Beth's 5th Birthday / Weekend Away in the Snow

It's Sunday and we're at the Snowy Waters Lodge.  It's a great place, huge with 4 bedrooms.  At the moment Beth and Jacob are sleeping in the end bedroom, Sarah and I are next door, Theo and Abbey are together and then Ben and Di are in the last room.

There's a big TV in the lounge, I've bought all my tech so that I can put the Chromecast on the TV for the kids, share the Wifi etc all that stuff. We left on Thursday at about 12pm, we went and picked the kids up from Kindy and they were both very excited that we were off to Taupo.  We headed through McDonalds to get a lunch then off we drove.  On the way we got stuck behind the most massive truck that was transporting what appeared to be a 100m long bridge part, or something similar.  How something that huge managed to get around some of the tiny bendy bits of the road between Napier and Taupo, I have no idea, but it seemed to manage it.

Eventually we arrived in Taupo, went to a few shops to find some new ski boots for Theo, then headed to our accomodation.  We checked in the and the guy told me a huge story about how the booking computer had crashed while they were taking out booking etc, I was worried that we didn't have a booking but all good, we did.  Sarah had found it online and it was basically a bunch of old wooden cabins with 2 bedrooms each.  We found ours, unpacked the car and headed to Craters of the Moon.  We walked around there for 45 minutes, Theo loving the fact we had a map and could keep shouting out "We're going to Mud Crater!" 32,000 times.  Beth was quite disappointed that it wasn't actually a huge sea of bubbling mud everywhere exactly like the moon, when we eventually found a small pocket of mud that was bubbling she had quite the "Oh! That's it?" look on her face.  I think they enjoyed the walk though and looking at all the steam, but I agree it wasn't quite as bubbling hot mud as we remembered it.  We had an icecream at the end of the walk and headed back to our accommodation.

We got back and got all settled in, Beth and Theo had their dinner and were put to bed.  I went out and got curry for Sarah and I.  The kids were so excited by everything it took them ages to get to sleep, it was about 8:30pm by the time both of them finally gave up and went to sleep.  That would have been fine apart from then at 5:30am they were both WIDE FREAKIN' AWAKE with no signs of going back to sleep, no matter how much I crabbed at them.  Oh well.  After breakfast we checked out and drove to Ohakune, picking up our hired ski toboggans and Sarah who'd forgotten her ski jacket managed to find a $17 jacket!  $17!! It's really nice and warm too, I can't believe it was so cheap. Edit: I stuffed up, Sarah had explained to me it was a rental for $17 and why would you bother to buy one when you can just rent once.  I mixed the two up... So it wasn't $17!

Once we'd gotten everything we needed from there, we headed to Snowy Waters Lodge and checked in.  Sandy was ready to meet us at the door and showed us the accommodations and all the various things we'd need to know.  Not that there was too much, just the Wifi and the marshmellows etc.  And then at 1pm it was time to Feed The Lamb which both Beth and Theo loved doing!  Lucy Lamb is very lovely and friendly, I hope that she loves in a long and happy life and doesn't become Lamb Chops oneday!

After a bit of car trouble (their current car has had airbag issues, so they hired a big 4WD) Ben, Di, Jacob and Abbey arrived and we hung out and chatted for a while, got settled in, Sarah drove into town and bought groceries etc.  Dinner was ribs and sausages, then we had a few drinks some mulled wine.  We hopped in the Spa Pool for 30 mins and then all went to bed, knackered.

When we woke up on Saturday morning it was the PERFECT morning to getting up to the snow.  Sarah had read that the carparks up the mountain fill up really quickly because they sold lots of snow passes this season, so if you wanted a park you had to get up there really early.  We planned to leave at 7:30am and we actually did a pretty good job, getting out the door and on the road at 7:45am.  We took a walkie talkie in each car so we could talk to each other and going up the mountain we all got excited as we saw more snow.  Eventually we got to the mountain and there we still heaps of parks, we got in on level 5 and it goes to level 7 before it's full.  We got out, loaded up and started the walk up the mountain, stopping for a pee and every other little grizzle and nizzle you can imagine.  Eventually we got the top, I went and lined up to buy a pass for the toboggan area and Sarah took the kids to the toilet. 

FINALLY an hour after we got to the moutain we were ready to go on the toboggan area.  It was heaps of fun, you fly down about 250m over a couple of bumps and then get on the magic carpet and it drives you back up to the top.  I took Beth 4 times which she loved, she thought it was the best.  We didn't go for the 5th ride I'd promised her though because at the end of the forth ride I did a bit of bad driving and got some snow/ice down her back, which she hated.  So I went and swapped children and took Theo for 3 rides down. He loved it, but the first two times he got scared right at the end when we had to crash into the snowbank to stop.  The 3rd time I took him I slowed us right down and he thought that was just fantastic.  Overall a real success though, both children thought it was great fun.  In between they made a snowman, threw heaps of snowballs at each other.  Sarah bought these plastic snowball makers which were a huge hit.

After ~3 hours or so up the mountain it was time to head home, via the Chocolate Eclair shop of course.  We come home and because it was such a nice sunny day the kids spent the afternoon outside running around.  They fed the lamb again, Snow (the daughter of Sandy) played with Beth heaps, chasing Lucy Lamb around, playing on the bouncy castle that's here.  Eventually the Snowy Train took us all for a drive around the grounds which the kids loved, we just did some circles/laps around the grounds but the kids thought it was fantastic, driving around the ground, up past the goat etc.

Eventually it was time for bed for the kiddies, us adults got some burgers from Ohakune town and watched Shimmer Lake which wasn't the best movie ever but wasn't the worst either.  As I was showering Beth and putting her to bed I kept telling her "This is the last time you'll shower/eat/sleep being 4!" which she thought was pretty funny.

Sunday morning was Beth's 5th Birthday!  Happy 5th Birthday to Beth!  I got up and made box pancakes for everyone, Sarah made us eggs and beans for breakfast.  Then Beth unwrapped some presents, a lovely jumper from Granny, some colouring pencils, a Unicorn dress.  But apart from that it's been a bit of a miserable day really, it's been raining pretty much the whole time.  Ben and I took the kids for a walk up to the local town and ended up a cafe for a snack, then Di came to get us because it was raining again.  Then I had a snooze with Theo because he was knackered and I was a bit tired too.  I was woken up by being handed a phone with Jeremy on the other end, wishing me a Happy Father's Day.  Theo was conked out too.  Once we got out of bed we had the little Happy Birthday cake for Beth.

Now I'm sitting here on the couch writing my diary while the kids watch Monster's Inc on the TV.

And I'll publish this when we get home, so that people don't know we're away.  Even though I have my full remote-control of the house working, cameras and all!

Tim