Busy day yesterday. Beth woke up at 6am, so we played with her for an hour then went to breakfast. As soon as that was done I took her down to the pool for one last swim to try and tire her out for an early morning snooze, because we had a big day of flying ahead. We had fun, though she kept looking at where the steps to the waterslide are, pointing and going "Slide!". I'd have taken her, but it didn't open for another hour or so. She loved the waterslide so much. After a quick 30 minute power swim we went back to the room, had a "show-wah" and put her to Beth. Showers are another thing Beth has discovered she really loves. She doesn't seem to mind that the water gets in her eyes, as long as it's only for 15 seconds or so. And every...

It's day 4 here in Fiji. Pretty much most days have been the same, though yesterday we ventured into town to see what it was like. There isn't really much there though, lots of shops and touts, but they're all selling the same nasty touristy crap that neither of us like much. Though that being said I bought a beer cooler, which is probably one of the most tackiest things you can buy really. We didn't stay long before we got the store to give our taxi a ring so we could head back.

Yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary too! We'd gone out the night before to celebrate it, we went to a restaurant called Cross, which also doubled as a resturant called Blu. The menu for Cross was very odd. It seemed like it was Winter menu, not a hot summer night menu. In the end we asked...

We made it to Fiji on the plane yesterday. Beth was a champion, she was quite confused at first on the plane, she was struggling and squirming. But after a few minutes she seemed to realise that we had to sit in the one spot, her on Sarah's lap, and she stayed there for most of the flight, a few times wanting to sit with me instead.
Once we arrived in Auckland we had a quick walk over to the International terminal where we had to get through customs and security fairly quickly, which we managed to do. And we were only sitting in the lounge for 15 minutes before our flight was called. We got to get on early too because we had Beth.
The flight from Auckland to Fiji was good too, we were lucky in the fact the row behind us was totally empty, so I took...

Saturday we hosted a BBQ at ours to watch the big Australia vs New Zealand World Cup Cricket Match. We dragged the TV outside and after a lot of stuffing around, I managed to stream SkyGO on my laptop, which was plugged into a TV. The quality was pretty good, it stopped a few times and I had to piss around and restart it, but overall it worked well. We have a lovely BBQ, Beth and Joseph had a fantastic time running around outside in the sun. Little Isla is a bit like Beth, she didn't want to go to sleep at all the whole time.
The cricket match was something else. Australia came flying out of the gates, only to crash for less than 150. Against NZ. Embarassing. NZ came flying out of the gates and it looked like they were going to sing home, but then they lost...

On Saturday, we drove down to Wellington. Mary had kindly agreed to look after Beth for ~24 hours, so we could drive down and see Eddie Izzard's show "Force Majeure". The drive down wasn't too bad, until we got just out of Wellington and encountered a terribly windy horrible road. Eventually after 4 hours of driving, we arrived in Wellington and checked into our hotel. I nearly lost Sarah as soon as we got there, I went inside to checkin while she stayed in the car. When I came back out to find her, she was gone! I figured she might have done a blockie or something, but she didn't show up. Just as I was starting to get worried, she emerged from a Fire Exit door. She'd been told to go and back in the under-hotel carpark, and once she'd finally found a spot to park the elevator wasn't...

It was Sarah's Birthday yesterday. A big Happy Birthday to my lovely wife. I got in the kitchen on Monday night, ready to prepare some baking on Tuesday night. When I got home on Tuesday afternoon, Sarah had already measured out a lot of the ingredients for the Chocolate Guinness Cake. So her Birthday cake was a bit of a team effort really. It turned out really nicely though, moist and tasty. I got her a massage / spa voucher (for the wrong place, whoopsie, I hope it's still nice!) and Beth got her a new Camera for our trip to Fiji.

Peter and Mary came over for dinner, we had takeaways from the Thai place. Poor Beth though, she has two massive teeth coming through at the moment and also what happens to be the flu, so she was howling for half the night the poor little chicken. We...

It was Waitangi Day on Friday, so that meant a day off. I didn't even realise until Wednesday, stupid me. I should pay more attention to the holidays etc, but at least it was a nice surprise to find out that it was going to be a day off. Thursday afternoon felt like Friday afternoon which was good, we even had a beer at the office with some of the left over supplies from the party the week before.

Thursday morning we got a 7am phonecall to say that Jenny's daughter (Jenny is Beth's carer) had given birth, so Jenny wasn't going to be open. Instead she'd organised for Beth to go a different lady for the day, so that's where she went instead. We were a bit worried she might not like going to a new place, but it turns out she didn't mind at all, especially when her...

Peter went and got a trailer load of wood for us yesterday from his Golf club. It's about 3 Cords, whatever a Cord is when it comes to volume I don't know. The woodshed it looking fuller than it ever has though, lots of nice dry pine tucked away in there now. The only problem with pine is that is burns so fast, but that shouldn't really be a problem because once the house heats up, it stays fairly warm thanks to the excellent insulation.
I helped him unload it, so did Beth for a little while, carrying the odd little bit of wood into the woodshed and then waiting patienly until someone took it from her and stacked it. She loves running around in the gumboots from my Paddington Bear at the moment, she thinks they're just fantastic.

On Monday Sarah and I went and saw a kitchen design...