Having a blast – long may the summer roll!

It’s been a crazy few days of sunshine. We had a blast at ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ in the Botanical Gardens on Sunday (got some great video-clips, but no time to string it together tonight!). Charlotte loved singing along to the music and Sophie enjoyed wandering around the rose garden and riding on the ‘rocket’!

Dan proved a good sport entertaining the little’uns on the ‘Rodeo Pig’ (some great footage to come!) and we had a hoot racing in the little jeeps!

We spent Monday morning riding the cable car, playing in the Botanical Gardens and enjoying Wellington’s waterfront and the Museum of City and Sea. The need for new tires for our trusty ‘ole motor meant free parking the city for a few hours – always a bonus! At $4 an hour, with a maximum 2-hour parking limit, parking in central Wellington is a little prohibitive to extensive leisure – but Te Papa offers all day parking (at $3 an hour) and there’s free parking on Oriental Parade (with a 2-hour limit). Anyway, do you really want to hear about parking?!

Today the weather was incredibly hot and we all felt a little jaded. Despite the heat we played out hard. This morning we spent a wonderful 2-hours at Princess Bay. Charlotte walked the whole way there and back and was a star.

This afternoon we went to The Zoo and met with with our neighbour for a quick lunch. The highlight for the girls was watching the otters swimming, getting close to the pelican and talking to a Zoo volunteer about guinea pigs! We also learnt that the male sun-bear was rescued from a life as a ‘dancing bear’ – poor love. Definitely a happier chap these days – and a father too!

Anyway, we’re off to Taupo in the morning to meet up with Grandma and Grandad, who flew into Auckland this morning! We won’t be doing much blogging – but will have a ton of photos on our return! Our good friends, Stephanie and Francis, are kindly house, cat, fish and plant sitting. Just hope the cats behave themselves! The summer looks set to continue and, needless to say, we’re loving it! Winter’s going to be a shock to the system when it comes!

Dan’s driving up with a car laden with toys and the girls and I are taking the easy option – flying! We’ll be heading into the sky on a little 19 seater I believe – should be exciting and, thankfully, no arguments about who will have the window seat!