The weekend in Palmerston North

Hi,

What a great weekend - can I have more like that, please?  Friday I worked from home and it was hectic.  But I did drive the boys to Weta Workshop for their tour while I worked in the car.  Hahahah.  Fun times.  They enjoyed it a lot.

Trolls!

Making lasagne

Lasagne

Eating lasagne

Up fairly early Saturday morning and I went out to archery with Ange.  I tried my new bow out.  It was great!  Started at 10m and everything just worked.  So we pushed out to 20-25m and I had no bother at all.  I still need to refine a few things.  But, basically, it just worked!  I am very happy.

Back home to pack for the weekend away in Palmerston North.  A casual lunch and reading in the sun before heading off around 2pm.  Nice drive up and I got there around 4pm.  Settled in and read stuff about Japan.  After settling a few things with Iona and Col we then went out for tea.  Walked into town (it took around 20 mins) and ate lovely Indian food from a place called "Arranged Marriage".  Great name!

I tried to fix Iona and Col's PC before bed.  Little do they know my brain doesn't engage much after 6pm.  Anyway - I can't see why it doesn't work.  I'll need to do some research to help them further.

I slept well and woke early but tried to stay in bed.  Hahahah.  Eventually I got up and ate toast I found in the toaster and had a shower.  We left for our bike ride around 9.30am.

Headed past the back of the airport to Feilding and had an awesome iced coffee at the Focal Point cinema.  Then off past Colyton and back into P.N.

Must read this!

Iced coffee at Focal Point cinema at Feilding - a very good one!

Iona and Col - and the expanse of Manawatu countryside

Bike computer finally working

I ate some lunch with Iona and Col and then headed back home.  Great weekend!  I stopped off at Sally and Andrew's house and had a cup of tea and Mike turned up to drop off the MRG (Mighty Red Galant) - he has borrowed it for a day tramp on Sunday because I had the car for transporting my bike.

Back home to iron and have tea and off to bed.  Mike went to collect Josh and the boys from the airport and discuss leadership course stuff with him.  Toby and I went to bed.

I need more sleep.  I need to sort that out.

But what an incredible weekend.  Thank you.

Love,
Angela

The weekend back in Wellington

Hi,

After a week down south with Mum (blog post coming soon), I had a great weekend in Wellington.  Mum and I got back into Wellington at around 5.30pm on Friday.  We had to go directly to a car wash, as the car was covered in salt spray and dust.  After that fun, I popped in to drop off a bottle of wine for Aidan from Wairau River winery.  I gave her a huge fright apparently, merely knocking on her door.  Turns out I am the first person to visit her without saying I was coming.  Oops.

Mike and Toby looked happy to see me after my week away.  They didn't seem too worse for my absence.

Off to bed early after my long driving holiday - and up early for the Dragon boating fun race day.  What a great day!  Sunny.  No wind.  Mike dropped me off and I found our tent and we settled in to our first two races (10 and 10.40am).  A bit of a break before another race.  Then we were in a combined womens team with MPI.  Had fun in that race.  Then a break before another race.  Aidan turned up for that one.  Woot!  She got some photos.

Then we had a break for lunch.  Aidan and I enjoyed a sausage sizzle and a chat under the trees.  Then off to the next race.  Mum and Mike turned up for the last one up to the fountain and back.  Oooo - that was hard work.

I also copped sunburn on my shoulders where my sunscreen didn't quite cover it.  Ouch!

Back home for a yummy bbq.  Mmmmm.

Mike cooks a mean bbq

I'm eyeing up the cheese from my vantage point

We watched a movie with Toby downstairs.  Real Steel.  I quite enjoyed it - almost as much as the first time.

Brunch with Ange

Off to bed and up early (ish) for a run and then off to archery with Ange in the wee green car to tackle the weedy bank and try and make a dent in the look of the place.  Then off to a cafe for brunch.  And back home to iron and do grocery shopping.  Mike and Toby went to see Zoolander 2.

Back home and then off for dinner at Boulcott St Bistro with Mum, Aidan and Christine.  It was so nice.  Yummy food as usual.  Nice to catch up with Christine and Aidan.

Home and off to bed.  So busy!

And it's birthday week.  Dad arrives tonight.  Toby is off to school camp on my birthday!  Yep - crazy busy.  More dragon boat training.

And my party on Saturday!  Woot!

Have fun!

Love,
Angela

The weekend with awesome stuff

Hi,

Mike surprised me by taking me out for dinner on Friday night to Siem Reap.  Yum!  What a way to start the weekend.

I also moved the piano into the lounge so our room now has a bit more space in it.

Up early to take Mike to the airport (and collected Josh on the way) and then the weekend was mine.  I headed home and tidied up a bit before heading out for Christmas shopping in Lower Hutt.  Back home and I couldn't face going into town with the car, so I jumped on the bus.  Did some more shopping and then as I came out of the shop, my bus was right there!  Boom!  Back home.

From there I went out to see Expansion at the Office pub in Newtown.  As I pulled up, Philippa got out of her car.  I offered to drive her home so she had a few drinks.  I caught up with a few of the punters from Mike's trip too.  They all asked after him and Toby.

Home late Saturday and I read for a bit.  Up early for a run and then scooted into work to get something done for Aidan's Christmas present.

I headed to her house for a bagel breakfast and we swapped Christmas presents.  She is off to somewhere to house sit for the Christmas/New Years so I won't see her for another year!  Hahahah.  I had a yummy smoked salmon bagel with capers.  Mmmmm.

I watched Aidan play a violin for a bit.  Lots of fun.  But she does have a long way to go.  If I get a solo performance every month or so, I am guessing I should see progress.

Then we were collected by Ange and went shooting.  Awesome fun!  First time I have shot with Aidan, so that was fun too.  It's usually me watching her.  Which is good too - as I learn by seeing.  But I like doing!

Taking aim!

Ange and I getting ready

Fire at will!

We left after about 1.5 hours of shooting.  I tried Aidan's bow and she doesn't have any sights on hers so my two arrows shot clear over the target and one buried itself in the bank just below the train line!  Yikes.  Apparently I need a different anchor point for bare bow shooting.

From there we stopped off at Caffeind and had lunch.  And Ange and I had iced drinks (chocolate for Ange and coffee for me) and I watched in amazement as Aidan drank a whole latte.  I have never seen her drink coffee before.

Latte

I drove Aidan briefly into town to a music shop and enjoyed the steel string guitars on display.  Oh - I think I'd love one.  She got what she wanted and then I was off home.

Back to the airport to collect Mike, Toby and Mike's mother from the airport and then we were all home in time for dinner.

This morning Mike and I walked into work and we'll walk home later today.  I need to go grocery shopping for Christmas lunch this evening.

Have a wonderful week.  Christmas is coming!

Love,
Angela

The Monday with archery and Vivienne's birthday

Hi,

What a great way to end any day.  I drove out to Lower Hutt with the silver car jammed full of rubbish for Sally and Andrew's skip.  Went to my archery lesson and had a great time.  "Perfection" I think was a word bandied about at one point.  The coach may have been prone to exaggeration, but I really enjoyed myself.  So did Ange.  We're joining the club!

That was our last lesson in our beginners course.  Now we join up and go down as often as we can for practise.

My trusty bow

The scoring

Ange takes aim!

I popped in to Sally and Andrew's place to dump rubbish and got a cup of tea.  It seems ages since we've just enjoyed each other's company.  Something to remedy in the next few months!

Right.  Time for tea.  Jurica (my work tea date) is working from home today, so we're synchronising our tea times.

Have a brilliant day!

Love,
Angela

The weekend with loads on

Hi,

What a busy weekend.  Mike and Toby got back around 1900 on Friday night and they were looking very happy and relaxed after their week in the bush.  Josh and the boys looked good too.  All up, it sounds like a successful adventure.  Good on them!  Mike will no doubt write it up for us to enjoy.

After  they both had a wash, they were allowed near a bed.  Hahah!  We slept in because Ilkse's 4WD Saturday was cancelled due to poor weather so we had no reason to get up early.  Instead we went out to brunch at the Dowse and bought a few things like an electric blanket for Toby's bed and a rubbish bin for our room.  Stuff like that.

Iced chocolate fun at Dowse

Please pose sensibly!

My boys are fun!

My iced coffee

Fingers over the camera as the boys try to "help"

Outside the Dowse

From there we headed home and Mike cooked dinner for us.  Mmmmm.  It was good.  We had an early night really (or I did) as I was getting up early for an archery have a go session with Ange.

Sunday morning from our house

The day was stunning - beautiful view from our house over the misty valley to Mt Kau Kau.  I collected Ange at 7.20am and we drove out to the end of Sally and Andrew's road for our archery session.  I had such fun.  Ange did too.  We want to do the beginner's course now.  We spent two hours shooting at the targets.  We started quite close to the target at about 12 m.  But after our first end (where I actually got arrows in the bulls eye) he said he'd never had such a good class and we moved back to the next mark.  I think we shot the rest from 14 m.

On my first end, the instructor asked me if I had ever done this before.  I said no.  And he said for me to not think about anything and just keep doing what I'm doing.  I was the only one he changed the sights for.  Turns out my dominant eye was giving me gyp - I am left  eyed.  Which doesn't work well for archery.  I kept having to try to remember to close my left eye.  If I was off with my arrows, it was because I was shooting with the wrong eye.  Towards the end the instructor came over and said that he wasn't ignoring me.  He just saw nothing for me to fix right now.  Hahah.

Anyhow, I had a lot of fun.  And I am keen to try it again.

I take aim

Fire away

Ange took me to Caffiend on Jackson St afterwards.  And the iced coffee was pretty good.  More like an iced slushy.  Crushed ice and ice cream.  Good taste.

Another iced coffee at Caffiend with Ange

Back home and I tidied before Celia came to say hi with her two wee girls.  Toby loved it.  I convinced them to stay for pizza and we ate and then Celia left to explore the Wellington war memorial changes.

Chaos in Toby's room with Eva and Charlie

Mike was out at tramping meetings and I got the ironing done.  Then I took him into work to get some stuff done for his trip to Chch today before driving up to Josh's place.  But Mike ran out of time and we pulled the plug on his beer drinking chat with Josh in favour of homework and getting ready for the week ahead.

Weird ironing experience in front of our bedroom mirror

A bit chaotic this morning as Mike got ready for his flight.  I dropped Toby off at the bus stop and rode in from the library.  Got an appointment with him at 5pm today.

Have a wonderful week ahead.  Short week next week for ANZAC Day.  Yay.  Love this time of year with its short weeks.

Love,
Angela

The weekend that was just great

Hi,

So, I rode home on Friday and found Toby all ready for his weekend. He took some money and walked down to the Wadestown shops to buy his Burger Wisconsin burger and came back to eat it.  We watched Rocky II for our Friday night movie  Toby declared it better than the first movie.

Mike was already off and driving up to Taupo for his colleagues who were doing the Oxfam 100km walk challenge.  He was the support crew for them.  It was tough even being the support person let alone the actual walkers.  Crazy people.  But amazing endurance.  Both teams we had an interest in did well, and the third team stuck at it and made it in 32 hours.  Wow!  Just wow!

Meanwhile, Saturday morning Aidan came to collect me and Toby and we went to archery in Trentham.  The rain hosed down as we approached the range but mysteriously it dried up completely for the thirty minutes Aidan shot her arrows.  The boys stayed in the car and I watched quite a few ends.  Aidan was really good.  No arrows flew off anywhere they shouldn't.  The pair of paradise ducks far behind the target (called a butt) were perfectly safe.

Watching Aidan was great fun.  Seeing the effort she had to put into every shot was amazing.  I have no idea how hard it is to draw her bow, but it must be tough.

Aidan showing me how it's done

From there we went to Upper Hutt to find a cafe.  I had been to one before but had no idea where it was apart from it being in the high street.  But as we walked around a corner, it happened to be right there.  We all ate lunch and I got super full.

Good iced coffee in Upper Hutt

Being super full wasn't conducive to going swimming.  But we did so.  H2OXtreme.  I like that place.  Aidan and I got changed and met the boys outside the changing rooms.  It's funny seeing Aidan without glasses.  But she's not as blind as Mike without his, because she could recognise me across the crowded pool when she needed to.

The boys were immediately into the game of "drown the other boy" so Aidan and I left them to it and went on the water slides.  Aidan plucked up courage on the easier slide before trying the blacked out one.  As I went down behind her I heard a lot of screaming.  But as we came out of the bottom of the pool together she tried to tell me that screaming wasn't from her.  Aha.  Sure, sure.  I knew better.  And when the lifeguard said we could go down the slide together, I knew for sure it was her screaming.  We did that quite a few times before Aidan tried the super fast, steep yellow slide.  But after water was forced up our noses due to our poor technique, we went back to the blacked out slide.
The boys also eventually went on the slides.  But they got bored faster than us and I lost them and went on the slides for a bit by myself.  Aidan was enjoying the spa pool.

Time to leave and we all got changed and Aidan dropped us off home.  I went grocery shopping and then cooked tea for them,  They played games and watched the first Rocky movie.  I bought rat bait from the supermarket and laid that in the roof space.  Mainly because the rats have been moving furniture up there over the last few days, waking me up!  Didn't hear them last night!  Yes!!

Next morning Aidan came over for breakfast and we chatted away before heading into Cuba St for the Love Parade.  Aidan met up with some friends and Celia and Serge turned up so I chatted to them.

Aidan and Celia await the start of the parade

Toby noisily whistles the parade people

Watching the parade before we joined on to the end

Celia and her children were right there too

Toby's hair looks so blonde in this photo!

Celia and Serge in the parade

My shadow and Aidan's shadow.  She looks like she's carrying a feather in her teeth!

From there we went to Yum Cha at the Grand Century.  Aidan managed to move the car closer - which was incredible because the traffic was diabolical.  We ate there and then she dropped us off at home.  And as we opened the front door, Mike got home from Taupo.  Yay!

Had dinner and watched television while ironing and slept the sleep of the dead.  What a great weekend.  Such fun.

Have a great short week.  My parents arrive soon.  Can't wait for that!

Love,
Angela