Weekending

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a lovely day. The boy that gave me Mother's Day gifted me these creations.



The card was made at after school care. He told me he made rock heart by rubbing it on concrete to create the shape. So fabulous! I love it.

Play date in the sky

On Saturday afternoon Kien went up to the Skytower will his friend, Arlene, and her parents. How lucky he is to have such a cool play date. Thanks, Manon, a.k.a. waldokiwi, for taking these awesome pics.

Te Arai beach

The previous weekend the weather forecast looked so good, and I really wanted to head north as a result. Jef had a number of things to work on, and Kien needed to get back early Sunday for a long overdue play date with 2 of his best buddies from school. So we took both cars and zoomed up to Mangawhai.

On Saturday afternoon I took Kien to our local beach while Jef worked on the tractor. Initially Kien could not understand why I brought his wetsuit, let alone make him get into it. I told him I know him well and left it at that. We got onto the sand and he played around for a bit.



Then, of course, he just couldn't help himself. It went from testing the water, then jumping waves. He spent ages building a pool and testing whether he could build a barrier so the water couldn't get in - just like we did at Hot Water Beach.



















I regretted not bringing my wetsuit as well!

A few hours in Nagasaki

On day 4 of our cruise we stopped in Nagasaki.





We caught a bus to the Peace Park.







After briefly wandering through the museum we then walked down to the river where we found a tiny little snake.











We stopped at a local convenience store and got a Magnum for Kien, a one cup sake for me, and a can of beer for Jef. Then we found a lovely little spot beside the river for a rest.







We decided to get the bus and head back closer to where our ship was docked so that we didn't have to rush and get the last bus out at 4:30pm. We were then able to freely walk around city. We wandered around Glover Gardens area, a beautiful colonial slope full of old mansions and villas.











We walked through Chinatown - it wasn't intentional.



We went back to the ship before the sun went down and took pictures from our balcony and enjoyed the beautiful view.

Skydiving at sea

This lucky little boy got a chance to fly while we were on our way toward Nagasaki.


By "fly" I mean he got to go into the skydiving simulator tube and get blown about. It was awesome watching him have such a good time.





Here's a little movie clip I made and posted to my youtube channel.

Sea days

We flew in yesterday morning after our short cruise on Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas. This ship is the biggest we've been on, and the busiest, but also the one with the most activities on offer.

Kien got to roller-skate for the first time. That was interesting to watch. All he wanted to do was go fast. He took a number of falls but that didn't phase him.









Whenever we are on a cruise Kien and I go exploring on every deck from forward to aft and back again. Its always fun to run around the ship. On this ship there's just so much to do and places to hang out at.















We did bumper cars and foosball. Such good fun up on deck 15.

Making pet rocks

Kien's school had a carnival in the weekend to celebrate the completion of many years of rebuilding work that went on over there. One of the activities they had organised was a pet rock competition. So a couple of his friends were over here last Tuesday to make their creations.







Glue gun, paints and a few other accessories and their pieces came together nicely.