A Blogging Break: Tons to Report!

Chez Lee has enjoyed a blogging break due to good weather, no Kindi, the arrival of our beloved pianos (resulting in lots of late night jamming sessions!) and making the most of the light evenings.

It’s so brilliant not having to be out the door by a predetermined time and family harmony is so much purer. Charlotte and Sophie are thriving together.

At Lollipops, Lower Hutt, and also at Petone foreshore (where I enjoyed meeting up with a lovely ex-colleague from my Telecom days – who has recently returned to Wellington with her beautiful daughter and her English hubbie):

Sophie is talking at incredible knots with an amazing vocabulary – words such as ‘enclosure’, ‘hygienist’, ‘amazing’, counting to four, reciting nursery rhymes and the memory of the size of an elephant make for entertaining and great company. She is melting our hearts with, ‘I love you Daddy, Charlotte and Mummy,’ she also says, ‘I love big boys!’ – ahem! The latter is derived from her affection for our next door-neighbour’s son – who is eleven.

Charlotte is showing great patience and consideration for her little sister. They play beautiful games of such imagination and creativity together. Yesterday, they drew chalk pictures of spiders all over the patio and invited me to their, ‘Spider Show’, it was priceless! The inspiration for the ‘Spider Show’ came from a visit to Wellington Zoo – we’ve been having much fun there over the past couple of weeks. We’ve also enjoyed watching the athletics at the training field next-door – pretty inspiring watching athletics in action – just need to find the time and determination to put some of that inspiration into action on the personal front!

There really is no excuse…!

On the weather front (I’m forever an English lass at heart!) we’ve had some miserable wind earlier in the week. Met up with my old friend ‘Loose’ (whose recently moved back to NZ from OZ and is soon to be residing in beautiful Nelson) at the Botanical Gardens earlier in the week. A poor woman and toddler nearly got blown into the road in front of an oncoming car – literally! Loose ran to their aid and there was no damage done – just one very shocked mother (talk about ‘flight and fight’ stress on the nerves!) and a teary toddler with a ton of debris in her eyes! Nevertheless, Charlotte enjoyed a fabulous time watching ‘Fairy Trina‘ as part of the ‘Summer City‘ Festival events. Sophie was a little scared so I took her to smell the roses.

Today the weather was a beaut. Wellington has a habit of throwing in an awesome spell of weather; just when you think the wind is going to drive you crazy and it’s time to move! The girls were up late so we raced Daddy into work, minus breakfast, and enjoyed a decadent feed at Clark’s Cafe at Central Library. After returning some over-due books and taking out an armful more (and paying too many fines – slapped wrists for Mummy!) we went to Capital E to enjoy a lovely interactive display of Victorian toys. The girls spent ages making their own paper dolls and costumes, as well as playing with spinning tops, hoops, hobby horses and hop-scotch. We then hurried to the car (our 2-hour city parking limit was well over!) and escaped (minus anymore fines!) to Oriental Parade (free parking for up to 2-hour’s – yah!).

The scene at Oriental Parade today was typical of a summer’s day in January: college students everywhere, mixed with a dashing of tourists and a few brave regulars. It was like California in Wellington. There were tons of skimpy bikinis and eye-candy. A couple a few metres from us really should have taken their lust to somewhere a little more private – but hey, now I’m showing my age and perhaps a hint of jealousy! All up, it was a giggle, but I’ll look forward to the quieter days at the beach when term starts back and the peak-visitor season is over!

The water was so calm and crystal clear; and the colours were stunning – as these photos reveal (couldn’t resist the ‘fountain hat’ look on the girls!):

We couldn’t get enough of the beach today. Dan took the bus home to Lyall Bay and we spent a magic couple of hours watching the sun-set, playing in the sea and eating fish and chips (along with the rest of the locals – the fish and chip shops must be rejoicing in their takings tonight!). We also had a chance to catch up with good friends Isla and Inde (who are sadly moving to Oz this year…).

The girls crashed to sleep – at least Sophie did – at a little after 8.30pm (no nap again today!). Charlotte was good as gold, but didn’t finally submit to the sandman till 10.00pm! She has a beautiful mind and it never stops ticking!

There’s been so much more we’ve done this past week or so, but this post has already reached record proportions, so it’s time to say, ‘Hei konā rā‘.