It's Christmas eve and I'm sitting on the deck at Lake Tarawera.  Holly, Adrian, Jojo and Isla are out on their new boat again, Beth's on her bunk watching the iPad, Sarah's fast asleep on the couch and Theo is watching Netflix in the other room.  The weather has sadly been a bit of a pain in the butt since we arrived yesterday.  It'll be cloudly and start raining, then that'll clear up for 30 minutes and the sun comes screaming out, so you start to plan to do something and a huge black cloud will come back over and it'll piss with rain again.  Hopefully Christmas Day tomorrow will be much better, it's due to be sunny all day with no rain.  Not that the rain has really stopped us that much, we went out on the boat early this morning even though it was miserable for the first...

Theo had his operation on Saturday.  I'd been stressing about it for probably the month leading up to it, I mean I know it was such as simple basic thing but the thought of putting the little fella under aesthetic freaked me right out.  It doesn't seem right, he's so little!  Anyway it all went fine, of course.

Saturday morning the time finally came, Theo got up and I just avoided giving him breakfast without saying anything.  He didn't notice either, which is sort of normal for the weekend, usually I'm asking them 62 times to sit down and eat something, so I guess they were both enjoying not being harassed to eat.  Theo's iPad was ready to be picked up from the shop for its replacement (it's Peter old iPad Air and it needed a new battery) so I took him into town to pick up with its new...

Beth had two birthday parties on the weekend, busy little chicken.  Saturday afternoon was Daisy's and then Sunday after was Ruby's birthday party.  She had a great time at both by all accounts.  She certainly was utterly exhausted both Saturday and Sunday night.

The ditch digging is slow progress, Adrian is going to get a couple of people to help me.  It's such a PITA, every time I dig down below about 400mm it just fills up with water.  I'm not actually sure if it'll even be possible to get it dug properly before Friday, because it won't f**king stop raining in Napier.  I don't remember it being like this for ages, every day it's wet and/or miserable.  Bitch moan complain.  While I was digging on Friday in the water, I accidentally dug up Tui.  Sorry puss-puss.  I buried her against the fenceline and as I was digging I pulled...

So let's wind back to Friday night two weeks ago. Friday the 13th in fact, though nothing bad happened.  We had tickets to the Dumplings Night at Craggy range so we went to that, it was a nice evening.  The food was really good, lots of little dumplings to feast on.

Saturday was Tennis as usual in the morning, then we went to the Munn Christmas party this year hosted at Peter and Mary's.  It was thankfully a perfectly sunny day, just great for the kids to get in the pool and splash around.  They had a great time, lots of nice presents received from the everyone.  Theo got a skateboard, some spiderman walkie-talkies and Beth got a Doll that she's called Watermelon.

Sunday I think we just did gardening and stuff around the house - I can't really recall.  Monday I had off to look after the kids because...

We took the kids to the speedway on Saturday night.  We had Joseph with us too because we were looking after him for the night.  We've heard the speedway from our house hundreds of times, but never actually been.  The main reason for going was to see the fireworks display, it was firecracker night during the week but we don't tend to do it anymore because they're so expensive and they're usually so disappointing when you let them off.  Much better to go and see a professional display.

The speedway was pretty awesome, packed with people because it turns out everyone has the bright idea of taking their kids to see the speedway/fireworks display.  We got in and Nicola and Steve had a spot for us, so we went and sat with them on the bank.  Once it kicked off, it was heaps of fun. The kids actually really enjoyed...

It was Halloween on Saturday night and the kids had a great time!  During the week Sarah had helped them make Bats from old toilet rolls and spooky lanterns from old milk bottles.  Beth had a Ghost sheet and Granny had sent some presents over during the week, one of which was a skeleton costume for Theo which he loved and was his Halloween costume.  About 4:30pm the first few trick or treaters starting showing up, I guess you have to get in early these day to ensure you get treats?  After that it was a steady stream of children visiting, we'd put ballons on the letterbox with spooky faces so that people knew we were part of it.  And far out there were so many people, I had to go out again about 5:30pm to get more candy, that's how busy it was!  Once I got back and the kids...

Finally got the Digger guy to turn up on Friday.  He's been really hard to pin down to coming over and actually doing the work - I'd have usually given up long before and gotten someone else, but we had the voucher we won back at Casino Night (the same night I caught Chicken Pox) to use, so I had to keep pestering him.  Anyway he turned up and got halfway through removing the walnut stump before he also managed to dig up the power running between the house and the pump.  Two things though: The pump still works, so the cable wasn't actually broken and two, it wasn't his fault.  It's those dodgy bastards that did a lot of the Electrical work when we got the kitchen renovation done.  We're always finding stuff that's broken/doesn't work or is downright dangerous.  The digger guy said how high the cable was...

Theo's first tooth popped out on Friday night, approx 2 hours after we landed in Auckland and he was still in Napier at Holly and Adrians!  Argh.  Oh well, we weren't there but we got to see a photo of it pretty quickly.

So yes, what's been happening... Well last weekend (3rd and 4th of October) was my 15 KM Trail Run around Cape Kidnappers.  It was so amazing, the views were stunning, the weather was perfect.  It was hard going, I started out running but soon as I started to hit the hills I had to mostly walk up them, or at least run very slowly!  I managed to do the 15km in a decent time I think, 2 hours and 12 minutes.  Next time I'll train a lot more and maybe try the 32km version, that'll be a real test of the ol' metal.  But yes I am...

It's the first week of school holidays and I'm on leave so I can help look after the grizzlers.  Monday was mostly a day at home, I setup a hammock that Mary gave me a few years ago for my birthday (or maybe Christmas) out the back and the kids had a great time playing in it.  I left it out overnight though and of course f**king Reggie has decided he'll have a go at it and has chewed a few, thankfully tiny, holes in it.  I was so angry with him though, brand new lovely hammock already f**ked.  Grrrrr.  This is the only rescue puppy we're getting, the "novelty" of having him has definitely worn off everyone.

Anyway we had a good day on Monday, we went for a bike ride, I stacked some more wood.  Or was that Sunday?  Maybe that was Sunday, all the days have already...