Katie's farewell beauty pageant speech

Well done Miss Contraception! 

Katie's beauty pageant speech from Candace K on Vimeo.

This is a video of Katie, my friend and colleague, delivering her "farewell" speech at work, following the theme of beauty pageant queens.

Emily counting....

Emily counting from Candace K on Vimeo.

A family pic, finally!

Racing season has begun...

Bryce has begun his long trek to becoming a fully fit bike racer again. He has set the goal to complete the Kiwi Brevet race (about 1100km of mountain biking) in February so he has a bit of training to do.
Here are some pics of all of us watching his cyclocross race last weekend. Emily is becoming a great little supporter; cheering loud and yelling "Daddy, you're my hero!" when Bryce rides past. She also has learned that it is fun to hand Bryce his water or food when he is doing a race that has loops in it. So she is fast to pass the water bottle to him, and then rushes to go pick it up from wherever he throws it onto the ground. She thought it was pretty funny that Daddy just drinks a little bit and then throws the bottle. I can't wait to see her imitate him doing this someday.

Stinky girl...

Me: Emily, why are you farting so much tonight?
Emily: Because I like to do that. And because it's so much fun.

Longest night ride

With the one in fifty year storm hitting Wellington right on the night of the true shortest day/longest night, we wisely pulled the plug and postponed for a week. Didn't really want to make it into the news as the cycling idiots that didn't listen to the weather warnings and needed rescue. Mother nature dished up a wild night, 200 kmh wind gusts with big swells lashing the south coast.

Below is the road near Days Bay where we would have been at 5am during the height of the storm.

A week later 8 riders headed out of Upper Hutt on the planned Wellington Big Coast loop.

Rolled up the Rimutaka Incline rail trail dodging tree branches downed in the wind but made good time to the summit.  I think this was around 9.30pm with the group cruising along.

Riding through the old train tunnels provided some shelter from light rain.

Once across the Rimutaka hills it was a 30km road ride to the South coast.  This road the week earlier would have had 90-100 kmh gust head winds.

"Lunch" was in order as soon as we found this camping area, around 12.30am and 65km in.  By early estimate that would be around half way however it got steadily slower and harder from here.

There were some strange things out there, like this random gate in the middle of nowhere however someone had thoughtfully cut a bike sized hole in the bars for us to pass through.

About 3am we passed a very isolated hut with what were likely hunters partying and playing spotlight.  I wonder what they thought of 8 riders rolling past? Possibly a bit strange given that all noise stopped and the spot lights were turned off when we road past.

We lost the track for a brief period crossing a wide storm flooded area and the average speed had dropped right down to about 5 kmh for 2 hours.

Photo stops were becoming far less frequent with the dropping temperature and increasing fatigue.  My work colleague Craig shot the image below of the Pencarrow lighthouse with the lights of Petone in the background.

Nearing the end of the gravel and approaching the 100km mark we stopped briefly to check out a shipwreck but it was generally head down pedal on by this stage.

Finished just on dawn; 11 hours, 136km, 1 great adventure.

Winter weather adventures

We have just endured some pretty rough weather here in The Big P in the last week. Kapiti didn't get hit as bad as the south coast of Wellington did; with roofs blown off, cars moved by waves and wind, parking lots at the beach uplifted and beaches disappeared with sand blown far inland. We had friends lose their trampoline and we've seen a few trees down, but we have come through the storm pretty well. Bryce has had to postpone his LONGEST NIGHT RIDE from the shortest day of the year to another time. Judging from the damage that is out around the region from last's night weather, I'm pretty glad he's not out riding tonight.

 Emily and Cameron has some fun exploring the winter weather yesterday and Cameron was furious when made to leave his own private puddle. He would have played there all day if he'd been allowed.

Longest night ride

Just for a laugh we are heading out this Friday for a longest night ride.  Click here for the local newspapers version.  Hope the weather plays ball!

Parenting lesson #346

The Taste Tester Swipe - used when wonderful child decides not eat his food. As the child keeps turning head away from the spoon and resisting the food that is offered to him, swipe a bit across his lips. Inevitable action that follows is child licks his lips and realises the devil food that was being offered to him is actually very satisfying and tasty. Temporary ceasefire ensues. This maneouver gets better with practice and should not be attempted above carpet.

Xterra

I'm no runner but the idea of trail running holds a fraction of interest in the furthest recess of my brain.  Candace was looking for running events to back up her effort in the Levin off-road half marathon and pointed out the Xterra trail running series.

As it happened there was a 10km night race on the 10th anniversary of mums death, sold.  As a non runner surely I could do 10km.  If not, well at least I could put some serious MTB light power on to the trail.

Got underway but it soon was apparent that there were a lot of people trying to squeeze into a little track, thus it was super slow climbing with a solid line of traffic, only spreading out on the four wheel drive tracks near the top.

Stunning views from the summit ridge looking down over Lower Hutt and Petone on one side, and down to Wainuiomata on the other.  Image below pilfered from the interweb but it looked pretty much like this.

Great run all told, more like 12km than 10 but damn good fun for a non runner.

10 years

Gone 10 years.  Nana Maureen would have been a great Grandma, wish she could have met our kids.

Spiders.....

As I walk through the garage, balancing a "way too big" stack of wood to carry upstairs, I notice a GIGANTOR spider flirting with my elbow and working his way up my arm. I start to dance, high knees trying to shake him off, until the thought hits me that dropping the wood would be more effective, so that I can access the use of my arms. I forget to move my foot out of the way first though. As I am dealing with the enormous pain on my toe I don't see the spider on the floor, so I strip my long sleeve shirt off in a flash, while yelling out to no one, "It's on me, it's on me!" I stand there in my tanktop/singlet freaking out and starting to really feel the pain of my toe. I cant relax though until I see the spider. I feel like its on every inch of me. I instinctively check in my shirt and guess who smiles back at me? So within about 2 minutes I was walking with a stack of wood, to being fully topless with a full on bruised toe, after having danced and yelled all to myself. At least I got to see that spider leave my body and KNOW its got nowhere else to hide. Not good enough though; I'm sure I'll be feeling the creepy-crawly feeling on my skin all night. Yuck!
P.S.  Don't worry Mom, it wasn't a white tail.

Ponies and Pirates....

We joined our friends in celebrating our kids turning 3 by having a Pony/Pirate Party. Everyone dressed up as either a pony or pirate; & in case you haven't figured it out, Mommy is a "My Little Pony flying unicorn pony", or so Emily tells us. Cameron was less than impressed with his pirate moustache. It lasted all of the time the photo was taken. 

.

Cameron is a full on walker now. Loves getting up and being independent.

Emily's BFF Mia dressed up as a My Little Pony too.

The pirate crew: Bryce and Cameron; Cheryl, Guy and Will; Frances, Marcel and Emily's other BFF Nathan.

The kiddies riding their new ponies

The pony race is ON!

Captain 'Daddy' Jack Sparrow and his fellow pirates

Emily enjoying the egg hunt

Ponies can use trampolines too

Emily in awe of the awesome pony cupcakes Frances made.

"Oh my goo-ness! Daddy, look!"

She's not 3 yet, but will be soon. She can't wait!