Our Visit to the High Court

Our lives have been pretty busy of late. . . now that it is the school holidays again things are finally slowing down, a bit! This morning Katie and Josie headed out to a birthday party and Meggie and I had a date in town while Daddy and Ellie had a date at home. Meg and I had a great time - we went to the sushi bar where the food passes by on a motorized thing in the middle of a long bar and you just take what you want. We also shopped for shoes for her but came home empty-handed, not unusual given how picky she is these days!

Yesterday we had the privilege of getting to see Hamish Howard's girlfriend Delaney Mes go to the Bar. We took the girls down to the High Court to watch the ceremony and they were awed by the wigs and respectful during the proceedings, yay them! I enjoyed seeing the wigs and pomp and ceremony as well, and of course we are way proud of Delaney.

The group of new lawyers with the judge:
Delaney is peeking out from behind the judge's right shoulder:


The person who presented Delaney - sorry I don't know her name:
Delaney and her dad:

Izzie and Charlotte Howard with Delaney:
Tomorrow should be fairly quiet after church and we're looking forward to some down time. Last week Dugald worked until 3 am one night only to get up again the next morning at 6 am. Thankfully they closed on a part of the big deal that he has been working on and he was able to take Friday morning off to go with us to the High Court. He still has a few busy weeks ahead and we're praying that all continues to go well with the big deal that he is working so hard on.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Spring has sprung and one day last week it was simply too beautiful to stay inside so the girls and I headed down to see the tulips in the Botanic Gardens. Every time we visit the gardens we wonder why we don't come more often - it's free, always changing and beautiful! The challenge for an amateur photographer like me is taking pictures in bright sun, as you can see I was unable to get a shot without a shadow on a face, but I did manage a few without my subjects squinting. Enjoy!

Prime Minister on Dave

Prime Minister John Key presented the Top Ten List on David Letterman the other night - thought you'd enjoy seeing it.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

As promised here are the pictures of the girls performing in Joseph. This year the group was evaluated by an examiner so we'll look forward to hearing her results, but Dugald and I thought it was a fabulous show! The directors rotated some of the parts since it was such a large group so Meggie was Joseph some of the time and part of the chorus at other times. Katie played one of the brothers. Both girls had solos and Meggie had several. The girls have been the recipients of countless compliments from our friends which has served to seal their desire to continue with Musical Stars in future terms.

Meggie singing "Any Dream Will Do" to open the show:

Katie singing in "Go Go Joseph" as part of the chorus (she's to the right in white). Meggie was in this song too but I didn't get a great picture of either of them as they were moving quite quickly.
Meggie in the chorus again, in the back on the left, during "Poor, poor Pharaoh."
Katie with the brothers - second from the left.
Katie's solo part during "Who's the Thief?".
Meggie played a stern Joseph very well - this is the bit where she found the hidden golden cup in Benjamin's bag and the brothers are begging her to have mercy. I think she liked playing this part a lot!
Singing "Joseph all the Time."

The North Star

It was a very busy Saturday!!! This was performance weekend for Musical Stars and the big girls had one show on Friday and two on Saturday and Josie had two shows on Saturday as well. I worked backstage with Jo's group for the first performance so I managed a few cute pictures of them when things weren't busy and chaotic.

Josie was in a show called "The North Star". It is the story of a journey to self-discovery, or something along those lines. She had two solos as well as some dialogue - she was great, she spoke clearly, sang on key and remembered where she was to be and when, she's a great little performer!

The shows were performed one right after the other so while Josie was on stage the big girls were preparing for their performance. I'll post pictures of them tomorrow.

Josie's group is called the Piwakawakas. Each group is named after a New Zealand bird, Katie is a Kea and Meggie is a Kereru. My job backstage was to make sure all our little Piwakawakas were in the correct costume at the right time and that they made it on stage for each of their songs. I watched the second performance so I got some cute pictures of Josie on stage too.

Coopers Leaving Party

Our friends the Coopers are moving to Australia for a few years and this weekend was their going-away, or leaving as they say here, party. They rented out the Karori pool and invited all their friends for a barbeque -- much fun was had by all.

I Gotta Feeling

Just because it's such a good song . . . how fun would it have been to be here?