The weekend leading up to Toby's birthday

Hi,

What a cool weekend - we were in Wellington and we bought a new car!  Oosshhh!

Iced coffee at Mojos

After a crazy day at work in an all day planning session, it was good to escape and meet up with Toby after work. He had tea in town and we got some Christmas shopping done.

We caught a bus home and Mike got back from Auckland around 8.30pm.  Fell into bed!

Next day was really rainy.  Toby had a birthday party at William's house to attend - a sleepover.  We dropped him off there and collected the new car.  The car looks like this one:  New car

Mike and I went to collect Sally from her place and had dinner with her at Bella Italia in Petone.  Lovely food, good catch up.

Sunday we were up early to get Toby from the party.  We tidied up the garage a bit, and managed to fit two cars in.  Our Corolla has a lot of junk for the tip in the back now.  A few trips there and we should see quite an improvement in the garage.

We have a house sitter for Christmas looking after Smudge.  Rodrigo.  Hope that goes well.

One more week of work!  Have an unbelievably good week!

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with nothing much

Hi,

After a pretty busy day, where I managed to catch up with Ed and now have a fair few things to mull over, I squeezed in a session at the gym and then met Mike.

Mojos iced latte is becoming my favourite

Mike was with John - over for Christmas from the UK with his family (although they were all in Golden Bay still).  It was so good to see him again and catch up on a bit of news.

We shared wedges and squid - mmmmmm - at the Royal.  Then drove John to his brother's house and headed home.

Mike is off to Auckland today and back late tomorrow.  This morning was a rush for him because his alarm went off early and he just switched it off and went back to sleep.  I was perplexed as to why an alarm was going off in the middle of the night and thought nothing more of it.  But Mike jumped out of bed around 5.30am in a panicked mode.  And he had a migraine.  So I wandered around sleepily looking for his medicine while he got ready.  He got away on time and texted me from the gate - all happy.

Meanwhile I had breakfast with Toby and we were 5 minutes early for the bus.  We had a lovely time chatting on the bus and then I jumped off at my stop.

I'll see him after work.  We're going to have a steak at the Portlander around 5pm if anyone wants to join us.  Toby has a haircut at Maggies at 6.15pm.

Have a fantastic day!

Love,
Angela

The Tuesday with a lovely ride home

Hi,

I managed to catch up with the lovely women I worked with at a client site for a year yesterday morning.  They took me to La Cloche and I had their iced coffee.  They get full marks for the experience of the thing.  Sweet walnuts on the side, and slivered almonds inside.  Not too sweet despite the ice cream and a spoon to make sure you collect all the goodness at the bottom.

Good to catch up with friends before Christmas too!  Loved it!

La Cloche iced coffee experience

I rode home after work and cooked tea for Toby.  A big hunk of salmon, flaked over baked rice and salad.  It was very yummy.

Salmon flaked over baked rice

So yummy that when i went to collect Mike from town, and pick up some groceries, and bring him back - he ate two portions of it for his dinner!

The building the earthquake ruined is being demolished.  Mike would stand and watch it for hours if I let him.  These pics are from last week when it just started.  Today they had demolished almost back to that side stairwell part you see below.

Transformers - more than meets the eye

A chomp taken out of the top

It made me think of post apocalyptic disaster movies with a building taking the brunt of some massive fight.  Like that Transformers movie where that serpent machine thing trashes New York buildings.

Ok - I still have an imagination.

But the building is now missing its entire front.  It no longer looks like a battle casualty - it is really being demolished now.

Had a good ride in this morning despite the forecast gale force winds.  That's a good thing.  And John Holloway is wanting a coffee catch up today at 5pm.  Woot!  What an awesome surprise.  I didn't think I'd see him on this visit.  I'll say hello to him from you, Ma!

Have a brilliant day.

Love,
Angela

The Monday with date night for our anniversary

Hi,

What a lovely day.  I rode home after work and immediately jumped in the shower after ordering Toby a pizza.

Which it turns out I botched up because I didn't pay online.  So when the pizza turned up, they expected cash.  And Toby had none.  But, because we are such good customers, they left the pizza with Toby and rang me to ask for payment.  Hahah.

Anyway, all that happened while I was driving back into town to meet Mike at Boulcott St Bistro.  We had a wonderful meal.  I had the steak and it was like butter!  We shared a dessert - after telling the waitress it was our wedding anniversary.  So - get this - she gave us dessert on the house!  How cool is that?  We were very chuffed by the gesture.  The dessert was a rich chocolate mouse pinot noir ganache thingy.  It was gooooood!

This was an amazing dessert

We went home and Mike caught up with Toby for a bit before bed.  My ride in this morning was very nice - the wind is getting up but it has stayed dry.

I'm not feeling super well, but hopefully that passes.

Have a wonderful day!  Enjoy it all.

Love,
Angela

The weekend camping in Kaitoke

Hi,

Happy birthday to Tyler for yesterday.  She's hit teenage years!

And happy anniversary to me and Mike today.  Woot!  Date night!

What a lovely weekend.  Toby and I had a quiet Friday night while Mike had some drinks after work.  When he got home, he was a bit sheepish because he was a little loud after having had nothing to eat and a few drinks.  All gone to his head.  And he's out of practise somewhat.

Anyway, he was soon fast asleep and snoring, so all good.  Next morning we were up and packing for the camping trip to Kaitoke.  Oddly we were packed and out of the house by 9.10am.  Pretty good, considering.

Toby's knee was still sore, so the intention was for me to stay with him at the tent and Mike to lead his walk.  We stopped off at Petone Maccas for brekkie before getting to Kaitoke.

The weather was lovely.  Sunny.  By the time we pitched the tents, it was baking hot.  We pitched the new wee lightweight tent for Toby.  Just the ground sheet and fly.  We had our spacious tent for camping in style.

Toby and I nipped back into Upper Hutt to get provisions for the weekend from Countdown.  They had chocolate milk and coffee milk.  Mmmmm.

As I lounged around in the sun, reading, I fidgeted and in doing so, I leaned on my Kindle.  I heard an ominous crackle.  Opening it up, I discovered I had ruined it by breaking the screen.  No Kindle.  What a catastrophe.  I had to use my phone to read on - and I had no way of charging that easily.  Sigh.  First world problems.

It was so hot I asked the boys to fashion a porch out of big branches.  Toby and I found a couple of suitable ones and then I was in heaven - relaxing in the shade outside the tent.

Anyway, Toby's knee came right after he moved around on it a bit.  It was probably just stiff.  So we went for a walk.  Did the hour swingbridge walk;.   Bumped into Michelle - a friend of Andrew and Sally's.

Campsite

Gathering firewood with Toby

After getting back from the walk, we relaxed a bit more before cooking tea.  Yummy chicken satay kebabs, steak, asparagus and mushrooms.  It was good!

Kaitoke is beautiful

The buttercups lured me like a siren

Mike and Toby went down to the river with our firewood and cooked marshmallows and socialised while I dozed.  Apparently someone was fire dancing - which fascinated Toby.

Slept really well.  Woke up late and found Andrew chatting to the Meetup group.  He'd been wandering around the Tararuas, doing epic tramps.

We struck the tents and headed home quite early.  We dropped Mike off at work and then Toby and I found our tree.  We got that put up and did some housework.

The tree goes up!

I found the best stuff waiting in the letterbox - a Sky and Telescope issue - plus a National Geographic issue.

Best mail delivery ever!

Have a brilliant week.  I need a cup of tea,

Love,
Angela

The Thursday with Toby hurting his knee

Hi,

Well, I was working just after lunch when my phone rang and it was the school nurse.  Uh oh.  I waited to hear what was happening, because no conversation can ever be good when it starts with "It's the school nurse from WHS here..."

Anyway, she said Roland was running towards a wall (more uh oh, I thought, this can't be good) as he meant to climb it (aha, I thought, he's unconscious in a heap somewhere) and then he slipped (ok - he's whacked his head on this wall and is now in a coma) and he wrenched his knee (oh, that sounds much better!).

Why do school nurses say things that let your imagination run wild before actually saying what happened before you have time to imagine the worst scenarios?

And anyway, who the heck is Roland?

Hahahahah!  Toby has an alias at school.  Yes, it confuses me too!

So I had to get home to grab the car.  I wondered at changing to ride home, and thought that might take a tad too long.  So I opted for the bus.  Not that great an option during off peak times.  I waited for 5 minutes for an anticipated bus in another 14 minutes when Fiona (neighbour) walked past and said she was catching a taxi and did I want to join her.

Ooosshhh!

I got home in a reasonably timely fashion and jumped in the car and finally found Toby in the sick bay at school.  A lovely girl who was also sick offered to help me to the car with him.  (Toby - you need to thank her for her offer whilst on her death bed in the sick bay)  But there was a wheelchair so we used that.  His science teacher was coming past and got the lowdown from Toby on what happened (she called him Roland too!).  So she helped us to the car and then took the wheelchair back.  She might be perfect for Toby as she might be slightly mad.  As she wheeled the wheelchair back, she shrieked out "Anyone want a ride?" as she hooned through the carpark.

We got home and Toby put his leg up and iced it for a few hours.  But he did have a restless sleep so he has the day off school today to try and recover.

Here are some pics from my race in Taupo.  Ooosshhh!  Loved it.

Riding down Waihi Hill

Over the finish line with a huge grin

 Have a wonderful weekend.  We're off to Kaitoke for camping/tramping although Toby might be chilling in the tent for the most part.

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with user group

Hi,

After a busy day at work, I had the user group session to attend.  I did manage to fit in an RPM class somewhere in there.  Apart from being ravenously hungry at the moment, I think I have recovered from the Taupo exertions.


User group was good - a few of my work mates were there which made it more fun for me.

Mike had some logistics I dumped on him after his super busy day at work.  He had to Uber to the vet to get Ange's cat's medicine and fortunately our neighbour was there so he got a ride home.

Then, he drove the awesome car to come collect me.  We took it back to Anna (the long way) and dropped it off.  Then realised neither of us had the Corolla car keys.  Poor Anna had to drive us all home, and I went back with the car keys.

I dropped the medicine off at Ange's house and collected burgers for the boys. By this stage it was really late and bedtime for me.

What a hectic day.

Best get stuck into my work.

Have a wonderful day.

Love,
Angela