The weekend with Benjamin's 21st birthday party

Hi,

What a lovely weekend.  The weather was really quite bad - apart from most of Sunday daylight hours when it wasn't too bad.

Friday night was dinner out with work at a Thai place on Cambridge Terrace.  Toby and Mike came along too.  There were about 14 of us.  From there we went to Cafe Eis and I discovered their cafe latte gelato.  Mmmmm.  So good.

Soon it was time for the Improv night at Bats.  We went in a chatted for a while before the session started.  We trundled into the room and had a ball for the next hour or so.  Awesome fun.  Toby absolutely loved it.  And you learn a bit about your colleagues when they call out random things that come into their minds.  Jess's super power would be shooting chocolate from her hands.  Woot!

We walked back in the rain to the car and fell into bed around midnight.  Up fairly early as we had an appointment at the Wellington Chocolate Factory.  The poor weather meant the tramping part of the day was cancelled.

Edible roasted cocoa beans

Bag of raw beans

The chocolate grinders

The chocolate factory was great.  The woman giving us the tour was so enthusiastic.  We got to try a bit too.  Mmmmm.

We left early and headed to Maccas for lunch (they have an all day breakfast now, so the boys think they can lure me there.  Turns out they were right).  Then off to Wellington Beds and we bought a new mattress for our bed.  Toby will get our one.

Over to Miramar to see an Op Shop (but it was closed) and back home.  We watched a movie on Saturday night.  Slightly disturbing.

Next morning Mike got a migraine as he woke.  Bad news as he was supposed to be leading a leadership practical session and he would have been puking through it for sure.  He called in Josh and Josh stepped into Mike's shoes (as did Andrew).  Mike was very grateful and went back to sleep.  I got up for my run and Mike got up too.  Josh came to collect the stuff for the course and headed off.

After my run I got ready for my bike ride.  I met Sreejith at the train station at 1pm and we rode out to Sally's place to collect Celia and James.  From there we rode up Waiwhetu up to Upper Hutt.  Had a great time until Celia misjudged the kerb up to a bike path and came a cropper.  She actually came out of it in not too bad a shape.  Bike also survived.  But we stopped at the next cafe (Subway) and had a hot drink to recover.

We were a team of bikes - according to a wee girl we passed

We rode back home via the motorway and caned it along there.  Sreejith and I peeled off and continued into Wellington.   I winded my way up the hill towards home while Sreejith negotiated more urban chaos to his place in Kilbirnie.

The next thing was starting almost as soon as I had my shower.  Benjamin's 21st celebration.  We went to Bella Italia in Petone and there were 14 of us.  Had such a lovely time.

The deli cabinet

 I had tomato basil and mozzarella salad.  Toby had chicken.  And Mike had some yummy pasta.

We went back to Sally and Andrew's place for dessert and tea.  Mmmm.  The chocolate birthday cake was so good.  And then I tried lemon cake too.  Yum!

Family dessert session

The desert trolley was amazing

My feet with lying socks

Back home via a mad dash to the supermarket to get essential groceries.

And into bed.  Toby didn't sleep well though.  Kept coming into our room to say he wasn't sleeping.

Hope your week ahead is good fun.

Love,
Angela