What a mental week it's been.  I was walking the dog on Sunday afternoon when I got a text from Sarah saying "Have you seen the news from the Cheerleading Gym?" - I thought shit I wonder what it is.  Since the new cheerleading gym owner Carol's taken over it's been so much better, we've had timely communications, when we get to cheer the gym has been open instead of sometimes having to wait around outside.  Basically things have been great.  So I was wondering what it might be, maybe the prices have gone up an insane amount or something.
No.  Carol's daughter Ashia who was 15 had passed away.  She had meningitis - she was at the cheer gym on Friday night training and passed away sometime I think on Sunday.  Absolutely fucking insane.  I just can't fathom it.  It's so, so heartbreaking.  When we went to the prize...

The kids went back to school a few days ago.  Wednesday, of all days.  Quite an odd day to go back.  And then we've all got next Tuesday off because it's a public holiday.  Bizzare.  

Last Saturday I did ParkRun again, that was my 4th in a row I think.  Or 3rd, I'm not sure.  Then it was time for swimming, through I zipped down to the Pool Shop with Theo first of all, then up to swimming.  When he was done, rushed home dropped him off and collected Beth to take her.  Beth's new teacher was great, I'm not sure what she said to her to encourage her to do a big dive off the block but she did and she did it amazingly.

The rest of Saturday I did fair bit of garden work, mowing, line trimming down the back.  I had to take my line...

The last few days - so hot.  I'm sure I sound like a broken record saying this again over and over, but damn.  It's just been so hot and sticky and uncomfortable.  Though while Mum was here she thought our complaining about it was hilarious, she's been in Queensland heat and is used to it.  We'd go to sleep each night with the aircon blasting because of how hot it gets upstairs.  She'd open up the sliding door and be happy.  She's crazy.

Friday night I left work at 4pm and fought with Uber for an hour before I got a regular taxi into town about 5pm.  Meet up with Mike, Rachael, Tobbe and a few other people I know from Prophecy days (even though they're not called that anymore) for a few Tigermilks.  Then Sarah swung by after finishing up at her boss' bucks night (post wedding celebration thing...

When I started this diary entry it was the Friday of the first week back at work.  Sadness.  I don't want to be back at work, it's been a perfect week of sun sun sun, no rain.  It's been so hot at night at home, even with the fan on it's hot and sweaty and disgusting.  At least the pool is nice, I've been in a few times after work with the kids, it's usually about 27-28c which is nice.
Last week while Sarah and I have been working Mum's been looking after the kids.  She comes over each morning at about 8am with Maple, who goes out the back to play with Biscuit and have a great old time, then I head off to work.  I even rode to work a few times which has been nice - I've gotten way to fat since I stopped riding all the...

It's January the 6th today and of course that means it's Kermot's birthday! Happy Birthday Kermot!  I took Kermot a bag of Chocolate Fish (I assume Frogs like fish?) after Parkrun this morning and we got some photos with Kermot for his birthday. 

Anyway, let's wind back to Thursday morning, as the day before Sarah had to go to work.  I got the kids up and by 8:45am we were at the Raspberry farm picking Raspberries in the hot sun!  We were lucky with our timing, there wasn't very many people (I guess lots back at work etc) and there were still a lot of Raspberries to pick, so off we went.   We managed to get a punnet collected which wasn't too bad, the kids actually really enjoyed it too which was nice.  So that was a bit of fun.  After that we went for a walk up Dobel...

Sarah's back at work today, I've still got a few days until I go back (next Monday).  She woke me up last night at ?midnight? to tell me about the Japanese plane crash, that was bonkers.  Only 5 people died though, based on the images Sarah was showing me last night I figured as I drifted back off to sleep that everyone on the big plane had died too but thankfully that's not the case.

Theo's been building amazing structures with his Jenga set, but he really wanted more Jenga to build more amazing things.  This morning Sarah found someone on Facebook Marketplace selling a Jenga for $10 so once we'd had our breakfast the three of us drove over there in Puffy to buy it.  He was also offered a Uno stacker thing for $5 but after careful deliberation he decided he didn't want that, it was plastic.  It...

Thursday last week I'd given up any hope of my "purchased first thing on Monday, guaranteed to be under the tree" gifts from MightyApe arriving.  The order had been placed and then stuck at "waiting to be shipped" for two days.   Wednesday night I got a shipping confirmation though and amazingly when I got to work first thing on Thursday my delivery was there!  Quite amazing, given how busy I knew it'd be that time of year I'd given up any hope at all of seeing the few things I'd ordered.

Friday was the last day of work and it was pretty cruisy really.  I biked in because I knew we'd be having a decent ol' session at lunchtime and I wanted to be able to just zip back home easily.   We went over to the Thirsty about 12pm and this time I really pushed the boat out...

Mum was due to arrive on Sunday, but due to a technical hitch (She told me the wrong day) she arrived on Monday instead.  All good no worries, I got the kids to make her a banner while I was working upstairs.  I'd also misunderstood her arrival time, but she got on a 1 hour earlier flight which was handy because it lined up with the time I thought she was arriving at.  So the kids and I were at the Airport to meet her a banner they'd made, and it was lovely to see her again.  We knew her bag hadn't made it to her in Auckland International terminal, but there was a small hope it might be on the Napier baggage caurosel. Alas, we waited until everyone else had collected their bag and the machine was going around empty with no new bags being added.  Sadness!  We drove...

Christmas rapidly approaches.  My workmate is leaving to go to Canada tomorrow, he'll be dropping his dog off at ours tomorrow so we can look after her until Mum arrives here a few days later and the dog will go back to the house she's from which is the one that Mum's housesitting at.  Second to last day of school for the kids too, they have their cushion concert tonight with prizegiving and all that sort of stuff.  It was Beth's Fun Day yesterday and it's Theo's Fun Day today.

Monday was Theo's Karate grading for his Brown Belt.  I encouraged him a lot the week prior to do as many situps, pressups and pushups as possible because he's now the highest in his class and therefore has to do the most.  All the other kids that were at his level have dropped out, so he's got to do 2...