Theo was really sad this morning when he woke up.  Just really quiet, not himself.  I sat him down in the pantry and gave him a big cuddle and asked him what was wrong.  He whispered some stuff I couldn't understand, so I gave him another big cuddle and asked him to explain again what was the matter.  In the end he told me: "I had a dream that I had some things I really liked, but, when I woke up, I don't really have those things".  I didn't ask him what those things were, probably bayblades or a bakugan.

We had his first school report/interview yesterday, his teacher Lisa Anderson said that he was doing really like, soaking everything up like a sponge and really enjoying school.  He's active in the class, his writing is coming along well (we didn't realise he was writing little sentences, she showed us...

One thing I forgot to mention in my last diary update is the Ant Water we've been drinking.  Ant water, you say?  Yea so the water in the house had been funny for a few days, then Sarah mentioned to me "Oh hey there's black stuff coming out of the taps".  I tested it when I got home and sure enough she was right.  I figured it was silt or something, but when I got out there on the weekend to have a look in the water tank I saw what it was - ants in the water.  Farking hundreds and thousands of them, all clumped together like little ant rafts.  I have no farking idea why ants were forming ant rants.  They were coming up the overflow pipe though, which over time had stopped being an inch off the ground as the lawnmower people piled up grass around it. ...

As always, time gets away from me and before I know it's months later and I haven't updated my diary!

Well the big event of course is that Bethany Bongles turned 7!  She's getting so grown up now, the way she talks back to us, her strong held opinions on things.  The fact that getting her to eat dinner ever night is now an actual chore that neither Sarah nor I really look forward to.  There's an ever growing list of things that she doesn't like and doesn't want to eat.

She had all her friends come over for a Birthday Party last weekend, Emma, Gemma, Gwen, Layla and Ruby.  They had a pizza party, ran around like mad things on the trampoline, painted their own mugs that Sarah then baked in the oven to keep the picture on.  Theo wasn't too impressed that he was basically ignored, but as...

I was 44 on Saturday! Woo, gettin' old now.  I got a Tilt Hydrometer which is very cool and makes it very easy to know what stage of fermentation a brew is at without having to extract wort.  Which is pretty much a waste really, you can extract it and then put it back into the brew but then you introduce oxygen etc.  The tilt removes all that hassle, people rave about how easy they are to use, so I'm glad I got one!  I also got some sweet bike/running gears, a really really nice light running jacket.  It's so light yet it keeps the wind of perfectly, I went for a run in the freezing cold this morning and it was perfect.  I also got some gloves, which I've needed for ages I think, I'm glad I got some, and some pants for running too.  The pants are also...

Quite a bit has happened since last time I better try to remember everything!  The pool work has begun, we've been looking at designs and going back and forth etc etc.  I think we've decided on what we're going to do, the pool people are coming on Saturday (v nice of them) to talk us through the various options etc.  But yes, that's meant the Feijoa tree and the big Walnut tree out the back have had to come down.  I'm a bit sad about both really, the Walnut tree was a lovely tree but it's never recovered properly from when they dug a trench out there to give power to the water pump.  The last 3 years it's had ~10% of the leaves it should have, most branches were bare and lots of bits of wood would just fall down, and I'd examine it and it was just rotten. ...

Took Friday off and flew down to Wellington with Sarah, Holly and Adrian.  Grandma and Grandad offered (or were nicely told?) to look after the children for the weekend, which these days is a bit more involved as Theo has to go to Soccer.  Well doesn't HAVE to I suppose but you know what I mean.  Or given I am the only one that looks at this diary these days, I know what I mean.  I hope.  Right right sorry where was I?  Oh yes so we flew down to Wellington.  Such a nice day here and a lovely day there too.  It was nice getting a chance to drop the kids off to school and for Theo to "show me" his room and all that stuff.  Once dropped off Holly and Adrian picked us up and we went to the airport, had a beer (it wasn't even 9am, I...

So Monday was of course Theodore's first day at School!  He wasn't nervous or anything, he was a champion.  We just walked him and he met his teacher, put down his drink bottle and got stuck in to playing with the cars.  We waved him goodbye that was that.  It's hard to believe it was two and a bit years ago we were waving Beth off on her first day of school.

Theo seemed to have just a good a day as Beth did on her first day, same thing, when I got home he was very exhausted, but happy.  When it was bed time we read his little reader book "I am playing, I am eating" etc.

Tuesday night after his dinner he said to me he was still hungry, so I told him sure sure I'll get you a banana in a few minutes.  20 minutes went...

I've been raining for the last 5 days pretty much, quite boring.

Thursday was of course Theo's last day at Kindy!  He had his celebration in the morning (The Earth Goes Round The Sun, The Earth Goes Round The Sun, Fa La La Laaa La Laaaa The Earth Goes Round The Sun) which was really nice.  I think some of the teachers, especially Sarah, are actually sad to see him leave.  But school's calling!

Saturday was very wet and miserable, so we didn't really do much at all.  Soccer was called off.  The biggest thing was I took the kids for a walk up to the dairy and back, let them splash around in the puddles etc.  We did a little bit of drone flying in the afternoon but it was so windy (and gusty) that was it quite hard to control, no matter where you pointed it, it couldn't...