Homeschool Swimming Classes

We're going to have a lot of swimming photos over the next couple of days because I finally remembered to take my camera on Thursday to the girls' homeschool swimming classes and this weekend has consisted of three swimming parties for Josie and two for the rest of us. So, get ready to see some goggles!

Next term we're going to try something new with swimming - I'm planning to have the big girls swim with the team in Karori and perhaps private lessons for Ellie - so I wanted to get some pictures of them with their current group and the sweet friends they've made along the way.

Here's El all ready to begin - she's progressed quite a bit this term, and even more in Florida in July!

Ellie's lesson is first so she gets to play for a long time while waiting for her sisters - Becky and Ruth are two of he best buddies!
Jo is ready to go - didn't get a great shot of her in action but here she's all smiles:
This is the look I got from Ellie when I wouldn't do what she wanted right away, I see this a lot actually:
Katie kicking some laps:
Meg posing:
Morgan and Kennedy take diving with Meggie and Katie. They are 11 and 13-years-old and are so sweet to the girls. The pool we go to is quite cold and the diving pool is absolutely freezing so Morgan and Kennedy are often seen trying to warm up Meggie and Katie.
The day is full of lessons and lots of play time with friends.







We're going to miss having our day with other homeschoolers and may return after a term or two if we can get our spots back, but for the next little while we're going to stick closer to home. I'm doing my best to streamline our schedule and allow more time for having friends over, taking trips and just being together as a family. It's always hard trying to decide which activities to drop or change because the girls and I all would love to do everything!!

Our Planting Project

Against my better judgement the girls and I are trying our hands at growing things again. Last year's science project of growing radishes was a complete failure, and I thought radishes were pretty foolproof. However, we were still thinking North American seasons at the time and were planting them in the dead of winter and the poor things could barely get warm enough to sprout, let alone flourish. So here we are again - this time planting as we head into Spring and hopeful for better results!

We chose to give growing potatoes, strawberries and herbs a go this time around, but before we could even begin we needed some rocks for drainage so we headed to Makara Beach which is chock full of them. The drive to the beach was stunning, as it seems almost all New Zealand drives are, and we saw newborn lambs, horses on hills, goats by the roadway as well as windmills on the horizon.

Before collecting stones the girls decided to see how far they could throw them.


Then we took a little jaunt out to the corner to have a look at the South Island.


There it is!
More playing around on the rocks, a good time was had by all!
Ellie with her rocks and treasures:

Today we used those rocks to help with drainage on the bottom of our strawberry and herbs bag, but first we did the potatoes. My friend Alison told me about this - you get a bag, lay down a layer of compost and put in the potatoes, then cover them with more compost. As they sprout and push through you add more compost until finally you are near the top of the bag and they begin to flower at which point you dig around for your potatoes. Here's hoping!
Both girls have a bag and we're trying out two different types of potatoes. We're planning to make a chart to see how long it takes them to sprout and so forth and so on.




In the pink bag we planted strawberries, cilantro (they call it coriander here), dill, chives, mint and basil.

That's all from here - hope everyone in America had a good Labor Day! xoxo

Taupo Farm Stay

We had a great weekend in Taupo, despite the weather being less than ideal! The girls were so excited to get to stay on a farm and help out AND have Daddy all to themselves for a few days that there really wasn't any way it was going to be disappointing. We drove up Saturday afternoon arriving after dark, so the fun didn't start until Sunday morning when they got to meet and feed the animals.

This is Po:

And this is Possum:
We asked why they had rings in their noses (after speculating amongst ourselves) and found it was too keep them from digging. Who knew!

The goat with her head over the fence is Willow - easy enough to remember as that is also the name of our cat.
This is Carmel, she was a sweetie. Willow was a bit more aggressive.
Willow again:
We've forgotten the names of the alpacas, but we enjoyed feeding them too:

This is Fudge - a spirited little goat. Fudge liked untying Katie's shoelaces.


Sometimes Fudge got a little spunky and would jump right on out of the pen. Meggie helped get her back by getting her by the horns and dragging her reluctant self back in where she belonged.
Sam, the girl behind Meggie, ran the farm. She was wonderful and took a lot of time to explain things to the girls. She also allowed them to do a lot of things that she said not all the other children got to do.
Katie and b-u. The name comes from the sound the kitty made when she was a kitten.
This is Melody, one of the Welsh ponies that Sam raises and trains.
This is Precise, Meggie's favorite of the bunch:
On Monday our scheduled trail ride got rained out so the girls were eager to help out more on the farm - even in the inclement weather. This is what we did while we waited for Sam to come collect them:


This is a photo of Meggie and Katie working with Sam that I took through the window because it was very cold and wet outside.
I finally ventured out because I couldn't see them anymore and saw Meggie and Jen (the dog) in the paddock.
They were helping Sam load the hay and go feed the horses, goats and alpacas.




This little guy would come visit us at our back door and was happy to eat right out of our hands.
This mama had her little lambs on Sunday night, so we got to see the twins when they were brand new!
The girls even got to pet one of them, so soft and sweet! Sam had to bring them in out of the weather so the girls helped set up a sheltered pen with fresh hay to keep them warm and cozy.

Katie's 1st Official Netball Game

I have some cute pictures from our weekend at Lake Taupo that I plan to upload tonight, but in the meantime here are some shots from Dugald's cell phone of Katie's first official netball game. We got a call on Friday night to ask if Katie could play with the Karori Year 4 team because they were short a player and she had been recommended to them by her Fun Ferns coach (Fun Ferns is a skills team for those too young to play on the official teams and Katie has been practicing with them this year). We asked her if she wanted to do fill in and of course she jumped at the opportunity.

Saturday mornings find me at ballet with Josie and Dugald navigating the netball games -so he was there to see her playing really well. It seems our two oldest have an affinity for the game and both really enjoy it. I'm very proud of Katie for playing with a team of girls slightly older than her that she'd never met before and doing a good job - well done!

After the game the coach thanked Katie especially for helping them out.
Meggie's team also played and won Saturday morning before we left so she was stoked. We left Wellington about noon and drove up to Palmerston for a late lunch with Hugh and Margaret before heading to our final destination in Taupo. The girls loved it despite that not so great weather, I'll post pics soon!