When finger painting goes bad

The sun is shining!

We are really enjoying the spring and it is feeling more like summer is closer every day. It is our first summer as parents and when you are experiencing a first summer with your infant, everything is just a bit more exciting! Emily had a visit to the beach with her friend Mia yesterday (and Mia's parents, Guy and Cheryl), and enjoyed sitting in the water and avoiding the waves with Daddy. Mind you, Bryce didn't really try to avoid any; he was more interested in showing Emily how to body surf the waves.


I think she just enjoyed being along for the ride in Daddy's arms! Bryce is sporting a great cycle tan, courtesy of the ride he took in the morning (although Bryce tends to have a cycle tan most of the year anyway). Bryce and Em had the morning to themselves, and I went out for a ride myself up one of our local hills. So tough, but nice to feel intense muscle work again! Walking with the buggy just doesn't quite get the lactic acid burn we so enjoy!

On Saturday, we visited John and Cushla for the day, along with catching the tail-end of Henry's cricket game. It was nice to see Rob, Rachel, Henry and Charlotte; and Henry and Charlotte really enjoyed playing with Emily. They made her smile all afternoon and sang songs to her if she got a little grumpy which changed her mood around quickly.



Bryce and I have been competing for crazy dreams lately. I seem to be almost over by nightly-nightmare of Em being squished under Bryce in our bed (only have it about 1x a week now!). Bryce, however, had a dream the other night that there was a cashier stand at the bottom of our driveway and he tried to take a pinecone from the yard, but the cashier wouldn't let him go anywhere without paying $2 for it; despite his protests that the pinecone was from HIS yard. I think the lawn is doing his head in, at the moment. Now that we have SUN on our grass and the moss that had overtaken our back yard is dying away, Bryce is now quite aware that he wants his beautiful velvety green lawn back that he had a few years ago.

This picture is of Emily in a gown we found in Bryce's baby stuff, and the plastic teddy bear is his old one as well. They sure made things that last, back then! It is some hardy plastic.

Before and after

We had a stand of 9 pine trees on our neighbours property cut down last month. The trees basically stood between us and the sun for half of the day, and fully blocked the sun from our house during winter.

The view from the deck. The before image doesn't convey the full height of the trees, they were HUGE.



From the back lawn the height of the trees is a bit more apparent. The lawn was full of moss due to being semi-permanently in the shade, a couple of weeks of sun and the moss is dying off fast.



From the side of the house the full height of the trees can be seen, dwarfing the house.


And now all we have is blue sky!

The "shadow" becomes firewood

The past month has seen great change at home. Full details on the before and after shots will come at some point however it's worth noting the work in progress. We've had a stand of 9 huge pine trees cut down on our neighbours property, trees that lay between our house and the sun for most of the year.

The trees were dropped and cut into firewood length rounds by a tree contractor, and the neighbour and Bryce have been doing the hard yards splitting the rounds into firewood using a hydraulic splitter. Two full workdays done and we are about three quarters of the way through the pile.

Then there is the fun task of stacking, well supervised by the house chief.

7 months and growing fast

It's getting harder each month to take this photo lying down, so we've switched to sitting. All is good for a moment before the lack of toys within arms reach means that the "7 months" sign becomes very interesting.

Free time? What is that?

Amidst the craziness of a 6 month old with a cold, volleyball season and having all the titanic trees cut down in our backyard, it has been hard to find time to do much of anything else. Happy to say that Em is on the mend, and weathered her first cold well. I had a minor sad moment after trying getting her back to sleep one night and she was having such a hard time breathing from the coughing and snuffly nose. You really do realize how much they are a part of you when they are sick and you can't take the discomfort away for them.


My volleyball team at the College is doing very well. We have made it into the finals for the top division in Wellington and have been undefeated until now. They are a great bunch of girls who have a lot of energy and spirit, and fantastic skill. It has been amazing seeing them grow and improve for the past 4 years.

I have had my own success in the past week: first, being shortlisted into a group of 3 for the Wellington Coach of the Year for College (highschool) sport, and then second, for actually winning the award and receiving a trophy at an awards ceremony on Sunday.

It was a very exciting night and I was thrilled (and very surprised) to have won above all the other fabulous coaches around Wellington. It was weird, as this year, I have been pregnant, or away from school with Emily, so I hadn't felt like I had done as much as other years for the Volleyball programme. However, the announcer who outlined my accomplishments at the ceremony addressed the past 8 years of work I had put into the Volleyball program at school; so I felt a bit more worthy then!

Bryce is busy being "Head Parent in charge of Bedtime" around here. With my volleyball practices twice a week and games, he has got Emily's bedtime routine down to an art, and enjoys telling me when I get home how he found a new way to settle her, if she wakes up at all.

Emily is becoming more active and really enjoys sitting on her own and taking toys out of containers or boxes. Our little girl is quite the independent player; although she always prefers to go outside and watch what everyone else is doing too. She will be 7 months old this weekend; amazing how fast she is changing!

Our "new" house

Here is a picture from yesterday when John and Cushla came to visit us and see the new addition of sky to our house! We had several MASSIVE pine trees cut down and now we have no enclosure alongside our back fence and no more shade! We have lots of sunlight and our view now encompasses a rural field beside us that is just so much nicer than looking at a wall of trees. We are thrilled with the change; it feels like we have a holiday home now! The extra sun might be a bit harsh in the depth of summer, but it will be so much brighter in winter.

Emily's first swing.

Emily's first ride in a swing from Candace K on Vimeo.

Rotorua and Single Speed World Champs weekend

Last weekend we visited Mark, Rachel and Holly in Rotorua, so that the boys could compete in the World Single Speed Mountain Bike Champs. Basically, 1000 riders, from about 30 countries, who almost all dress up like weirdos and ride 40ish km on bikes with only one gear. Oh, and if they want to take short cuts in the race, there are places to do so, but you must either drink/chug a beer to earn that shortcut, or if you don't drink you have to down a small bottle of concentrated Redbull. You know, pretty standard athletic endeavour!
The boys dressed like horse jockeys. Note the extra effort the boys put into putting horses on their handlebars, and the white women's tights they wore as riding pants. I had thought I might take the tights over from Bryce after a good wash, but as muddy bum bike stains, don't come out very well, I have taken a pass from inheriting the tights. Dirty bum on white pants is not a good look, outside of the bike trails.
From left: Bryce, Joel, Mark and Carl


Emily, the gangsta rapper: "take heed, cuz I'm a lyrical poet; Daddy's hat's on my head, just in case you didn't know it"


Emily, the avid bike race supporter. She even called out at the riders as they went past. It sounded more like "ah yaah, ah yaah yaah, blllbb bbaaah", but I know that means "Go Daddy!"

We were able to crash a family get together that Pam and Andrew had in Turangi on our long drive home; and visited with them for a little bit. It was good to break up the long drive and because we don't get to Tauranga that often, we will take Pam and Andrew time however we can!

I did it!

So, after about 22 years of having long enough hair to put in a ponytail and looking like I am 18 for almost all of that time (despite an older looking face), I have finally cut it all off (most of it anyway). I could have gone more drastic and maybe that is the next step. I am not against going back to long hair in the future and as some friends have pointed out, I am just taking a "holiday" from my hair! We shall see how soon I try to grow it out again though. For now, its fun and light and will take so much less time!
Before the cut:

The vast amount of hair that was cut; it doesn't look really long here, but it sure was a mound of thickness that is gone!

After:

I think I look more like a "Mrs" now than before.

Em playing with her maracas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZzFW2yxQOI

Emily is 4344 hours old!

So Emily has reached her 6 month birthday and like clockwork, the skills have increased! She is sitting up, unsupported, as of yesterday and it is so nice to have her upright when playing with her, and not strapped to something! Her favourite activity at the moment seems to be sitting up, with rattles in her hands, which she shakes up and down and bangs them together like a violent rock musician.
She went swimming the other day and we avoided a poo disaster in the pool by about 30 minutes! I am so glad that we were not the ones who had the pool closed down, but as this particular fecal dropping was not so much of a dropping but a melliflual or aqueous substance, I consider us lucky. I am not sure of the swimmers she was wearing could have withheld that sort of entity!
For those of you who have been reading the blog for months now, you will notice she is getting much bigger than George, the bear in her monthly photos!

Cushla and John visit and Thanksgiving

Last Saturday, John and Cushla came to visit and see Emily and our clever little girl decided to learn how to roll from her front to her back just before they got here; so she had some performing to do once they arrived. Its always nice to see them and nice for Emily too.


On the Sunday, Bryce did a 50km mountain bike race (although he didn't know it was 50km when he started, as it was just do as many laps as you can do in 3 hours). He rode really well and came in 2nd, and also won a major spot prize of a membership to a local gym. Pretty exciting to hear his name called out for the big prize. Not sure whether we will use it though or give it away as Bryce is not much for fitness classes and although I am, the times will be hard to fit into our schedule.

I am still struggling with my nightly dream sequence which involves me dreaming about Emily being in bed with us, and my worry beginning that we are going to roll over and suffocate her. Keep in mind, she hasn't been in our bed since she was about 3 weeks old, and even then, she only ever slept on our chests, for an hour or so.
So since I have been having this dream at least 5 or 6 nights a week, Bryce has been getting increasingly aware of what I am doing during the night; as I search up and down the side of his body, in my slumber, looking for my daughter (who I am convinced is in the bed with us). Once he says something to me, I usually wake up enough to stop searching and just go back to sleep. However, I have now started recognizing that I am doing this and will rebut Bryce when he tells me "she's not here!" The other night, I said to him, after he told me she wasn't in bed with us, "Yeah, I know she's not, but she is". Two nights ago, my rebuttal was "Yeah, I know, but I am just protecting her head from your elbow"....even though I had grabbed Bryce's elbow thinking it was Emily's head.
Some deep seeded worry in my sub-conscious I guess. Wonder when it will stop! Maybe as she sleeps through the night more often?

So, back to the rest of Sunday: we had Thanksgiving dinner here, kiwi styles! It was the first time we had hosted a bigger group for lunch or dinner and having never tried to do a thanksgiving or Christmas dinner very much I was a bit nervous for it all being timed correctly. Our friends John and Kim and their children Jackson and Anika came over, along with Guy, Cheryl and Mia, and Clare and Brent. The food was great and the schwarties (mom's family favourite potato dish) I made were yummy!


We tried putting Emily and Mia in the bath together as we got them ready for bed, but as I jumped up to get the camera, Emily got upset at me running off and there were only tears left behind in the bath! Mia was loving being in the bath with someone else though!

It seems that our lil girl is more of a boys girl and is a bit of a flirt. She is extra interested in boys (of any age) and gives them more smiles than any female.
(Much like her mother was as a teenager, but it started a bit later for her!)
Anyway, Thanksgiving was good times, around great friends and it was nice to feel like there was a touch of Canadiana here in NZ, knowing all the Canucks back home were celebrating too!

Commonwealth Games spectating

Emily has become a full time sports supporter for the Commonwealth Games (or as Candace puts it the "Common man roll up and have a go games") fully decked out in her Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics gear. Looks like we need to get the matching kiwi supporters gear, though the New Zealand traditional black is no where near as cool as the Canadian Red.

From big roads to little floods

We departed the land of big roads and headed back to little old NZ and our sweet little house. (and yes that is a 19 lane highway if you look carefully and count all the on/off ramps!)


A couple of days after we get home we had a day of solid unrelenting rain. Anyone that knows anything about our driveway knows that in serious rain, the water flowing down the drive takes all the crushed limestone with it leaving rain ruts ready to be fixed.

Here is a previous fix.


Well this time the rain eased but the amount of water flowing down the drive did not. A bit of an explore found that we had sprung a new spring in the middle of the drive, with plenty of water flowing out from the ground, and down the drive.

Morning arrived and the help call was made to great friend John the Plumber. Surprisingly it had stopped raining at this stage making finding the leak pretty easy, just dig where the water was flowing from. The more we dug, the more water flowed out of the growing hole in the drive.

This photo is not quite the truth, John did all the work, all I did was fill in the hole.

One fixed mains water pipe.

At the end of the day Emily seemed pretty happy to not have a spring in the driveway.