Independence Wrap Up

While staring at the moon and admiring the colorful sky on my walk back to camp I evidentially startled a bird in the tree above me. There was a great flapping of wings and then the unmistakable sound of a bird bonking into a parked car followed by more flapping (so much flapping!) and finally the bird came to rest in the same spot it was in when the whole kerfuffle started. I knew when I heard it hit the car it could only be a kereru, the world's fattest bird*. There were two of them, actually. I'm glad they survived the incident with the parked car.

This is our new brother husband burning a trashy novel in order to get the fire working.

P will be famous across the land for her fairy dwellings:

While I miss corn on the cob, picnics on blankets (green green grass is wet grass) and other 4th festivities, this was a great way to celebrate our Independence.

*This is strictly my opinion.

Independence Day, a study of light.

To round out the day I went for a sunset walk over to the hereford paddock. I can't think of a better way to end the day, really, than to spend it with some hoofstock.

A lovely sunset picture. Too bad blogger makes all my pictures so blurry.



Here are the lovely lassies I went to visit. I'm not sure how it will look on your monitor, but on my monitor this picture looks like I photoshopped in some cartoon cows and painted the sky pink. For the record, I did not. This is really what it looked like.

While clambering over a fence to chat with the girls, I slipped and fell in the mud. How embarrassing. Now I have bruises to match the sky in these pictures.

I was quite excited about the mist rising off this stream.

Surely you recognize this landscape from the start of my sunset walk.
This was the picture I was taking when I was nearly attacked by a kereru, but that story will have to wait for the next installment.

Indepence, Part 2, but in random order.

After waking up early to watch the sun rise while listening to the tuis, my new sister wife, J and I took the kids to the beach.



The rain stopped and eventually the sun came out as we watched our children play in the sea caves and run on the beach. I'm certain ours were the worlds happiest children for at least twelve solid minutes, and it doesn't get much better than that.

This picture pretty much sums of New Zealand for me:

Surprisingly green grass, fluffy white sheep, and beaches.

See what I mean about the green? I didn't alter this photo - the grass truly is greener over here. Those birds are oyster catchers, and I think they are darling.

Independence, Part 1

We are now a family of 7. We've added two boys, N and I, and their parents, D and J. To celebrate their arrival we booked the bach (beach cottage) at Tawharanui.

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning:

We watched the sun rise while listening to the tuis.

This is the bach we stayed in. It sleeps 6, has a full kitchen with dishes and cookware and a full bathroom. Pretty comfortable!

This is the beach at the bach.

And this is the art at the public toilet in Matakana. Beauty everywhere you look.

I'll be posting more photos from our Independence Day weekend soon!

Wacky Hair Day and Mufti!

P is again off to horse camp for the holidays, lucky girl! To celebrate the end of the term they had Wacky Hair Day and Mufti ('muff-tee'). Mufti is a kiwi tradition wherein the kids are allowed to forgo their uniforms for the day if they bring a gold coin donation (1 or 2 dollars). The money is then given away to a children's charity. Mufti is a much celebrated day for P and she was thrilled that it coincided with Wacky Hair Day.

For most kids and parents there was a lot of ratting and aerosol hair products involved. Fortunately P chose to go for plaits (braids) with wool (yarn - no natural fibers could be found in that yarn!) instead. It took 90 minutes to get the braids in, but she won 5th place for wackiest hair school wide.