Out of office

My day out of office last week was spent sitting behind a Captain and a First Officer. I flew 2 sectors with 2 different sets of crew to Wellington and back. I was there to support a digital product trial of a piece of software on the iPad.


Pre-flight checks in progress.



Taxi-ing out from the gates.



Coming into Wellington.





Coming into Auckland.





It's nice to get out of the office once in a while.

A visit to the Auckland Art Gallery

On Sunday I took Kien to the gallery for the My Art Time with the Sew a Softie party! It was great fun. Kien designed and sewed it together. I did help him out a little bit as it was his first time sewing and he kept unthreading the needle. But otherwise he did a great job.












I had asked him what he was going to make and he said he wanted to design a ferocious monster. Then at the end of the design phase I commented that it was looking a lot like a koala. Yes, it's a koala, he confirmed. He couldn't help it. Hehehehe.





There was another exhibition for designing cardboard houses, and did that one too.



Afterwards we walked home via Myers Park.

Bee School

The first Sunday of every month there is a free natural bee keeping school. We attended the February session a couple weeks ago and it was informative and inspirational. Now that we have the ngahere at Mangawhai we need to learn as much as we can before we embark on this new adventure of having our own hives. Jef and I have been wanting hives for years, but due to so many other priorities in our lives we've not managed it. The more knowledge we gain in this area though will drive us to realise this goal sooner.





Kien was bored in the first half of the session when we were inside the classroom learning theory, but as soon as we stepped outside to open up the hives he was into it.

Kien's birthday party

Last weekend we had Kien's birthday party to celebrate him turning 9 at the end of the year. It's always difficult to juggle a late December birthday (as far as I'm concerned), and everything gets frantic leading up to Christmas. We were very lucky for amazing weather.

Jef took Kien to his cricket match in the morning while I finished off decorating the cake. When they came home Kien was very happy with his cake.



Kien decided once again that he wanted to share his birthday party with one of his best buddies, Naotaka, which is great because then I didn't have to do all the work. This year the piñata was hand crafted by Ayako, and we shared the responsibility with food.





We played classic party games like pass the parcel and treasure hunt. They had water balloon fights and jumped into the spa to warm up again.

















Candles stabbed onto cake by children, then lit by anyone who was keen.









I let Kien do the first cut of the cake since he was really keen for it. He's had lots of experience up at our ngahere in the glades chopping woody weeds down with the machete, so I can trust him with a giant knife...



After everyone devoured the cake (I didn't even get a slice - it must have been good!) Jef strung up the piñata and supervised as they all took turns bashing the thing.











Such a fun afternoon. I feel very fortunate that we are able to provide these experiences for Kien. This will contribute to his childhood memories, and adds to my fulfilment as a parent.

Kien's social calendar

When we were up north the other weekend Kien said that he liked being in Auckland more than Mangawhai. We asked him why that was so. He said it was because he wanted to see his friends. So I promised him we would have the following weekend at home so he (meaning me) could arrange playdates for him. Well, talk about a full social calendar for the weekend just gone. On Saturday he went over to one of his good friend's place early morning until early afternoon. Then I reciprocated with having Hemi at ours. They ended up spending a couple of hours in the pool, and it was dark by the time his mum came to pick him up, and even then the boys didn't want to get out.

On Sunday we had Naotaka, Philemon and Sonny over. Sonny is new to the group - well, new for them all to hang out together at school. Sonny and Kien were in the same team for cricket in their first year. I must admit, having the four boys together for a playdate is much easier than just three. When its three there's always one who is left out at one point or another.

I told Kien in the morning that he needed to come up with some activities they can do. I didn't want them to be playing minecraft all afternoon. So he came up with a schedule. Firstly, they were going to play minecraft for 30 minutes. Then they were going to the playground. Well, they did play minecraft while I went to the supermarket, and then when I got home I sent them out the back to play with nerf guns.

After an hour I feed the ravenous bunch, and then they ran around some more.

Such good fun. They are all plotting another playdate. Boy of boy, the kids' social calendars are busier than ours!