On Saturday afternoon Blair came over and talked to me about lopping off a few branches from the Pine Tree behind the carport.  It's basically on their fenceline and drops a lot of crap on their side, so I wasn't bothered if they wanted to cut a few off.  I talked to Sarah and we said yup let's chop them.  Sunday morning Blair was out there first thing with his mates chainsaw-on-a-pole and was into it.  I setup some chairs for Beth and Theo to watch as we cut and cleaned up, Beth watched for about 5 minutes before calling out to me "Daddy, this is BORING" and leaving to go and do something else.

Anyway what was going to be a couple of branches turned out to be a huge mega cleanup.  Cushla came over too and got stuck in, ripping out the old overgrown garden and sweeping up...

It's Saturday, the second day of a lovely 4 day weekend.  Yes we get Friday off for Hawke's Bay Anniversary weekend, then we get the Monday off for Labour day.  To celebrate that Labour is in power I suppose, thanks to the biggest joke of a New Zealand election ever.  The Greens and some other party and Labour.  I'm sure it'll work and the wheels won't at all fall off within 3 months.  No sir, it'll be a rock solid political climate here in New Zealand, you mark my works.

Had a fun day outside today, did a bit of cleaning and digging and chopping and chainsawing.  Blair from next door came over when he heard me sawing, said that my chain sounded like it was blunt.  He worked in forestry for years, so he knows what he's talking about.  But he reckoned it was OK when he looked at...

Beth has discovered this show on Netflix called Beat Bugs.  It's a kids TV show with lots of The Beatles music in it.  It's so odd to hear her sing along to "All you need is love" and other songs like that.  She's really, really into it though.  Sarah gave me a PDF of one of the characters to print out and bring home last night, Beth near had a fit when I gave it to her, she was so excited and went bright red.  Theo however still gets excited by the more simple things in life.  I hope Beth is still into Beat Bugs when Dad arrives for Christmas, they can spend ages singing Beatles songs.

It was mega windy when I rode home last night.  Makes such a huge difference, my top speed was only 31km/h.  My top speed wasn't even on par with my average...

I can't believe we've gone from here, to going to Plunket for the final "B4 School" check.  I looked after Theo on the Friday morning while Sarah took Beth up for her checkup.  They made her do lots of stuff like stand on one leg and hop, spell words etc.  Sounds like she did a really good job and was getting on like a house on fire with the nurse.  Until it came to the final part of the checkup, the injections.  Then it all went off the rails for poor Beth, the lovely nurse turned into Satan.

When Sarah got home with Beth in the car, I have never seen Beth in such a state.  She just had this horrible vacant look on her face, staring out into space sobbing uncontrollably. She kept telling us that her arms didn't work anymore.  After lots of talking to her we...

Had a nice weekend with the kids.  Saturday morning even though it was looking a bit overcast we took them to the Napier Bike Track and they had a ride around on their bikes.  Beth really didnt' want to ride on her new bike at all, but after some great coaching by Sarah she really got the hang of it and was peddling around like a pro by the end.  Which was nice to see, as before that she would just get really fed up, give up and sulk.   But now see's really got the hang of it.  At least mostly.

After the bike park we ducked into The Warehouse to get a present for Jack and also to get a toy each for the kids.  We ended up getting them a little super soaker each, plus a game called Soggy Doggy.  Beth instantly loved it, even though she didn't really...

Theo's big new bed arrived on Monday! Sarah drove into town and I met up with her at the bed shop to get a headboard for it. We looked at one, both agreed it was great and bought it. And we were allowed to take the one from the floor, so we loaded it up into the car and off we went. Oh prior to this I rode up to the bike shop and bought myself a new bike lock. My old one I always had to carry in a bag, this one has a nice mount so you can mount it on the bike. After buying the headboard I waved goodbye to Sarah, only to hear from her a few hours later that Theo had been sent home from Kindy with a fever. And sure enough when I got home boy was he hot. So I looked after him...

Beth had a really busy day yesterday, firstly it was her friend from kindy Amy's birthday party. In the excitement of drawing on Amy's birthday card Beth bit the pen she was using, a pen with fluro pink ink. That was kinda funny, if we hadn't been in a rush to get out the door on time. Sarah put her in a lovely pink dress for the party too, when Sarah got there 2 other little girls had the same dress on.

After Amy's party she went to Liam's house for a playdate, something she'd been excited about all week. Sounds like she had a pretty good time there too.

While Beth was out, Theo and I got to hang out together which was nice. First of all we spent a bit of time in the garden, doing some "gargling" as Theo calls it. Then he helped me hang out...