Oh Sleep, Where Art Thou?

I am sooooooo tired that I am officially grumpy-butt mummy. I couldn't sleep last night, of course it was because I am the ultimate professional & couldn't switch off after work..... rather than the reality of it being cold & then waking up roasting like a stuffed chook from leaving the electric blanket on & drifting off in the cocooned warmth it provided. So now things are really annoying me too easily & it's only 9.30am. You know what pissed me off this morning? The toaster booby-trapped my cinnamon & raisin bagel & incinerated it. Have you ever tried to bite a burnt bagel, oh yes I tried scraping off the black bits, but lets face it - the bagel could have shattered concrete should it fall on the floor. So I tried smothering it in chocolate spread to disguise the taste. End of story -> I licked all the chocolate spread off the top & ditched the bagel. MMMMMMMM..... soooo yummy, but not a good filler. I could always actually walk downstairs to the freezer & get another bagel out & go thru the process again, but I really need minions for that, it's too hard.

Miss Angelface will be finishing school in 2.5 HOURS. As a sleep-deprived non-fully functioning member of the parent squad ~ that just messes with my head people. It's a teacher day or something official like that, all I know is that it means that I've gotta find my happy mummy hat somewhere beneath the gray cloud of fog that is surrounding my head & ENJOY (or else, dammit.) an easter craft session that I promised Miss Angelface we could have this afternoon. Yay me. In a fit of mummy-guilts I was happy to suggest making easter baskets to take with us when we go camping -> stupido me! Now I'm hoping that Miss Angelface & Miss Fairygirl will take a very long time to do the colouring bits so my efforts wont look quite so pathetic.

High School Musical will definately be called up for action on the DVD player this afternoon I suspect. Nine more days until HSM3 is released on DVD & will be hired for an afternoon's viewing pleasure (Miss Angelface ~ not me) over the holidays -> yippee.

But, back to the lack of sleep. Oscar here is gonna be a mean momma & put Miss Fairygirl down for a kip this morning instead of after lunch all because I wanna!!! Bwhahahahahahahahahahaha.

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY JACKYBOY!!!

Look I'll be honest, I am really happy that we've moved to NZ to try a new adventure, but I totally miss when birthdays come around. With 8 beautiful, funny & totally adorable nieces & nephews that equals lots of birthday moments gone by. But between e-mails & stalking by telephone, I can get a whiff of the birthday perfume.

HAPPY HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY

to my gorgeous Jackyboy!!!!

go hawks.

My, haven't you grown up!!!

I hope that you had an awesome day & loved the pics. Have fun shopping mate!

big smooches.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Oooops We're in Hot Water Now

So, it's off in the carlycampa for another adventure, the leyland brothers we are not. I got a lot of the list-making & packing done early on in the week in anticipation of an early get-away -> HA. I make no apology for the fact that I am a list-maker queen. I even have a menu plan for our camping weekends. We (i.e. me) is trying to downsize the amount of stuff we need to take away & I am currently in love with the idea of stuff that can double-duty. Miss Angelface did a sterling job of wearing & re-wearing her clothes each day, well not the reg-grundies of course. Now if only she could translate that determination to at home, then my washing days will be numbered...... one can wish.

Hahei beach resort on the Coromandel peninsula here we come. Miss AF had a half day at school, missing lunch, so of course was starving. She & Fairygirl devoured their lunch goodybags in the car before we left Auckland, which wasn't the intention, but what can you do?! We were moving along nicely, belting out all the Hi-5 hits when a big truck zoomed up past us & shot out a bullet of a stone onto our windscreen. AAAAAGH. A new windscreen was so not in the budget for a weekend away. Needless to say, the truck got away before I could write down the no. attached to the "How's my driving?"sign -> grrrr. So with a detour, we can now check off the I've been to Drury & Pukeko townships. Hmmmmm, wait for FOUR hours for a new windscreen with tired, hungry impatiently waiting to hit the beach kids or hang in for another week & add it to the WOF bill next week?!? Well - derrrrr people, hoidays it is.

We hit the campsite after 4pm, just a few hours off schedule, unpacked with no help from AF ~ she'd already started her social networking with a little girl across the way & checked out the beach. Yay to King Carly Boy for picking this site. Check it out below ~ noice huh?!?


We hit Hot Water Beach the next morning, KCB swatted up before the trip & brought along our very own shovel to dig a pool for his carlygirls. Okay, so what's the drill with this? H.W. beach is a beach that has hot water springs under it in a little section & at low tide you can dig into the bech & hot water comes up, so you make a little pool & wallow like a hippo or a mermaid - it takes all sorts. Well, it was tourist central. KCB got started & it wasnt happening, so we moved site & got started on pool no. 2 & no luck- finally on pool no. 3 we hit hot water. The fact that we shimmied right up against an existing pool of tourists, well that was just co-incidence people. So, this was the end result.

The other legs belong to a new kiwi teenager originally from Spain, her dad was v. kind in helping dig the pool. Another example of how teeny tiny the world is, the dad has friends in common with KCB. These hot pools were magic to sit in. It's a tricky thing to get just right as the hot water was boiling hot coming up, so the trusty bucket of cold sea-water was used a lot. We ended up spending a few hours on the beach.

After a clean-up back at camp - kudos to the camp managers, the facilities were great. Hot showers, flushing toilets, microwaves & toasters are definately NOT overrated when one is camping. I can live I without them, but its nice to have them. The action continued with a tramp down to Cathedral Cove. It's a 35 minute walk in & Miss AF pretty much well ran, skipped & hopped most of the way ~ oh to have some of that energy. Miss FG was in the back-pack, leaning over KCB's shoulder the whole way. It's a great spot ~ filled with lots of people, but still managed to not look over-crowded. Very pretty, KCB took his scenary pics, he's a bit keen on that, check it out:
Cathedral Cove is the little black spot down the bottom of the white cliff, we walked from this spot down to it. It's not really that small.... that's Miss AF in the front of the walk-thru!

Anyway, we had a great time of it. Never in my life had I seen so many campers in one place. They are obviously v. popular homes on wheels. We were the only camper-trailer in the campsite. I love camping & think that we are pretty good at respecting other campers, but some campers are TOTALLY CLUELESS. Case in point, the campground gates close at 10.30pm. The roads are v. windy & would be a task for the big campers on the road, so you'd expect that they'd be parked & set up way before that time. Nuh uh to the big camper that pulled in at 10.15pm in front of us. Okay, we can handle that, no probs here. Until, HE started talking. A big man - yankman I'll call him. He had to navigate the camper into position. The sites are all marked out ~ how hard can it be? But he had to describe the whole process - 20 minutes it took, unti eventually the outcome was "Freakin awesome spot man". Hmmm, okay, well they'll get sorted quickly & quietly & we'll be right. NO WAY. The 4 guys proceeded to sit outside drinking & discussing the merits of world series baseball & why doesn't it affect the world, the US currency & why all nations should use it etc. This was increadibly annoying as it was past midnight & keeping us & other campers awake. You could have taken a sauna in the amount of steam coming out my ears. I just couldn't take the crap anymore & marched over to ask them if they were aware how loud their voices were & to keep it down. I was nice people ~ it was a HUGE effort not to tell them what I really thought...... anyway, nearly an hour later & they finally gave it a rest. And the next morning my little AF & FG got up very, very early & mummy didn't ask them to be quiet, just sent them on their way to play as noisily as possible in the playground -> right next to the yankman camper. Payback - thy name is Carlygirl...... HA HA HA.

Great weekend was had by all.

TGIF

YAY! It's Friday..... Gotta love Fridays people. I'm off the hook for subbing in at work tonight. I do like my job really, I work with some gorgeous ladies who make me laugh, point out all the great bargains (loooove those yellow reduced stickers) & are a minefield of information on places to visit & stuff to do in NZ. But Friday nights are snugglebunny night with Angelface as we watch & commentate on American Idol in bed, we are one step away from consuming a lot of chocolate at the same time, but I'm trying not to encourage it...... It's not often that it's time for just us & yes, that would be my fault. AF has a big week at school, she tries hard & it's a slog, so after some netball on a Friday afternoon (probably not looking at a future Silver Fern), it's well-deserved chill-out time on a Friday night.

But today's Friday is pretty darn good right now. Mr Courierman just delivered to my door a special package of Harry!!! Well, hellooooooooo Harry Connick Jr. I am a Christmas junkie & have added Harry Connick Jr xmas cd to the ever-growing collection (Mr Chris Isaak ~you are next on my list thanks to trademe). So Miss Fairygirl & I have had a good session of jumping round the loungeroom to the big band xmas sound. Whitney Houston came in the same package, but sometimes you've gotta make sacrifices. You never know, in very small doses she could be okay. So break out the chocolate stash & we are having a party.

Sixteen Years Is a Loooooooong TIme

YAY ~ it's been 16 years of bliss with my King Carlyboy (well, yesterday was the actual milestone)...... but hey, what's one day late? So, happy anniversary poss!!!

Random Acts of Munchkin Cuteness

So I was at work on Tuesday night at the supermarket (I'm an on-line shopper which means I am a CHAMPION shopper, but more about that another time) and am picking items in the produce section at the front of the store when a v. cute little munchkin came up to me and started burbling away in a mix of toddler-speak & an Asian language ~ her own little concoction, fully expecting me to understand every word of course..... Anyway, she was very interested in what I was doing, checked out my grocery trolley & then gave me a little knee-hug which were on her eye level & toddled off! Her mum caught up with her about halfway through her explorations and we had a general chat about kids & stuff & then they left to finish her shopping. Now I hadn't met either the woman nor the child before, had seen them a few times in the supermarket when they were shopping, but that's about it.

Come Wednesday morning I was at my local shopping centre (shopping again ~ I told you I was a champion!) when the same little munchkin appeared this time to say hello & talk to Fairygirl. This time she flung herself into my arms for a cuddle when I bent down to say hi! Don't you just love kids enthusiasm? (Okay, well, not all kids truth be told, some you want to keep at a distance and kind of pat them on the head & keep it at that....) She was such a cutie-pie! Anyway, her mum has noticed us & got up from her coffee ~ a huge effort I can appreciate as not having had a coffee myself at that stage..... to say hi & we oooohed & aaaaahed over our v. cute kids. Now keep in mind we are really strangers who have just kinda chitchatted in passing once, but these were genuinely nice people who didn't have to, but took the time out to be nice to someone. Which really gave me a nice buzz.

Anyway, after that cute encounter, we headed up to Whitcoulls bookstore for story time. I was thinking maybe FG would love to hear some stories & sing & dance with other kids ~ well nuh uh. She was waaaaay more interested in checking the place out & when the storyteller brought out a bunch of stickers ~ well she was like a guided missile to those stickers!!! Miss AF is currently obsessed with stickers & therefore FG is too. Eventually she got into the Ring-a-rosie dance and was probably the most enthusiastic kid at throwing herself down at the end - it's okay for her, she doesn't have as far to to the ground to go. But it was at the end of the story time when Fairygirl started making a bee-line for the cutest boy in class....she knows how to work those baby blues!! Pity that the little boy is only 9 months, at that age he really is a toy-boy that she can boss around. That's my girl.

So people ~ be nice to others, you just might make their day!!!

Birthday Princess & Birthday Prince

So, we've enjoyed a 2nd birthday for Fairygirl & a __th birthday for King Carlyboy on the 23rd & 24th of January. We hitched up the carlycampa and headed to one of NZ's many fine parks & enjoyed some family time over the long weekend. I know that having 2 birthdays one directly after the other is not the world's best timing, but if you've gotta put up with it, then having them over a long weekend in summer is the best way. It was Auckland Anniversay weekend for us (we don't have Autralia Day in NZ, but thank you for asking ~ you know who you are!!!)

I even managed to sneak in some balloons & birthday banners to decorate the carlycampa for the birthday princess & prince! Wayne was a bit concerned that he'd be getting left-over cake for his big day, so we managed that issue by me baking lots of chocolate cupcakes & taking along a bag of frosting & making up lots of little birthday cakes each day for dessert -> yum-o! Everyone was happy.

Our Angelface was her usual social butterfly & made lots of buddies amongst fitting in swimming, kayakking, snorkelling, eating & exploring. Our site became kid city as KCB rigged up a swing in the tree ~ there was always at least 3 or 4 extra munchkins about having a swing, a hit of tennis or cricket or a kick of the soccer ball. AF took it upon herself to take a nuddie tour of the campground outfitted in just shoes & a hat (for sun protection - ha ha) & wave to the fans..... the kid was a bit of a naturalist.

All in all it was a great weekend away, lots of outdoor activities, a bit of exploring of the countryside & a bit of a relax for us, the long weekend was well needed!