Queen's Birthday Weekend

Time for our annual trip with the camping crew for Queen's Birthday!!

Meggie, Katie, Harriett and Sophie left first and drove themselves up on their first official road trip.

Family Selfie, we're on our way!

Pretty drive until it got dark.

Ellie is quite the makeup guru and her services were in high demand.

Can you guess the theme? Red!

Josie and Izzy as Whoopie Cushions.

Meggie, Katie and Katie as chili peppers

The adults!! The teens picked the theme - they thought our usual choices of things like Indian last year, and Mexican and whatnot were too culturally insensitive. The food did have a bit of a Mexican theme going on though to try and tie in with "red". 

Ann Marie got Rhys an awesome costume - not sure why he refused to wear it? Party pooper.

The kids hanging out in their living area.

The older girls put us into  teams to compete in the great quiz/challenges they had created for us. I was just thankful there was no planking involved this year. 

The oldest male on each team had to compete to braid the hair of the youngest female on their team in one of the activities. 

In another one a team member had to act out a famous person.

After the quiz it was time to celebrate Anna and Simon's birthday with Julia leading us all in the birthday song.

Kids on clean up - camping tradition!

The next day we headed up the mountain which had a lot less snow than last year! Not enough for us to use our sleds.

Gorgeous fire on the back deck when we got back. 

Night Two was skit night!

Followed by some singing

The annual photo of the kids before we all head back home - they've sure grown!

And everybody :)

More May Fun

Meggie sings in the Cathedral

Aunt Diana was there to listen

Katie and two of her friends were selected to represent Marsden at an Anglican Schools Conference in Auckland. She sent a few Snapchats through.

My swim girls and I went out to the Wairarapa to attend a cooking school with Mary Biggs - it was my second time. Love her and we had a great day.

 

We started by learning how to preserve lemons.

Then we each put together our own jar to take home.

 

Getting some lemons to take home.

Farm cats Trev and Kev.

Felicity and Lisa with the chooks.

Making gnocchi - so good!

Finally time to eat - yum!

First Uni Visit!!

Meggie and I flew down to Dunedin in May to attend the University of Otago open weekend. We went with our good friends Kathryn and Sophie and Felicity and Zoe. The girls are each interested in different subjects to study but the biggest decision of all to be made was which hall to put as their first choice. It's hard to describe to the Americans the importance of hall selection  . . . but as there is no Greek system here I would liken it to rush. The majority of students are only in a hall for one year, but the friends they make there tend to become their closest friends. The halls do lots of things much like a sorority or fraternity (but they are all coed) - they do charity work, have balls, play sport against other halls, etc. Everyone eats in their own hall (and every single one we went to see said theirs had the best food), some halls have a formal dinner once a week, others more or less, with one hall requiring dresses and jackets at every meal! It was fun to go and visit and notice the similarities and differences to my university experience. Everyone says that Otago is the option most like the US of the New Zealand universities. Meggie and I are off to the Auckland Open Day in September so will get to see how it compares. 

The campus was beautiful!! And they were smart having their open day before winter really set in - it can get VERY cold down there!

Meggie's favourite hall or "hostel" - she's hoping to get into Arana.

Lunch with our friend Colleen who had moved to Dunedin in April (3rd from left).

Visiting another favourite hall, Selwyn. 

Greta Morrison, a Marsden friend in her first year at Otago, gave the girls a great tour.

 All bundled up and racing to see more hostels.

Before dinner we had our taxi take us on a quick detour to Baldwin Street, the steepest residential street in the world. This picture doesn't really do it justice! 

Dinner at Madame Woo's - we got there early for a cocktail then met up with the rest of our friends and a girl in her first year who gave the girls the low down. 

Tennis Courts and view from yet another hostel, Carrington.

We walked into town before heading to the airport and had a quick look around the octagon in the city centre.