Had a nice weekend away at Millar Road, specifically Haumoana House.  We had such a great time, we arrived Friday afternoon.  I'd actually had the day off work because I had this really freakin' annoying cough that was hurting and making me feel like utter shit.  So I spent the day mostly resting up, doing a bit of cleaning around the house.  I went to the Dr that morning and he gave me some steroids to help get over the cough.  Sarah won't stop telling me what a drama queen I am about it.  Of course if I hadn't gone then spent all weekend in bed, I'd have been given grief for that too, so I can't win! When I was telling Beth I wasn't feeling very well on Friday morning she make me the most lovely little picture, a duck with rainbow feathers and a huge smile.  I...

So last week, I took the Friday off and we drove up Ohope, stopping on the way in Napier.  It was a really good drive, we a gave Beth a motion sickness pill and she was great the whole way, in fact both of them were great.  They of course got bored towards the end of the trip, especially about 4 hours in, but they did such a good job! No vomiting, no (excessive) grizzling etc.  They're definitely getting old and better at car travel.  Seeing as we don't do very long drives that often, it's really good to see how much they've improved at being able to handle the distance.  I think giving them both their toys really helped too, thanks Shrimpy and BananaBanana.

Once we got to Ohope we found our AirBnB and got settled in.  I took Theo for a quick walk to see if we could...

Quite an amazing way to welcome in October yesterday.  After a lovely, sunny weekend where I had to kick the blankets off at night because it was starting to get too hot, we had a huge black cloud come over the city yesterday afternoon about 4pm and open up.  Thankfully Sarah happened to be in town, so she picked me up and took me home instead of me trying to bike.  Check it out.  The kids didn't quite know what to make of it, Beth was worried that we'd slip/crash or get hit by lightening.

Sarah was out when it struck, our very lovely next door neighbour realised what was about to happen and rushed over to put Biscuit in the beershed so that he wouldn't be too scared/run off when the massive lightening and thunderstorm hit.  It's very handy having a two way doorbell where you can talk...

Well Theo's Chickenpox didn't turn out to be too bad.  Yes, he had Chickenpox but it really didn't affect him, mostly some small spots.  He was worried the blisters were going to be like when he forgot to put socks on and run around in his gumboots all day, he had very sore blisters that popped.  Once Sarah had explained it wasn't going to be those kind of blisters, he calmed down.

What else happened last week... Not a real lot that I can think of.  Theo's sunflowers are out in the garden, one of them has died for reasons I don't understand, but the other seems to be doing OK.  The strawberries we planted last weekend are growing nicely too.

It was the last week of school for Beth last week, so two weeks of school holidays.  Today she's at her friend Emma's house, tomorrow Emma's coming to ours. ...

It looks like Theodore James has Chickenpox.  Yes, the same Theodore James who I took up to get vaccinated against it ~8 months ago.  We did know that there was only a 94% coverage, whatever exactly that means.  Anyway he had a big werid spot on his face on Thursday night/Friday morning, but we didn't think anything of it.  Yesterday after his bath we noticed a lot more, very little spots on him.  This morning there wasn't any more spots, but they ones he does have look like Chickenpox.  Sarah's kept him home for the day and is going to take him up to the Dr's I think to confirm if it is/isn't Chickenpox.  If it is it'll mean a week off kindy.

Went to HopCon2 on Saturday afternoon.  It was such a great afternoon!  I stuck to the "tasting" size of 150ml, so I got through about ~15 different...

Now poor Sarah has been sick.  She was really crook on Monday and Tuesday, she's better today though.  Hope it's not Chickenpox!! It's possible, though unlikely, to get Chickenpox twice in your life.

Got the battery in my Pixel replaced yesterday.  Only $165, a real bargain.  I thought I'd have to pay for a replacement screen as well, but he was really careful and didn't need to put a new one in.  The only problem with the replacement is the front camera now has some shit in it, so front camera video is very grainy and washed out.  Still, I can use my phone without it powering off, so that's good!

Home time.

Tim

Well, what a shit week last week was!  I started feeling really shitty on Saturday afternoon, just really tired and yucky.  Saturday night I was all hot and cold, shivery and just really not at all happy.  Sunday the same, we didn't do anything at all because I just felt terrible.  Poor kids.  Monday morning when I woke up I noticed a strange raised blister on my arm.  I didn't think too much of it, until I showed Sarah.  "That's a Pox!" she said!  I didn't think I could possibly have Chickenpox, but reading the symptoms a bit more it did start to sound a bit like that.  So I went up to the Dr's, who quickly moved me into my own special room when I said to the receptionist that I thought I probably had chickenpox.

Sure enough a quick discussion with the Nurse and then the Dr, it...