Rotorua report 2

There were a few activities organised for the kids while we were at Rotorua.  The first was a Pirates of the Caribbean challenge, where each boat team had to earn pirate gold (well, it was silver, actually, and does it count as pirate money if you earn it?) by completing 6 or so challenges, while avoiding the Black Pearl (below)  which was patrolling the area.  If you were hit by a cannonball from the Black Pearl you had to do whatever they said (e.g. starjumps, racing, giving up your gold) and if you refused they would stab your boat and you'd have to go and get it repaired before you could continue with the challenges.  It took half the afternoon and everyone had a great time and got totally worn out.

On another afternoon there was a slip-and-slide on a big sheet of black plastic.  Unfortunately it started raining but the boys still had a great time.  There were a whole lot of other kids on it but I'm a bit reluctant to put other people's kids on the internet

Rotorua report

We got back from Rotorua today, after an uneventful journey home.  We got lunch at Subway and left about 12:30, and got home around 4:30 - first time we have ever taken kids so far and haven't stopped all the way!  Eva, who was full of a cold, and perhaps a bit feverish, slept most of the way, and nobody else complained so we just kept on driving.
Our new tents were wonderful, didn't leak (it rained quite a lot) and were roomy and easy to put up.  The kids have decided they look like big meringues

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!  I hope you have all had a wonderful day!
We have had a good day, the kids have been pretty happy although the effects of too much sugar and too much excitement have been evident - thankyou to the Thomsons for a DVD which we put on late this afternoon to calm things down a little!  Thankyou to everybody for the lovely presents, we had lots of fun opening all the mysterious parcels.
We had our family Christmas lunch yesterday with our home-cured ham, which was delicious.  Some of it was too salty to eat, but the rest was lovely, next year we might cut back on the salt a little. 

This morning we had a joint service with the Korean congregation who meet in our building, and our family shared lunch with them.  We were blessed with a turkey from some friends so we took that along, and enjoyed trying kimchi and barbecued pork as well.  This afternoon we tried to figure out how to play Dominion, a new family game which makes no sense until you have played a few rounds.  I think we have got it sorted but we'll wait until we've finished the first game before we're sure on that...

Tomorrow we might try out a few Boxing Day sales as we have 3 kids' birthdays in January, Daniel is particularly keen on some Star Wars Lego, and Petra has been asking me to buy her Polly Pocket for months, so we'll see what's on sale.

The garden

The garden is looking quite nice just now.  Bryony took some beautiful photos

The californian poppies are my favourites this year - we haven't grown them for a few years but I got a mixed packet, and found them so easy to grow, and so lovely, we'll be putting them in again next year (or just letting them go to seed, that might work too).

My purple Hibiscus is doing well and looking beautiful

In the back garden the shallots are nearly ready, although the carrots and beetroot weren't a success.  The rabbits like the beetroot, we're been giving them one a week each, and Autumn looks like she's wearing blusher when she's finished hers.  Andrew's brassicas are doing ok, we've had a couple of good heads of broccoli from them.

The tomatoes are sick, I'm not sure if it's a disease or if the compost we got this year came with some kind of herbicide residue in it.  The tops have all curled up and the new growth looks terrible.

But the beans and corn look good.  This year we're growing blue hopi corn, for something different.

Smaug the Terrible

We (Mum, Dad and the 4 oldest) went to see the second Hobbit film last week, in 3D - pretty exciting!  We all want to see it again even though the kids found it too loud, and spent nearly the whole movie with their fingers in their ears.

Daniel was inspired to make a Lego model of Smaug, it took a week to finish

Hobo stove

David made a hobo stove this morning and he and the boys cooked some bacon for lunch

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