we are in is big but grim.
Sharon working up in Auckland two days a week made sense financially but compromised the family.
Sharon drives change, Ben is laid back – normally a good combination but every once in a while causes things to fall apart a bit. Ben and I had a big row or two (even the kids got fed up with us).
Each of the above on their own, no major drama, put together made for a fairly unpleasant week. Combined with the ongoing balance of financial security versus family balance and the question about how long we stay always in the background.
Put another way, we just lost the plot and disappeared into a black hole for a few days.
The decisions are kind of obvious now – Sharon stops working, we find a different place to rent, remember to respect one another as individuals – we just made hard work of it.
Now that we are back on planet normal again, actually we’ve reminded ourselves how lucky we are to even have the choices, we’ve had some amazing experiences this year and have some great friends on both sides of the world. Josie and Gill in the UK, Rosie, Rebecca, Kim, Anne, Lou and Helen – you may never know exactly what you did this week but you saved us from spiraling into oblivion.
We have found another house to rent. It is not in Lyttelton but round the other side of the hill in Mt Pleasant. We love Lyttelton, the constant activity if the port and the quirkiness of the place, but houses (at least the ones for rent) are shoddy. When we moved in here, we compromised on the view and outside space. We are renting for goodness sake, we don’t need to make those compromises. Summer approaches and so we are bailing out and have found a house which can accommodate us and our visitors over the next few months, has views over the estuary and to the mountains in the background, a cottage type garden and balcony. We don’t need to move the kids from school, it’s a short car journey instead of a walk. It feels right so that’s good enough for me. We move in just over a week.
Sharon is now back to enjoying the time with the kids and walking the hills. Ben continues to enjoy his job. Louise and Daniel are happy that normality has been restored.
Daniel had his first visit from the tooth fairy, lots of wiggling finally yielded a result and he’s now busy helping the second one along!
This past weekend was the Lyttelton Rose Show at the local church. Louise’s class had made bonnets and animals from vegetables. There were loads of flowers and some impressive looking hand made cakes which were later auctioned off. For a small community, Lyttelton does pretty well.
