Saturday morning I took the kids up to Tennis and then over to swimming. Both did pretty well, the only problem at Tennis was I realised I'd forgotten the swim bags so had to zip home to get them. But thankfully no one bashed their head or hurt themselves while I was away doing that. Once swimming was over we zipped home to make sure Beth was all super packed up, then we drove to the Airport and waited around for Sarah and Beth's boarding call to fly to Auckland for the Spring Carnival! This is what Beth's been practising for for a number of weeks now and what the display that was put on for us last weekend was all about. Eventually it was boarding time so we gave them a big kiss and a cuddle and off they went.
Theo and I then went into town to buy him some new Jandels, then we went to Timezone for an hour of fun. Then we went to Vinci's for a slice of Pizza before getting a little look through The Rabbit Room art gallery which is right in the same courtyard as Vinci's Pizza. Then we filled LRG (Lurge) up with Petrol, went to Mitre10 for some Pool Salt and then Theo "helped me" at the Supermarket.
Saturday night was movie night, I had a couple of cans of beer I'd purchased at Rouge Hop and Theo watched a movie that was a litte bit scary (but not really) so we sat up on the couch and snuggled under Big Bae and watched it together.
Sunday morning I was full of nerves for Beth's Cheerleading. But I put that to the back of my mind and Theo and I rode up on our bikes o the Taradale School Fete - I was a lovely sunny day so it seemed silly to drive to then have to faff around and find a park ages away anyway. I say ages away, it'd be in a 5 minute walk in Napier, maximum. We had a good time at the Fete, we got a bite to eat, then looked at the Greendale Pool display (Theo was convienced they were secretly serving up food in there, they weren't), then he got some Candy Floss. Then we went and shot some paintballs at the Target (my workmate Dan was operating the paintball) and I won a prize of a little mini Helicoper that flies around uncontrolled. Then Theo wanted a couple of goes on the massive big bouncy castle slide thing. During this time Sarah had texted me to say that Beth was having another major panic attack, she wanted to come home etc, didn't want to do it. She'd already had a major panic on the plane flying up to Auckland. Sarah worked for an hour or so along with one of Beth's friends to help calm her down.
Theo and I rode home and put the Cheerleading on the TV. Eventually after waiting a while it was time for The Cosmics to take to the stage. I was so worried for Beth that she might fall over or have trouble with some of her routine out the front, like she'd had the week before at the showcase. But she aced it she did it so perfectly! I was screamcheering, Theo was screamcheering. Though I think I was a bit lounder because Theo complained I hurt his ear from yelling so loudly. But she was so great, their whole routine was nearly flawless. In the end they came 3rd which is excellent, they did such a great job. Here's the comments from her coach:
COSMICS - 3rd ZERO deductions and a total score of 58.5 out of a possible 60 - ONLY .4 away from 1st place so a super close comp
Me being the Uber Hacker I am managed to figure out the URL of the live stream and download the whole thing, so I managed to extract Beth's performance which you can watch right here.
I felt so much better after watching it - I could mentally relax. As I suspect could Sarah, because it was a LOT more mental up there. The whole competition floor was dark, very loud music, you could only move around during the 30-40 second break between performances etc. It sounded like a pretty intense event!
The rest of Sunday we just hung out, Theo played with his newly one Micro Helicopter. I did some chores, then Eddie and his Brother in Law came over to watch how to brew beer with the Williams Warn. They tried the IPA I made and while I was a bit nervous to introduce it and downplayed it a lot, they actually both really enjoyed it (though they could tell how strong it was) so I was quite chuffed with that. Anyway I hope I made a sale there, that'll me $150 in the ol' rewards account which will make me a couple of nice brews for free!
Monday I dropped Theo off at School in the car (Luxury) with the bike on the back of the car and drove into work. At 11:45am I headed back to school to see the Cross Country kick off at 12:15pm. Theo... did a good job. He came in the top ten! Sadly, the last 10. But still running has never been his thing and this year the Year 2s had to do two laps which was a big ask for them. At least I went to cheer him on, that's the main thing, Sarah had been to Beth's the week before (Beth came 6th of 7th, I can't remember which).
Then after that was done it was straight to the Airport to pick up the Cheerleader and her mother! They then dropped me back at work, before realising that we have a Karate Grading for Theo that Monday night because the next Monday night when it would usually be has been converted into the Queens Deathday Holiday. I was at work so I didn't get to see the grading, but Sarah said he did a really good job, struggled a bit towards the end especially because he'd also done a cross country run earlier that day! But he managed to grade, he's now a Blue Belt with a Yellow Tip! One more term and if he keeps it up he'll be a Yellow Belt! Go Theo!
On Friday night I'd driven down to pickup Beth from Cheerleading. She jumped in, I pressed the Start button on the car and it made a lot of funny noises, turning the starter over really fast while it just went "Tick tick tick tick". I tried a bunch more times but it didn't work, so we called an Uber and it took us home instead. Once we'd had dinner I rode my trusty bike back down to cheerleading, parked it and waiting for the AA to arrive. All LRG needed was a jumpstart and we were away. I took LRG home and cracked out the battery charger. I think what'd happened was I was about 15-20 mintue early to collect Beth, so I just parked the car up and I think I left the headlines on. Because I never got out of the car it never BEEEEEEEEPed at me. So that stuffed the battery. Anyway after charging LRG's battery he/she seems to be going fine. I was worried though we'd jump in the car to take Beth and Sarah to the airport and he wouldn't start, but the all night battery charge seems to have sorted him out and we haven't any problems since.
Peter and Mary arrived home yesterday from their big overseas trip. I haven't seen them yet, but Sarah and the kids went around there last night to say hi (after picking them up from the Airport) The kids got given a couple of Harry Potter toys that they've been hanging out for.
Anyway that's about all the news from the last week I think! It's been a busy sports week for the Harman Childrens.
Oh yes here's a poem Beth wrote one night for Shrimpy.
Tim
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