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Well I've been very slack as usual in updating my diary.  I just can't find the time to sit down and write it all out, even though I know full well I need to.

At the moment Beth and Theo are out the back playing in the HUGE tent we've borrowed from Holly and Age.  Dad and I set it up in the backyard yesterday while the kids were still snoozing during their daytime nap. They were both very excited to see the tent when they woke up!

Trying to have a sleep in the tent was another matter, it was all way too exciting.  Not helped by the fact it doesn't get dark until ~9:30-10pm fully and there's no curtians in the tent to make it dark like their rooms.  Theo couldn't really handle and kept saying he wanted to go back inside, so of course once I carried him instead he melted down about wanting to be back outside in the tent.  I did my best to calm him down then just left him in his bedroom, he's only 2 so expecting him to understand sleeping in a tent might have been a bridge too far.

Beth was actually who I thought might really struggle with it, but she was fantastic once she got off to sleep.  Even though it rained heavily a few times in the night and was actually FREEZING cold, she was a champion.  She woke up at 5:30am once the birds starting going mental, but she drifted back off to sleep and we both woke up about 7am and came instead.

Like I said, it was just freezing cold last night.  I'm glad Sarah gave us the big doona as well, I put it over Beth in the night because I'm sure her little bag thing can't have been keeping her that warm.

Anyway it was a fun little exercise, now I have to take down the world's biggest tent (it's a massive 6 person tent, it's taking up a third of the backyard) and get it back into it's tent bag.  Fun fun!  Poor Theo didn't seem to mind this morning when he got out of his normal bed, though both kids are out there playing now having a great time.

Christmas Day!

So it was Christmas Day two days ago now. Or was it three? Wait it was 3 days ago, far out how time flies when you're having fun.

Christmas eve the kids put out cookies, beer and food for the reindeers.  When they got up in the morning the beer was drunk, the cookies were eaten and the food was all nibbled at PLUS the reindeers had left some fluff on the bushes where they scrapped up against them!  This was the clincher I think for Beth who wasn't fully sure of the whole thing but seemed convinced after seeing this.

Once the evidence for Santa's arrival had been examined it was time to go back inside an unwrap all the presents.  This year:

Beth Got:

• A Camera
• A Watch (But the Elves forgot to bring it, so they left a note)
• A Knitted Unicorn (Thanks Granny) - Name Given: Effy
• A blow up mattress with built-in sleeping bag

Theo Got:

• A Watch
• A Yellow trolley he can pull along behind him - he loves it
• A Knitted Unicorn (Thanks Granny) - Name given: Boonacorn

They got heaps of other lovely things too, of course, books and toys and things like that.  I'll try and list them all as I remember them.

Once presents were done it was time for everyone to arrive, Sarah had spent the morning and the previous afternoon getting all her Christmas cooking in order (DO NOT OPEN THE TOP OVEN MERINGUE COOKING) and boy did we have some amazing food.  Adrian and I put the two lamb legs on the BBQ and got them cooking, that was my whole contribution to the food really.

We had a really lovely morning/afternoon out in the front garden, we were going to do the back originally but realised we'd kind of made too much of a mess with the grass growing etc.  We got out the slip n slide and kids played on that having a great time, we ate the lovely food and I had too much of the lovely Brave Brewing beer Dad and I had got a few days earlier when I took him for a visit out there.  About the only incident was Theo forgetting he didn't have a nappy on when he was about to go for a run on the slip n slide so Code Brown on the grass Daddy, Code Brown.  Beth took lots of pictures with her new kiddy camera, it's a pretty neat camera really, 2MP, kiddy proof with lots of big buttons.  She doesn't understand much of it very well yet but she can take some great photos.  Though I had to mention to her after she screamed "Smile Theo" 10+ times that sometimes people don't want to smile or have their picture taken.  Here's some of the photos she took on the day, you'll have to forgive that she loves to have "Rainbow Mode" on most of the time. 

A few days prior Beth, Theo and I had spent a couple of days getting the gardens ready.  We put down heaps of bark in the front garden, got things weeded, took about 3 trailer loads of greenwaste to the Tip after Holly and Adrian biked over one day and then suddenly just got stuck in and helped me remove heaps of the weeds and rubbish from the front garden.  I have to say the front garden (and the back too) looked pretty amazing on Christmas Day.

 

The week before Christmas was super hectic.  How quickly can a team of ~4 people renumber a production IP/MPLS network?  Turns out the answer is about 3 and a half days, which is a pretty amazing feat I must say.  The fact that we had a bunch of out-of-band management devices certainly helped, it would have been a much longer and more tedious process otherwise.  I can't really believe that it all went as well as it did in the end, but go that well it did which is quite excellent really.  The customer is happy and finally I can rest and relax knowing that what a mammoth and annoying task is behind me.  Sadly having that huge project loom over my head didn't really made December a great month for the family and poor Sarah didn't really get many great Christmas presents from me, all but one of them is things that she asked for.  The one surprise I did get her was a voucher to go paddleboarding lessons, I hope she enjoys it.

It's nice to finally have some time with the kids anyway, Theo's such a little character it's great to see him growing up, and like Sarah said this morning it's like Beth is a teenager already, she told us this morning she doesn't like to clean up her room because "That's just boring".  

Pa, Theo, Beth and I just got back from Train World.  Theo loves it, he started shaking with excitement again when we got there.  He was going crazy when we left, he wanted to ride on the downstairs Thomas ride (no need to put in $1 to make it move, he's happy just to sit in it) but he started thrashing around with so much excitement that he banged his lip on the metal rod you're supposed to hold.  Oh dear, more tears and bleeding (he's fine).  At least he's having a sleep now while Grandad and Pa take Beth to Mitre10 and I can try like buggery to get a diary update in while there's not much else to do.  I mean apart from clean up around the house, weed the garden, paint the house, install the new pool things we bought back when we went to Palmerston North etc etc.  Apart from those few things there's really nothing at all to do!

Glad that Christmas Day was fantastic weather because it's been a bit shit ever since then really.  Wet, Windy and miserable for a lot of it.  Yesterday for something to do in the morning I took the kids for a big walk around Jervoistown, Theo did a great job walking all the way down the end and back before really wanting to give up and kept asking me to carry him.  I just told him I'd make him a fluffy when we got home and that seemed to keep him going.  Walking back through the back section and I realised one of the plum trees was going mental with plums, pretty awesome.  Half of them are pecked a bit by the birds, but that doesn't stop them from being tasty.  We ate a few of those before coming back for a fluffy and a snooze.  Then I took a bunch of rubbish to the tip, went past H&A's to get their massive tent for our camping trip and then went out with Dad to the Puketapu for a beer and a toasted sandwich.  When we got back we put the uber tent up and I've already written about things after that.

Hmmmmm what else?  Dad arrived on the Thursday 21st, very luckily work gave me off the Friday so I got to hang out with Dad.  In fact they gave everyone the Friday off.  Sarah took Beth and Theo to see Joy on Friday morning so Pa and I walked over to Orbit for a late breakfast, while there he got a phonecall from the hire car place wondering why he wasn't at home, so we headed back home and then he caught a taxi up the final bit to the car hire place, picking up the usual luxurious Nissan Sunny mobile.

Saturday and Sunday were mostly just getting the property ready for Christmas on Monday, like I said greenwaste and cleaning and picking up all the rubbish and shit that was lying around the place, barking in the front garden and taking greenwaste and rubbish to the tip.  I took Pa out to Brave Brewing on either the Friday or the Saturday, can't recall which.  Pa also helped do a bit of shopping at New World to get us all ready to cater for the big day.

I think the only other thing worth noting that's happening is that we ripped up the pavers out the back to the pool and filled that area in with soil (Theo being a champ at helping do that, of course), then put down some seed and are sowing grass there.  We also planted griselinias along the strip at the back of the house, those appear to be doing well with lots of watering and love.

That's enough for the moment, the end!

Tim