Additions to the family…

My goodness it has been a busy time lately as we near the end of the school year. Rich still finds it all very odd we are talking Christmas and there is no snow about! Luca right throughout winter kept saying he will put more clothes on when winter arrives, he too was expecting plummeting temps and snow at some point 🙂

The days lately have been gorgeous and summer has really begun, though not quite officially. Swimming and boating are back on at school and Rich is back helping with that. The kids have sail boats, dingy’s, paddle boards and canoe/kyaks to use, so incredibly lucky!

Luca was selected along with 3 others from the school to go into the city and meet with an author and illustrator to learn more about these skills. He came home full of renewed enthusiasm for it, and worked hard on some things of his own…

We have booked the Kepler Walk for January . For those of you who don’t know. NZ has 10 Great Walks which we aim to do over the next few years. This is the Kepler:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Track

We need to get our fitness back up again to be able to handle the 4 day “stroll”, so making a concerted effort with the hiking:

and biking….

Lots of food needs to happen after all this exercise. A new place has opened in Port – Futomaki. A fusion of Filipino and Japanese, it is doing wonderfully well, people make the trip from the city just to go. Luca has declared it his all time favorite and it is his first choice in take outs, (of which luckily they offer)….

Pica has been swimming, a lot! She is so, so, so happy 🙂

She comes home exhausted and always heads for Rich’s chair 🙂

We had been wondering why despite lots of rain a few weeks ago our tank was not filling as it should. As this is our sole source of water for everything water related, we needed to investigate, turns out things were a bit blocked from years of neglect. All sorted now, but Rich had quite the time resolving the issues!

Luca and his mates have a pretty idyllic life here in this little village. Of course they all take it for granted now, but I think in time they will look back on these years very nostalgically 🙂

One of the highlights for this term at school was Artist in Residence week. It is an annual event where local artists go into the school and teach for a week, funded by the local Arts Society. The kids love it and learn so much. It ends with a parade through the village and to the school. We on the PTA put on stalls for fundraising and combined with live music it makes for a wonderful day…

Rich has been hard at work completing our chook house and run . Luca has had a hand in it too…

Rich has, as usual outdone himself with this build, it is spectacular, they are such lucky, lucky chickens!!!!!

Here they are! Our first breeding stock of Orpington’s.

Meet: The Girls (names pending!!!!!!)