Visiting the museum

I swapped my day off to be Wednesday last week due to the teachers strike. Kien had his buddy over for the day and I took them to the museum. We had stopped to grab some sushi so we could have a no fuss picnic lunch.





Kien loves to climb. He'll climb anything and everything that looks climbable, and dangle or jump off.







We spent at least a couple of hours here. We explored all our favourite exhibitions, especially WWI and WWII areas. The boys pretended they were fighters, intercepting enemy intel and calling in reinforcements. They ran around and verbalised everything that was going on in their brains.

















Always a good time at the War Memorial Museum, especially with boys who love it as much as I do.

The War Memorial exhibition, the Winter Gardens and the haircut

The Winter Gardens

We've not been for a while, so on Sunday, after the haircut, Kien and I chose to visit this place first. Always a good time, always beautiful, but never this busy when we've visited! We only walked around half of one of the glasshouses, bumping into people and dodging cellphones and tripods. Kien and I looked at each other, and he said, "Yeah, way too crowded. Lets get out of here."





I know from the pictures it looks empty of people, but that's because its the first strip near the entrance way, and I basically stood in the middle of the isle, blocking the way for the photo op.

The War Memorial

From the Winter Gardens we ran up to the museum, stopping for a rest in a tree.



Truth be told we were actually racing each other, and I would have won but the cunning Kien choose to call a rest break. I told him he was a cheater. The denial was palpable.

There's a fantastic kids exhibition happening at the moment called "Secret World of Butterflies". Kien enjoyed colouring in his digital butterflies and seeing it fly on screen.





Also in the WWII section is this new interactive table where you fly the plane around to collect photo images for HQ intelligence. Kien loved it so much. We went back a couple of times after seeing other exhibitions just to have another go.



One of my most favourite parts of the museum are the stairwells. I used to imagine myself living here and running up and down the stairs in my ball gowns.

The haircut

We went to the Warehouse in Newmarket on the hunt for a new bay blade. Kien wanted to buy one with his own money - from birthdays and Christmas presents that we deposit into his bank account. Afterward we walked up the street on Broadway to a shop called Tip Top Haircut. The hairdresser was eccentric, and we waited for quite a while because the dude just talked and talked. He was so nice, and listened to Kien describe the haircut he wanted. Kien and I had done a google search beforehand and found a "something like this" picture. So we showed the hairdresser.



The hairdresser commented a few times how it was good Kien had his own sense of style. Ha, does he ever! Red and blue Crocs? Why not.



Yeah, Kien was in desperate need of a haircut. Oh, and in the pic above it captured a winged seed Kien had found and was trying to fly it high to catch the wind.

While still on school holidays...

So we are now in the second week of the school holidays, and after coming back from Samoa it has been a tad difficult to settle back in. However I can't really complain, considering I do have Tuesdays off. When its school holidays I get to spend the entire day with Kien, and yesterday he really wanted to go to the Auckland Domain. That's my boy, after my own heart!

Today I decided to take Kien to work with me. He'll go to school holiday programme for the rest of the week but I wanted him to have a different experience, and also I miss him and want to spend more time with him. He was great; so well behaved. I put him out the back in the casual breakout room, which also happens to have lots of toys (to inject more "fun" into the workplace). Perfect for kids!

Back to mum and son day on a Tuesday

Yes, its the school holidays and I got to spend Tuesday with Kien, just like it was before he started school at the beginning of this year. I asked him what he wanted to do, and he excited said he wanted to go to the museum. I never thought I would be so fortunate to have my only child love going to the museum as much as I do!

We checked the weather forecast for the day and the app said it was going to rain on and off all day. Luckily we got to the Auckland domain during a period of no rain, so it was a good time to visit the winter gardens first.





He looks for the big fish, but there are hundreds of little ones here. They swim up to the surface, and they nibble on the small lilypad.





I do like the vibrant colours of fuchsia. When I was Kien's age we had a big shrub in the garden, and I used to pick the flowers and wear them as fresh earrings. I mean, isn't it obvious these are nature's jewellery?







We then went to the museum and oh boy, it was so crazy busy in there. Children were everywhere! Remind me never to come here during the school holidays. We strategically went to areas where kids were not interested in, although that was difficult in itself since there were people everywhere! I took 3 pics as a result.







We stayed extra long and walked around the museum twice. Why? Because I didn't bring an umbrella.

Time does not stand still

Whew, time has just marched right on forward and there has been so much to do and still so much more to do and everything happens all at once and then you try and catch your breath for a bit so you sit down to give yourself some peace and quiet and then you just stay sitting down, you know? Like you give yourself permission not to stress too much and then you end up not doing anything! I feel like I've done that a bit, lately. I guess I knew it was going to be pretty full on in May so I decided to have some calmness before the storm.

So anyway, this is what we've been doing for the last 2 weeks.

I painted my toe nails the other Tuesday morning - something I hardly ever make time to do, and as soon as I got the nail polish out Kien immediately became interested. Immediately. The iPad he earned time to watch that morning was cast aside as he hovered over me, watching and commenting on the colours of my very limited collection. Then he begged me to give him rainbows. So rainbows it was.



That day we also went out for lunch with Rod and Grandma Gun. Afterwards Kien went for a run along Mission Bay (with his plastic saw).



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Then on Thursday it was my friend Naadia's birthday. We went and had lunch up at The Sugar Club in Sky City. If you've seen the recent series of NZ Masterchef then you would have seen one of Peter Gordon's dishes being cooked by the contestants (and I only know this because Naadia told me). So we ordered that as one of our dishes.



Don't be fooled by the photo - the serving was small, but oh boy was it delightful and flavoursome. The Sugar Club only do "small dishes"; the write up says, "Our menu is a selection of small dishes - encouraging you to order, and taste, a wider range of flavours and ingredients than you might otherwise experience at one meal. Three dishes are the equivalent of a starter and main meal." Anyway, Peter Gordon was wandering around when we were up there, as you do when you are a celeb chef and own an award winning restaurant with fabulous views.

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On Saturday Kien went to a birthday party held at Chipmunks.



I asked Kien to smile for one photo so I could send to Jef, and he gave me this:



After the party he really wanted to go to the beach, so we went and hung out at Sentinel for a bit.



That's a pirate ship flag by the way, and here he is digging for treasure.



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On Sunday Kien went to another birthday party held at Rainbows End.



All I can say is that my son has gotten over any fear of going on rides, and the faster and more exhilarating the better. Luckily (or otherwise) he was too small to be doing the big rides, and the party was in the "Kids Kingdom" part of the amusement park so all the rides were suitable for the little people.

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Tuesday was the start of a new term for swimming lessons. Kien was so excited as he really missed not doing lessons for a whole 2 weeks. We were at the pools for ages that morning. Then in the afternoon we went to the museum.





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Yesterday I went to Jef's apartment to take the marketing photos for the sales advertisements. This weekend is the first open home. This photo will soon be in circulation in the NZ Herald, Property Press, on sign boards and posters in our neighbourhood.