The weekend with Waitangi Day

Hi,

Well, it was the first Waitangi Day in a while that I didn't actually go to a marae.  I must sort that out for next year as I missed the cultural side of it.

But, it was still a  good weekend.  Mike headed off from work on Friday and we eventually saw him late afternoon on Monday.  His trip to Ruapehu was successful and he finally climbed Ngauruhoe.

Toby and I had a lazy Friday and cooked the last My Food Bag meal for the week.  Yummy lamb - and I remembered to take a photo!

Lamb with mash and green beans!

After some frantic reshuffling of the schedule to accommodate Akash's last minute birthday party, Toby and I had a wee sleep in (unexpected) before I took him to Shed 1 for bubble soccer fun with Akash.  I read in the car outside the Beehive before going to pick him up at 1pm and head off to Palmerston North.

We got caught in a huge traffic snarl and it tool 1.75 hours to get to Waikanae.  After that the traffic cleared though and we got to Iona and Col's house at 4pm.  Three hours is quite a long trip.

We went to take Frida for a walk by a wee creek that was running quite high and fast (according to the locals).  Then back to get ready for dinner and a movie.

We went to Lone Star and enjoyed steak (Toby), ribs (me and Col) and fish (Iona).  From there we went to see Hidden Figures at the movies.  What a wonderful movie - just the sort of thought provoking stuff I like to watch.

Back home and I may have read until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

Next morning Toby stayed with Frida (Toby was sore and Frida has a sore shoulder) and we went to the Manawatu Gorge for a lovely walk.

Walking with Col

Feet on the Manawatu Gorge track

Lovely view of the gorge

After an iced coffee with Col where our table number featured strongly, we went home and I packed Toby into the car and we headed home.

Iced coffee goodness

The drive home was the usual 2 hour trip - yay!  We got Toby ready and I dropped him off for his sleepover with Isaac.

Monday I went to collect Celia and we went to get our shiny telescope from Phil.  Awesome.  Two hours later we were armed with instructions and very keen to get a clear night so we can try it out.

Our new telescope

Toby watched the Superbowl and is now enamoured with it.  Weird kid.  Mike got home and we collected Toby and dropped Akash back home.

And that was our weekend!  Oossshhh!

Toby is off sick from school today though.  I may have broken him after his physical week last week.

Hope you had a lovely time.  I know it was Stephanie's birthday yesterday - I can only hope Geelong had better weather for it than we had here.

Enjoy the short week (for NZ) this week.

Love,
Angela