Easter egg hunt

Easter did not finish for us until after our Easter egg hunt on Tuesday. I arranged for my coffee group and playgroup pals to meet up at Salisbury Park for extended Easter fun. The weather was perfect (and I will never complain of too much sun or it being too hot ever again). We had an impromptu picnic morning tea that everyone kind of threw together their snack boxes into a pile for the kids to share.

Then on to the main event - the hunt. I had brought along enough eggs to kill a small donkey, and we scattered them on the ground and hid them in the shrubbery along the fence line. Then it was 3, 2, 1 and go...

There were a few other kids at the playground besides our group so I got them to join in on the action too. There were plenty of chocolate eggs to go around!

It's lovely to see all the children enjoying themselves.

After the park a few of us went to the Rabbit Hole cafe on Jervois Rd. The kids played in the sandpit while we sat on the porch and had a spot of lunch.

It was my cue to leave when Kien took at bucketful of sand and dumped it inside the cafe all over their floor. I'm guessing it was probably not the first time a kid has done that as they swept it up pretty quickly.

We went to my friend Naadia's place in the afternoon and gave her kids the remainder of the eggs. It's just too dangerous having that much chocolate around in at my place when Kien has taken such a shine to the milky delicacy.

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Linking up with other bloggers sharing their photos this week here.

At the park

We love parks.

Last Tuesday we had absolutely stunning weather, and when this happens I just want to go and have a picnic somewhere. We met the clan in Cornwall park, and Kien got to enjoy his cousin Thomas' company.

They threw sticks and chased birds...

...played with Kien's bike - well, Kien played with Kien's bike, and Thomas only got a turn when Kien wasn't interested (until he saw Thomas being interested and it was all on again).

Surprisingly Thomas didn't mind and was just happy to run after Kien.

A little carefree

Once upon a time we used to go to a fair few gigs. Music is just so much better being seen live, I reckon. So it's just so great when there are free outdoors concerts for the whole family to enjoy - like the bFM summer series we went to last Saturday. It was the first time they held it at Silo Park, and I think it was a perfect venue for it.

I packed us a picnic and got there early afternoon with Kien while Jef finished up some chores at home. I was actually hoping Kien would fall asleep in the buggy during the walk in. We picked a spot to settle in for the afternoon.

By about the 5th line up the place was looking more like a concert stadium (a really nice open-air one) and less like a picnic area.

But when Kien was playing in the surrounding garden area it was like he was somewhere else entirely.

Where is he?

There he is!

He could also be found playing with pebbles.

Or throwing them into the stream.

As we walked home in the late afternoon through Victoria Park there were men in cricket whites out enjoying the sun.

We stayed and watched them play until the game was over (and saw one guy bat 2 balls onto the motorway - luckily we didn't hear any thud and ensuing crash!).

It was a fabulous day and not only a reminder of yesteryear but also what more we have to look forward to now that there is a little more flex as Kien gets older.

Running with sticks

So the weather bomb passed through Auckland yesterday, and today we have beautiful blue and sunny skies. I just had to take advantage of the lovely weather and go out for a walk, and what a better place to spend an hour this morning than a beautiful reserve in Grey Lynn. Kien was keen, and he took off as soon as we got on the path.

He collected sticks along the way.

What for? So he can throw them over the edge, hoping for them to land in the water.

He would find a stick on one side of the path and toss it over the edge on the other side. This game went on for a really long time (there were lots of sticks to be found and tossed!). I had to coax him to keep walking and find us a spot for lunch.

We found a nice little spot under some gum trees. In between bites of quiche he ran around, and climbed the stone steps close by. Look how big they are compared to him!

From the bakery where I got the quiche I also purchased a few little decorated biscuits (because they caught my attention in the display cabinet looking so pretty). Imagine my surprise when Kien ate a whole one, and then asked for another!

The boy likes to run - what more can I say. He ran...

...and ran...

...and ran all the way out of the reserve to the car.

Our jaunt north

It was brief, and it was fun.
It was picturesque, and there was sun.

Do I need to copyright that? For some reason I wanted to write some rhyming poetry, and that's the best I can do right now. Perhaps if I claim Kien said it then you wouldn't be sniggering. But wait, if a two year old is talking in prose then you definitely would not be hearing this news from a blog post.

Right, enough of the chit-chat. You may recall we've been wanting to go north during the holiday period, but with the weather being atrocious plus Kien being contagious with chicken pox we couldn't get away until Thursday last week. Once we were up in Whangarei it really did feel like we were on holiday.

Despite the metservice informing us of cloud with afternoon showers on Friday we headed to the beach anyway.

We ended up at Urquharts Bay just in time for a spot of lunch.

Jef's aunt Megan and uncle Alan also joined us.

Kien amused himself for a bit with his bucket and spade; dug a hole, covered his feet, admired his handiwork.

We also braved the cool wind for a dip in the sea. The tide was on its way in, and I could feel the captured warm bay water being invaded by the cold ocean.

It was a fabulous day, and a great spot for a picnic - nestled under old pohutukawa trees.

On our drive home we admired Mt Manaia from various angles and distances.

Jef has climbed it, I have yet to.

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Initially we had planned to go to a beach ocean side, but for various reasons we decided it wasn't right for us that day. When we were at Pataua South there was this awesome caravan parked on the side of the road.

It's an Airstream, and man is it cool looking. I want one!

Where did it go?

My week leading up to Christmas has been, I don't know, somewhere between uneventful and significant - not sure which side of the pendulum I'm on, but I know that I'm happy to have two enticing weeks of family time stretching out before me.

I'm in the middle of planning what we are going to be doing. A couple of weeks ago I requested an entire month off work over Xmas/NY period, and when Jef said he was taking 2 weeks off I realised maybe I should have confirmed with him first?!? Even though we live in the same household and keep roughly the same hours we don't seem to catch each other (at the right moment) to plan these things out. I tend to operate around assumptions and intentions, a fact I know about myself and am forever wanting to change. Anyway, I drew up a planner in MS Excel today, and on it are events such as spending Xmas day at Mum's, Boxing day at Dad's, going up to Whangarei to see Jef's Dad and Margaret and spending Kien's birthday up there, NY's day on the farm, back to work 9th Jan (I changed my leave request to match Jef's), 20th or 21st Jan flying to LA....oh, did I not tell anyone I was toying with the idea of going to LA for a couple of weeks? Yeah, it is impulsive - I e-mailed my dear friend in LA last week and asked how she felt about us crashing their pad in January. I'm also intending on asking my aunt if she can put us up for a few days too (hey, Co Ngo, will you have us stay a few days in Jan?). So yeah, I've been busy in my head, but not really too busy externally.

We've also had a bit of a mish-mash on the weather front, and tonight in Auckland was no exception. But I didn't care - I had my heart set on getting a Thai chicken curry and picnicing at the park between Brown St and Richmond Rd. That's exactly what we did.

Under the grey clouds that threatened rain we laid our blanket and enjoyed the meal.

Kien (being Kien, and a toddler) was full of beans. He went on the swing, ran around, ate a few grains of rice, and ran around some more.

He was out on the footpath saying "hi" and waving at people as they walked past.

I really like this park a lot; it is like having an old English garden to frequent whenever we want.

Kien saw a bee flying and tried to follow it. So he ran around looking for the bee, asking "where is the bee?", "where did it go?".

It's a thing he does at the moment. He'll be looking for something, ask "where did it go?" (and giving the same look as in the above pictures), and then he'll shrug and answer himself - "I don't know". It cracks me up every time. I just love his expression.

Adding to the theme of old English charm, as we were walking down the road there was this beautiful gate enveloped with flowers.

Kien likes to smell flowers.

I've been reminiscing over photographs from the last couple of years, and that come the 29th of this month my child will be officially 2 years old. Wow, two years...where did it go?