Life is not measured ....

Ben's Birthday and Mum and Dad arrive

This past week has been packed with good stuff: Sharon’s mum and dad arrived from the UK to spend Christmas and the next month with us, Louise and Daniel have been enjoying an action packed last week of term before the long summer holidays and Ben became another year older.

Mum and dad arrived on Tuesday, the same day as Ben’s birthday. After 48 hours of travelling, mum and dad arrived in Christchurch to huge hugs from us all, we then whisked them in the car across town to watch Louise and Daniel in their last swimming lesson before the holidays (I know, you’d think we’d give them chance to at least get over the jet lag first!!), Anyway , it seemed to work well, Louise and Daniel were both thrilled as they got certificates and move up a level next term and mum and dad managed to keep awake to proudly watch the whole thing. It was then back home and a sunny day allowed us to show off our amazing views across the sea and to the mountains (as I write this, a week later, the wind is howling and a southerly storm is moving over the city …. summer down under … it’s just like the UK!!).

For Ben’s birthday, I’d organised a surfing lesson down at Sumner beach and as it was a private lesson, I asked if Louise and Daniel could join him. So on Saturday afternoon, we went down to the beach, got them kitted up with wetsuits and surfboards and off they went. After two hours, Ben was just about getting up on his feet (for a brief moment – I missed capturing it on camera!). In the meantime, the kids made it all look easy, making it to their feet first time round (amazing what a lower centre of gravity does!). Daniel, in particular loved it and had to be dragged out of the water when time was up, he had all the moves including a couple of spectacular dives. He has been buzzing ever since and the day after was heard to be giving Louise advice about how to balance – you can imagine how well that went down!!

We have been busy since mum and dad arrived, they’ve had plenty of time to see the kids at school – swimming in the outdoor pool, watching Friday morning jump gym, prize giving and today a picnic out at Rapaki, one of the local bays. Prize giving was interesting mainly because the schools here in general are much more laid back and this was a fairly formal evening. There is none of debate here about competition not being a good thing. Probably the highlight for me was hearing the children sing in Maori. In between all the school related activities, we’ve been getting out and about, wandering around Christchurch, taking a trip up the gondola and yesterday driving round to Diamond Harbour for a pub lunch.

Today the kids had their last day at school, that’s it until the 6th February 2007 so I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from us over the next few weeks as we enjoy the holidays.

For now we leave you a pile of photos to be getting on with and we’ll keep adding to these as we go along:
Ben's birthday and surfing
Mum and Dad
Mt Pleasant
School (we've added more into the previous kids section too)

posted by Sharon, Ben, Louise and Daniel @ 8:48 am