It was the Prophecy company team event yesterday. People flew from Wellington and Auckland to Napier, which was awesome! We had 19 people at one stage, which is pretty impressive because that's nearly everyone in the company. Only Matt and Deborah were missing I think.
We started off at out a placed called OutFoxed. Very very close to where Sarah and I got married back in 2010. When I met the people running it I was sure that they were the same couple we'd dealt with when we hired Cape Estate. And sure enough when I spoke to them later I realised it was them, OutFoxed is on a seperate section of what is a very large section! I'm not sure you'd even call it a section, it's a farm. I also discovered the most amazing little Gem, the Clifton Cricket Club which is an amazing litlte cricket pitch...

We bought the mother of all lawnmowers on Friday afternoon. No, it's not a RideOn. We did a lot of research and asking questions and a RideOn wouldn't be much use for all the small tricky bits in our garden. We don't have 1 massive big lawn to mow, but lots of little (and a couple of medium sized) ones. So in the end, we went for this bad boy. It's got a 21inch cut and is self propelled. That is, you put it into one of the 8 speeds that it has, engage the clutch and off it drives. You still have to walk along behind it, steer it etc, but it makes mowing the lawns a lot easier. No longer do you come back in dripping with sweat and knackered, but instead it's like going for a pleasant stroll while the mower is doing all the hard...

Peter came over during the week last week to talk to us about his latest technical dilemma. Sky TV has lost the rights to the golf, which is crazy in itself. The only way to get all the golf shows that Peter loves now is via an online streaming service. So we had to figure out a way for Peter to get from an Internet Stream, onto the TV. In the end, after playing with the Streaming Site on his iPad, I figured that an Apple TV would be perfect for him. Apple TV allows you to display what's on your iPad on your TV. I tested a few of the Demo videos on the Golf Streaming Website to be sure they'd play on his iPad, which they did, then instructed him to buy an Apple TV.

Saturday morning we went around to set it all up for him. Got...

Poor Beth came running out of her room last night to come and find me (I was in the bathroom running her bath) but fell over on the way. All I heard was *CRASH* and then "Waaahhhh!!!" but it was the real "I'm actually quite hurt here" scream. Poor little chicken, she'd fallen down hard running out of her room and had bitten her bottom lip, which started pouring blood. I didn't know how badly she was hurt at first, so I took her into the kitchen, stopping only to say to Sarah "She's bleeding!" which didn't help either of us calm down. Anyway after some investigation we realised that's all she'd done, just bitten her lip which is now quite fat. She stopped crying after a minute or two though and seemed to not care at all, so that's good. Though she did wake up at midnight crying uncontrollably...

Sunday was another stinking hot day in Napier! We got up early (Why do I type that anymore? It's not early now, it's just the regular time you get up with a toddler) and went out to Bay Espresso, the original one where it started. We had breakfast there, then went to go to Freedom Furniture except we realised it was closed. So we went to the Farmers Market instead, we weren't going to go but we needed to kill time for an hour and Beth likes it there.
We were going to meet Holly and Age, but Beth was starting to lose it so we left (bumping into Chris and Barbs on the way). We zipped over to Freedom and picked up a new bookshelf for the lounge, a little low one that Beth can put all her books on. Well, I say Beth can put them on. Sarah...

We took Beth to Splash Planet today. We didn't do all the rides, just went into the pools and then did a couple of laps of the Never Ending River. Beth thought it was pretty amusing, though I think she was also a bit overwhelmed by how many people were on the ride. It was ~25c today, so the place was packed out. It's still surprisingly easy to access and get around though. Once we'd done that, we walked around and played in Tiny Town for a little bit. Then we did a ride around on the Train before thinking it was time to take Beth home, she was getting a bit cold and tired.

She had two big sleeps today, 2 hours each. The first in the morning was pretty normal, but the 2 hour sleep in the afternoon showed how tired out she got at Splash Planet...

Back to work today, after 2 enjoyable weeks off. I can't really complain about any part of my holiday, I got to see Dad, Christmas was nice, and the Hawke's Bay Weather kept up it's end of the bargain by being pretty perfect the whole time. I can only remember one day of rain, Christmas Eve while Dad was here, and even then it only rained for about 10 minutes. Otherwise it's been sun sun and more sun. My arms are even a bit brown!

Over the last couple of days we've:

Bought some more plants for around the pool and front garden
Given the deck around the pool two coats of decking stain.
Tidied up the Asparagus Garden
Waterblasted a lot of the trellis outside.
Weeded the garden

So not heaps, but the deck around the pool is looking good.

We went to the Farmers Market yesterday, just a...

It's New Year's Eve and I'm knackered already. This morning I accidentally slept in until 8:30. Beth hadn't woken up, so the baby monitor was quiet. So I kept sleeping!
Once I was up I went and got Beth up, who was happy as she always is to see me. I made her breakfast (2 weetbix) and she ate it all pretty much herself! Spooning it in one spoon at a time. I helped her with a few mouthfuls but mostly she ate it herself. A real achievement for her!

Peter came over and we went and collected a heap of wood from Russell's place. We dropped half of it off at Peter's place and then half of it off at ours. That took 3 hours or so, it was slow going at Peter's because we had to use the wheelbarrow. And the wheelbarrow we bought a few years ago...