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Kia Ora!

It's swimming season in New Zealand. I'd like to say I envy the snowfall you Vancouverites recieved . . . I envy your snowfall :(

Last weekend we went out for a late birthday lunch at Botony Downs Shopping Centre. It's huge and I didn't look at a single shop. Patrick did though. He went to Electronics Boutique and bought the latest edition of Warcraft. It took some doing to get it onto the computer, but it finally happened. He's online and in character. We tried to call Alfredo and Melizza to see what they were up to, but they aren't feeling well. We went to St Lukes (the mall) to pick up a few necessities like a light blanket since it's so freakin hot out lately. After the mall, we decided to explore a new sight.

This sign is at Muriwai, but it applies to Bethel's Beach as well. Bethel's has a different name, but most people I've met still refer to it as Bethel's Beach.

As you can see, most people do explore the water between the two flags. The flags are yellow and red. The lifeguard house is way up above the flags so the lifeguards get a good view. The water was pretty cold.

I don't know if you can make them out, but there are two children in the water coming in off of that wave. That area is no where near the two flags. The children laughed and ran out pretty far and then were pushed back in on that wave. They were having a blast.

I'm wading in some pretty warm water, but I'd scalded my bare feet on the hot black sand. Patrick had sensibly put his sandals back on, I thought I could make it, but it was pretty hot.

As you can see, Patrick's the big beach buff he's always been. Look at how happy he is!

That's a pretty cool spot there across the water eh?

We didnt' spend very long at Bethel's. Just long enough to check it out, get hot, and it was cloudy the entire time we were there. When we decided to leave, the sun came out again. Muriwai isn't all that far from Bethel's on the map, but it turns out there was a classics hot rod show on and we got stuck in that traffic. At least we got to check out some pretty cool cars on the way. I guess people ship in old mustangs because we saw a lot of left side steering wheels that day.

If you can see them, there are Muriwai Beach's two yellow and red flags and the lifeguard house and the people swimming in between the flags. Someone's boat flipped over sometime that weekend, and two people got seriously hurt. I sort of briefly heard something about it on the news as I was flipping channels.

We checked out the hole in the rock again, and this time got a fabulous shot or two of a wave crashing through it - this time with a couple crazy coots out there!

There weren't any fishermen out on the rocks either . . . because they aren't nuts like these two guys!

All of the leaves along the gannet path were munched and rotten looking - and I suppose it's all due to little guys like this one! There were tiny little orange butterflies all over the place almost like at the Aquarium!

These days, anytime you go anywhere, you hear crickets. It gets louder in some areas. At one time I found one in the playground at work, but it was tiny and looked like a black fly. This picture is of a huge beast of a noisy cricket! EEEWW!!

The gannet babies are growing up. They are very grey, have feathers now instead of that super cute fuzzy down, and are stretching out their wings. It's still pretty crowded and stinky. We will have to check it out again because apparently it's the thing to see when they start to practice flying!

The second week back to work is taking it's toll. I'm feeling a little worn out but there was a huge box of prezzies for me (LOOT!) waiting for when I got back! Lots of little chocolate, little bath things and candles! It's so sweet! A lot of the children are still on holiday. February is going to be a busy month. We have to do more parent teacher interviews, have a night when the parents come in, and we are going to do some training on wednesday nights!!! I'll get to learn more about Reggio and I might be able to take some other training courses as well.

I think Patrick's doing all right at work . . . He probably tells me as much as he does you. Maybe you know more about what goes on at his job.

We have a long weekend coming up at the end of the month! I wonder what we'll do with it?

Missing you millions!

April Mom

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