Boy oh Boy was it hot yesterday.  Stinking utterly hot, it got up to 30c I think.  Just the perfect day for Beth to have to spend ~6 hours in a hot tin shed doing Cheerleading!  She was very nervous in the morning, not her usual chatty self at all, I guess she wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen and was a bit hesitant becasue of it.  We dropped her off about 10:30am and then Theo, Sarah and I went and had brunch down at East Pier then went for a walk around Ahuriri before giving up due to the heat and going back home.  Oh we saw Jan, one of carers from Kindy who amazingly remembered both Beth and Theo's name.  Despite Theo loving her at Kindy he didn't really seem to remember her very well when he saw her.  Still as Sarah pointed out that was...

Beth had her two top back teeth out yesterday.  The whole thing went really smoothly, about 10:30am we left here and went up to Taradale to do a little bit of shopping, I drove back to pick up Charlie who'd been left behind.  Up in Taradale Beth and Sarah bumped into Grandma who was buying a present for Beth.  It's a very cute hedgehog toy thing that can fold in on itself, it's got a bright Red nose and has therefore been named Cherry.  We all went to the library and hung out until 11:30 when I dropped them both of at the little surgical theatre.  About 1pm Sarah told me that Beth had been wheeled in for her surgery.  Then about 2:30 got the message she was out and all done and a couple of messages from Beth using Sarah's phone.  She was much better than I thought she'd...

Trying to get some progress on the pool.  It's damn slow going, I rang the council yesterday to say "We still can't get in contact with the Maori group we need to get in contact with, what do we do now?"  Sarah also had a friendly chat to her friend Nicola, who also messaged the person we need to talk with.  I guess having a lawyer message you helps you to pull your farking finger out, because I got a message from her last night telling me to call her today.  I've tried that and she's back to not answering, but hey.  I'll try again, at least we might have some chance of getting some progress.

My 21km has been cancelled.  Sorry, not cancelled, just postponed 6 months. So that basically means 2 months to slack off and get fat again, then 4 months to train.  That's probably not how...

Last week both Sarah and I took 4 days off to spend with the kids. We had originally planned to meet up with Ben and Di in Hamilton, but given Covid levels and that fact that Hamilton's currently in Level 3, that was a no go.  So instead we just hung out at home and did stuff with the kids.

We went up to the local craft store and bought some things for the kids to do.  Mostly things made with plaster they could paint etc.  Theo wanted to paint a pumpkin, so did Beth.  I also suggested to Theo to buy a little dinosaur scene and he could paint that, but he didn't seem very interested.  In the end I talked him into the Dinosaur thing.  Over the course of the next few days, he got great entertainment and enjoyment out of it!  It came with a 16 step...

Theo lost another tooth on Sunday.  He bit into an Apple on Saturday evening and it came loose and started bleeding, he spent all Saturday night with his finger in his mouth wiggling it and then complaining again when it'd bleed.  After wiggling it and pestering it even more on Sunday it finally came loose and popped out.  The tooth fairy was on time this time and gave him $2.50 for his tooth, he was very interested in discussing the various reasons the tooth fairy must have given him 2 coins instead of one.  Was it because the tooth was extra clean? Was it because of al the grief and bleeding this tooth has caused him?  Something else?  I guess we'll never know.  Oh yes this is a good time to point out that Beth tends to read over my shoulder all the time when I'm typing on my laptop...

Theo came home on Friday and told us they'd had to write their own version of Jack and the Beanstalk at school.  He told us all the kids had laughed at his version because his had a funny name in it.  I thought at first it was a sad "All the kids had laughed" but soon realised he had a grin on his face when he was telling us about it.  Turns out he'd put a fairy into his story, but the fairy's name was Barry.  He knew it was funny just by the way he told us and yea, both Sarah and I were howling with laughter.  He was pretty pleased with himself.

Not a real lot has been happening otherwise since my last update.  Swimming was back on on Saturday, though with all sorts of new rules.  Enter this door, exit that.  Changing rooms closed except for toilet...

Last Thursday was Beth's 8th Birthday, held in Lockdown Level 3.  She was lucky that it was the second day of Level 3, so at least we were able to order some Takeaways for her dinner that night (she really wanted Chicken Satay Skewers).

She had a good birthday morning I think, she was up super early (as expected) but didn't complain when I said she had to wait until everyone was up until we could do presents.  I cooked pancakes for her and both children ate those happily, glad for the excitement of having pancakes on a day that wasn't the weekend.  Eventually everyone was awake so Beth got to start unwrapping her presents.  This year she got:

• Tie Dye Kit from Granny
• Book from Granny
• Unicorn Books from Pa
• Inflatable Cheerleading Mat - We gave this to her early because of Lockdown so she could practise Cheerleading on...

It's Friday morning, 6:25am and of course Beth's already awake.  The girl just doesn't sleep, or at least, does not sleep in.  Unless it's an actual School Day and I need them to get up.  Then all bets are off.  Anyway, it's Day Mumble of Lockdown Number 2.  Or 3 or whatever lockdown number it is.  I had my Vaccination at 3pm yesterday.  At 3:35pm Sarah said to me "Aren't you supposed to be having your Vaccine today?"  Oh fuck, yes, yes I am.  Jumped in the car and flew out to the Drive Thru Vaccination clinic.  Huge line of cars, turns out the booking system is just a front for nothing really, they don't check you have a booking when you get there.  They sure didn't care I was 40 minutes late.  So yea, there were heaps of other people in front of me, took about 2 hours to...

Well here we are again in lockdown.  Quite annoying I have to say, but I can't complain because there are plenty of people who can't work at all while I am perfectly capable of working from home.  And for Sarah it's not that much different except there are 3 extra people to annoy her during the day instead of just the people that she works with.  So anyway, wind it back a bit, what's been happening since my last update?

One of the LED lights in the kitchen blew.  That's annoying I thought, those things are supposed to last for years, that's why we got them put in when we redid the kitchen.  So I pulled it out and checked it, hang on, it's not getting any voltage at all.  No wonder it isn't working.  Turns out there's a little LED driver box, which basically converts 240V AC to ~24v...