Koala 3

He calls it Koala 3. It now sleeps with Koala's brother. Yes, this is my life. Koalas everywhere.

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.

Koala's brother 2

I'm very proud of Kien for writing this all by himself without my help at all...and I didn't need to sit there and nag him. When he finished he wanted me to do the corrections for him, and then he took my phone and took the photos. Such a change from last year when it was like extracting teeth.

Koala and his brother

First blog post for Kien this year. He's been back at school for a week and a bit. His school started late - 7th February was their first day.

Day one at school. He's now senior school - upstairs in the new building.







Day two at school.

Onetangi on Waitangi Day

We took the ferry early on Waitangi Day to beat the crowds, but that wasn't to be. Boy oh boy were there loads of people doing exactly what we did.



One of Kien's best friend had invited us to spend the day with them, and since they hardly saw each other over the school holidays (outside of School Holiday Programme) they were both keen to hang out.





We took the bus to Onetangi beach and found a nice spot under a pohutukawa tree. It was such a beautiful day. The water was a lovely temperature for swimming and we all (except Jef) went in multiple times throughout the day.









When Kien has someone to play with its just so easy. They entertain each other and we can relax and not worry about them.







Kien, being Kien, loves to climb trees and leap off.

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.

Snippet of our summer holidays

Straight after Christmas we went and stayed at our ngahere for just under a week. It's the longest stretch we've managed to achieve up there so far, and it was fun.







Jef put together our composting area using pellets. This then gives us the ability to use a composting toilet system.











I made this little video for a holidays snaps competition so it makes sense to put it up here as well.