The day it snowed...

As the polar blast heads over the country, we were very fortunate to get more than a sprinkle of snow too! This is a rarity - a once in 50yrs event!

At school the kids went out to play when the snow came, and they were fortunate that the last 20mins of school-time a heavy dumping came down. Simon arrived to pick them up to see the whole school running around crazy enjoying it.

Once home, we decided to head up to the hills (a 10 min drive) and find some real snow! The rain that was coming down quickly turned to snow, and it was quite magical driving into the hills. There were a lot of people coming and going, and we finally found a place to stop. Terrible photos since I didn't have my flash on, and the light was getting pretty low.

The kids collected snow to take home...

Unloading their snow to continue the fun in the front yard.

Sunday

Well, the school holidays are over and we had a really nice, relaxing time.

I was talking with the kids how Imbolc will be on Tuesday, and what we'd like to do to celebrate it. Imbolc symbolises The First Light - the start of the return of spring and new growth. The kids really look forward to a family meal (although Simon won't be here for this one), a story about the seasonal changes, and a few decorations that help us tune into nature and the seasons. I'll be heading off for a meet up with my women's group.

All that talk inspired Danielle to pull our our Earthwise activities book, find the winter activities and browse for something to make. She settled on these little paper decorations (although they are for valentine's cards and the wrong season for that ... as well as the fact we don't do anything for valentine's anyway lol).

Simon arrived home with another trailer-load of sand from a Freecycle offer. The base for our garden shed is almost ready lol. The chickens thought it was great having us all down in the garden - especially since there were bugs on offer! The kids spent ages sifting through the sand to find tasty treats for them to snaffle.

And there was plenty of sand left over to refill the sandpit! Enjoying a little play until they were shooed inside to get warm!

I'm now onto the fourth Earth's Children book - The Plains of Passage. I zoomed through The Mammoth Hunters last week while on holiday (and no computer in the evenings...). I realised while reading The Mammoth Hunters that I hadn't read this far into the series before.

I'm going to get back into my drawing this week and hopefully finish off the course.

A spring-like day

It was quite a lovely day yesterday (aside from a bit of a breeze in exposed areas). I had a list of errands to get through, so the kids and I ventured out of the house late morning.

~ First up we headed to get me a new SIM card for my phone. I had decided when my pre-pay credit had disappeared, that I was going to switch over to 2 Degrees (about half the price for sending texts). I'm not a high mobile phone user, so don't need 100s of texts per month, and never make phone calls - just wanted the cheaper standard text rate.

~ Then to the library to return half our books (we usually get the maximum allowed of 30 books).

~ Off to the market to stock up on fresh fruit and veges for the week.

~ Then over to the park to feed the ducks and have a play in the playground. My kids have been a bit deprived of feeding ducks. Eating gluten free has meant no cheap bread in the house to sacrifice for the ducks (although, with Danielle at school now, I do make her sandwiches with a good quality wheat-based bread), and I freeze all our bread anyway, so there is never stale bread lying around. However, after having been on holiday for 5 days, we did have some slices of stale bread to do something with (the GF bread was used in last night's dinner).

~ I then went and browsed a local designer shop for a ceramic pendant necklace I've had my eye on. There wasn't one on display as I exactly wanted, but was able to put a request in with the artist to have one custom made (it will be a combo of 3 that were on display). I'm not a huge jewellery wearer (just a simple bangle, a moonstone ring, and my pounamu), but this just took my fancy as something a bit different to pop on on occasion.

~ In the evenings I've been enjoying the warm glow from my Himalayan rock-salt lamp. When we visited a friend while away on holiday, she gave me a lamp she no longer had space for  (she had six). They are meant to emit negative ions into the atmosphere (these are good despite the sound of it). I haven't done a lot of reading into negative ions, but I have heard of thunder storms and beaches being very high in them - I sure do enjoy the feeling of both of those, so who knows?!

A quiet day...

It was a day of catching up on chores, laundry, and just hanging out. We had the perfect winter weather for drying clothes on the line (plenty of sun and a little breeze) and for heating the house without needing the fire.

The morning started off early (would have been nice to have a lazy start to the day) by taking Danielle to see the dental nurse, then home quickly to hang out two loads of washing before heading off to meet up with friends at the local theatre to see a production of Charlotte's Web.

The kids really enjoyed it, and it was neat to see a couple of ukelele players up there (including a very talented 8-9yr old).

After lunch Danielle wanted me to help her make a soft toy like one she'd been given by a friend while on holiday. So she designed a long dog (modelled off my parent's daschund). She sewed the body and stuffed it, and I completed the ears and tail for her.

Relaxed and refreshed...

Ahhh, it's been so nice to be away, but so nice to arrive home again!

I couldn't have asked or a better time away. We got through out list of places to see and things to do. We even had the unexpected surprise of finding some snow to play in (along with a lot of other New Zealanders too). The cottage we stayed in was cute and set on a local artist's property. She had vege gardens outside our door that we could help ourselves to as we wanted, and around the back of the cottage there was a lovely view of the mountain (sadly, not from our windows!).

Our first day travelling had us stopping for lunch with some friends, before heading on into New Plymouth for the evening.

Car snacks all packed and ready to go!

Kids found the trampoline straight away.

Day 2 we headed out around 10am, and because the weather was quite mild, we planned to visit a local botanical garden and petting zoo.

A quick lunch back at our cottage, and then headed out for the afternoon to meet up with another lot of friends down at the local aquatic centre for the afternoon.

Day 3 we decided to visit a couple of the historic cottages in the area - unfortunately, both were only open on the weekends (managed a visit to the museum too), but we noticed snow falling on our windscreen as we were driving along. I then received a text from my friend we'd had lunch with a few days before to say they'd had a huge dump of snow overnight. I then texted (yay for mobile phones!) another friend who lived just out of New Plymouth and asked her about the status of snow out her way. Nothing at her house, but since she lives on the road leading towards the mountain, we thought we'd go back to the cottage, have a quick lunch, then pack our snow gear into the car and go for a drive to see what we could find. As we got to the village where the road turned into the mountain, there was a large sign saying the road was closed and only residents could go beyond that point ... well, we figured we could pose as residents if required ... and we weren't the only ones with that idea.

Snow on the windscreen lol.

On our way back from having a good play, we stopped in with our friends and found hot soup and a cup of tea waiting for us along with some animals to pat and feed.

Day 4 we wanted to check out the coastal walkway, so took the scooters out for a while before heading home for lunch. We then hit the shops in the afternoon for a quick browse.

Day 5 we packed to head home. We had planned to stop in with our friends from the pools for a play at their house and to visit the Pioneer Village in their town before heading home to my parent's house for dinner. The snow from 2 days before was still scattered around.

We all had loads of fun, and it felt nicely spaced out where it was enjoyable as well as relaxing.