Catching Up
Ooops. Another two weeks have slipped away and I haven't written in my diary. Damnit. Oh well here goes everything that's been happening in the last couple of weeks, if I can remember it all!
Last Saturday Theo and I took part in the SPCA Great NZ Paws walk, raising money for the SPCA. I signed up at the last minute, only because they sent through an email saying "Oh please please sign up, we've had way less sign ups than we wanted and we're not going to met our fundraising goal" which made me feel sad for them, so I signed up. Anyway after a bit of fund raising I managed to raise $500 for them, so thank you to everyone that donated! Really appreciate it.
The walk itself was supposed to be 4km, but after 1km down the path (it started at the Aquarium) everyone stopped, because all the dogs were hot, it was such a sunny day. Biscuit seemed to really enjoy it, I'm glad that he got to spend a lot of time with so many other dogs, hopefully it's helped him realise that other dogs aren't all out to get him and he doesn't have to get his nose out of joint when other dogs want to sniff him. Yea so anyway 1km down the road we stopped, everyone had a drink, Theo hopped off his scooter and asked for about his 6th snack. Once all the doggies had gotten a drink we walked back up to the Aquarium and then called it a day. It was an hour later, everyone was knackered and we'd already raised the money anyway!
Theo and I then walked up into town with Biscuit, got a slice of pizza or two at Vinci's, then walked back down to Lick This for an icecream, then finally to the bike park for him to scooter around for 45 minutes. While Biscuit, Theo and I had been at the walk, Sarah and Beth were at St Beads for Isla's 5th birthday party. They came to pick us up early afternoon and we all went home tired. Theo had done so much exercise, he claimed not to be that tired but when I put him into bed he was fast sleep about 5 minutes later. Little man, he was so knackered!!
Sunday we did, umm. Not a lot I don't think, I can't remember it if we did. I'll have to come back and think about that.
Ohhhhhh I totally forgot! The Friday night before the SPCA walk was Beth's Kapa Haka performance up at Pettigrew Arena. All the schools were performing, in fact on the Tuesday night we'd been to a rehearsal at the school itself. We didn't even know that Beth was in the school Kapa Haka group until a few weeks beforehand when we got the notice in her schoolbag saying that she'd be doing a performance. The rehearsal went very well anyway, and Friday night was the big performance that all the schools were partaking in. Sarah went up at Friday lunchtime to see the Matinee performance, then she bought Beth home for a rest before I took her back up (with Theo) for the big evening performance. Some of the poor kids though, they walked up at 9am and had to stay there, all day, until 7:30pm. It was really hot in the hall for the evening performance too, though thankfully someone opened up a door about halfway through to let a lot of fresh air in, that made it much more comfortable. When we got there, two girls said to Beth "We need to be upstairs, we'll take you" which was nice of them. So Theo and I sat down and waited and eventually Arthur Miller School was up (they were first) and Beth performed with the rest of her group. It was great! She did such a good job, watching what to do and singing loudly etc. She's a good little singer. Then we watched all the rest of the schools perform and then fought through the utter chaos to collect her and go home.
Right and then THIS week! This week on Thursday night was a Ukulele, Kapa Haka and Choir performance. Oh did I mention Beth is also in the Choir? That's right, she was in all three shows on Thursday night. First of all Kapa Haka, then in the Uke group, and then finally Choir. It was great to see, and must say we're quite impressed that she signed up for all these things, giving up her lunchtimes sometimes, to do Choir and Kapa Haka. She was really good, especially in the Choir where she was belting out the songs very loudly!
And then Friday night was Uke festival at the Skate Park. Lots of different schools from Hawke's Bay were in attendance, it was just a fun night where they had a band play and we all sung/played along with the songs the kids have been practising all year. We had a great time, though at one stage Beth had a huge meltdown because of some dance move Sarah did wrong etc etc. Had to talk her down off a ledge before she'd go and rejoin her group. Oh and we lost Theo for 5 minutes, turns out he'd dropped his M&M's container down behind a bit where we couldn't see him. It was quite stressful and worrying, I mean we knew he couldn't have gone very far, but still we couldn't find him. Argh! Anyway aside from those two minor incidents, we had a great time.
Yesterday was the Danniverke Christmas party, this year they came down to Napier and we had a lovely Christmas lunch up at Holly and Adrian's. Beth spent 2 hours in the pool, Theo spent 2 hours saying "I can't believe I got this Rock Hopper", a remote control car that he was given as his present. We had a great old time, up until I rubbed my new shirt (not yet washed) into eyes because they were itchy. After that, man oh man. It was like I'd rubbed chilli in my eyes, they just stung so, so badly. I tried flushing with water, having a shower, nothing really helped. So we packed up and left, and we stopped by the Chemist where I got some eye flush stuff. It didn't fix the problem, but it certainly helped, I flushed them 5-10 times each. Eventually the pain mostly subsided and I could keep my eyes open. I have no idea what that shirt is/was coated in, but far out I've learnt my lesson about rubbing an unwashed new piece of clothing into my eyes: Never, ever do it. Ouch.
Garden is going well, lots of strawberries this year. The pool is nice and blue, I went and spent $300 or so on chemicals a couple of weeks ago. I hate to spend so much, but it'll last us for his summer. Though sadly Theo has gotten very "anti pool" which we don't really understand, he's happy to go to swimming lessons, but doesn't want to get in otherwise. Yesterday Beth was in Holly and Adrian's pool for 2 hours, Theo didn't show the slightest hint of wanting to get in. Though to be fair he was so super excited about his Rock Hopper, so I can't blame him. Still I hope he gets over it and joins us a bit more in our pool.
Biscuit is good, now he's ball-less. I mean not that it's made a difference, he's still as boisterous as ever, crazy and full of energy. But yea, he's good, I took him for a 5km run yesterday and he kept up for the first 4km but by the 5th was just walking quickly. As Sarah pointed out, because he runs in front and behind and in front and behind, he probably does more like 8-9km! It's great that I can easily take him on paths around here where he can run off his lead, though I have to shout at him not to chase the ducks. Luckily he listens to the shouting and stops chasing them.
And those are about all the major things I can remember for the last couple of weeks. As always, I'll try to update you more often diary, but I always say that and I never ever do...
Tim