Summer

We were finally blessed with some real summer days, a month after the official start of the season. What fun it was to take advantage of some of the great outdoor activities in Wanaka.

Above are photos from our family hike up above Diamond Lake. Dan and I were very impressed with Ben's effort, a child who normally doesn't like walking at all. The boys traded off riding in the buggy for the first part, but Ben really rose to the challenge when we had him climbing up 153 steep steps to reach the look out point. There was definitely some whining, but all in all we were impressed and are very excited to think about future family hikes.

The photo above is the boys in the inflatable boat cruising around by Fisherman's Beach. Our house was so hot that we retreated to the lake for a picnic dinner.

Chickyboom, The Rocking Rolling Roost

The package lady arrived today, to the screaming delight of my children. Inside the box from Grampa was a new game called Chickboom. Ben and I tested out our skills while Josh was sleeping. (Earlier Josh was using the game as a runway for his airplane and pretending it was a make the tower crash over game, instead of a game of balance). Looks like we might be playing this game quite a lot!

Favorite Books of 2009

I love reading and cannot imagine my life without books. So I've added up all the books I've read for the year (40) and made a list of my top picks. Can't wait to see what makes next year's list.

Best Memoir:
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Best Fiction:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Best Nonfiction:
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Best NZ Nonfiction:
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett

Best NZ Fiction:
Containment by Vanda Symon
and Magpie Hall by Rachael King

Best Historical Fiction:
Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky

Happy Birthday Josh

Celebrating Josh's 2nd birthday. It was a simple family day, with all the necessary ingredients: waffles, presents, a nap, fairy bread, pass the parcel and of course, birthday cake.

Kiwi Christmas

We decided to embrace the Kiwi spirit this year and do up a typical New Zealand Christmas. First order of business, rent a bach, check. Second, order up some sunshine, check. Third, spend a low key day hanging outside and playing at the beach, check. Fourth, bbq some dinner and drink some local wine, check. I'm not sure we'll ever have another Christmas that low key. We missed our families, but thoroughly enjoyed the relaxed week we had outside of Nelson. I'm starting to think a summer Christmas isn't such a bad idea after all.

Tonight's hidden ingredient

Ben is not known for being the best eater, so I have become very good at hiding ingredients into foods. Smoothies are a big hit in our house, and I am constantly adding different healthy additions.

Tonight's smoothie included: banana, yogurt, berry fruit smoothie mix, fresh strawberries, frozen blueberries, tomato juice and... drum roll please.... steamed broccoli.

A case of the Mondays

After having a delightful month off from most my domestic duties, reality came crashing down this morning in the form of a to do list the length of the piece of paper. It was a genuine treat to have my mother here to help and we certainly took full advantage of her on a daily and hourly basis. Now she's gone and I realized that I alone was going to have to deal with the daily mess, the dinner and entertaining of the children. But, I'm proud to say that not only did I manage to get most of my to do's done, I even managed to get dinner on the table at 4:55 without going to the grocery store. My supermom skills have returned, I might be a bit rusty, but at the end of the day things got done, the house looked okay and there weren't too many meltdowns. We'll see if we manage to put away the 3 loads of laundry I folded today.... that might be asking too much.