Ants invade III :Raid to the Rescue

This time they came in from the ceiling and down a wooden support beam to eat my sugar cubes in the kitchen. I hate these Kiwi ants! They are everywhere inside and out.

I replaced the sugar cubes with a deliciously sticky taste of death, thanks to Raid.

Take that crazy Kiwi ants! 

Fun at Foxton Beach

Today we escaped the crazy shopping scene at the mall and left town to experience one of the local Kiwi summer haunts- the Foxton Beach.

It is 35 km from Palmy west on Route 57. Easy ride in the car past cow farms and we arrived in no time to the sandy dunes and summer surf.

A few Kiwis were there with their car stuck in the sand, and the beach Marshall had to recruit a tow to pull them out.

Ben and Mike played in the ocean and Zack chased seagulls and collected a massive amount of shells.
We had a blast, but we're all burned a bit after a mere 2 hours in the sun. That is with 65 SPF on!

Swinging into summer!

Handyman Ben W. came and installed a massive swing set , slide, tree fort for the boys today. This also coincides with Christmas and the boys' upcoming February birthdays.

Aunt Helen gifted the swing set to the boys. Now they have a nice outdoor place to play where I can see them from the kitchen/ living room. Super win for everyone.

Thanks Helen for the awesome holiday/birthday gift for my boys.

Summertime in Welly from last weekend.

The ants in the kitchen raid have been unlucky today. Yesterday they attacked my sugar cubes, but today they ate my ant poison.  Ha ha take that stupid ants

School's out...again?

Did I not just have summer in June, July, and August 2012? What is this strange double summer break that we are experiencing in December 2012 and Jan 2013? God help me! That's just too many days of straight parenting. So happy that Ameera is around to babysit the kids a few hours weekly to save my sanity....

Zack has his last day of school tomorrow for three weeks and Ben has six weeks of vacation. Sadly, Mike only has public holidays of Dec 25, Dec 26 and Jan 1,2 off.

I think the best solution is to do local field trips to the beach with the kids. Sand and surf can really burn off the kiddo's seemingly limitless energy.

Also, Lido aquatic center in town is open during summer break, do we can go there too.

Glow worms of Waitomo are the next hot ticket item on the NZ bucket list for us to go see.

Hanukkah and Summer Holiday kickoff!

Happy Hanukkah! We celebrated part of the holiday in Wellington, a 2 hr drive from home. The Welly Jews were nice, and the Sat AM services were 2 hrs long! 

Our holiday pic came out great from the local Jack  and Jill photography studio.

Kids are excited to lounge around the house in their pajamas with school out for Ben and almost done for Zack.

Scorcher !

Here are some pics from our scorching hot summer Sunday in mid December. Ameera got a Slip N Slide for Hanukkah for the kids, which they were thrilled to use.

We enjoyed gelato at the mall.

 Subway car, so LW Phat (Low fat)

Today was a roasting Sunday in mid December, so we beat the heat by going to the park in the early day, playing with the lawn sprinkler and slip n slide mid day, and getting gelato at the mall in the afternoon. Summer vacation is almost upon us.

Ben is out of school now for 6 weeks, but Zack has 5 more days of preschool until his 3 week break.

I am making mini hash brown/ latkes for the kids at school. Impossible to find applesauce in the grocery store, but they have apple pie filling that you can purre into apple sauce. I ran into an expat shopping and she suggested- apple sauce should be next to the cranberry sauce, like in English markets. We both laughed that there was no cranberry sauce or applesauce at Pak N Save.

DIY appliances?

So the fridge delivery guy came this week and dropped off a huge box in my kitchen. "Just sign here mam." Uhhh...what? You are not done yet. It is still in its box, I thought. "aren't you going to finish installing it?" I ask incredulously.

"Nope." he replied and walked out.

Gulp...a DIY appliance job. I manage to unpack and install the fridge myself in 20 minutes.

Then came the washer and dryer I bought on Trademe. They left them in my office and nowhere close to the laundry room. Finally, I decide that I need back up help to haul the appliances into place and install a dryer vent to the outside. "Can I get an appliance install guy to come out here and help me? " I ask Darren's Appliances.  " Can't you Do It Yourself?" the receptionists asks dumbfounded. "I'd rather have help." I explain defensively.

Well, you need to go to Harvey Norman department store and buy the parts for the dryer vent install, and our handyman will charge a high rate if it takes more than 15 minutes." Sure, fine, whatever.

I buy over $100 of dryer install pieces and am happy to find out that my washer and dryer can be hauled to my laundry room and installed in 20 minutes. DIY girl I am not, but Kiwi handymen sure come in handy.

Palmerston North Hanukkah party

 H

I

Liz Goodman was kind enough to organize a Sun afternoon Hanukkah party for us this week. We got to meet about 10 local Jews, most of which were expats from USA and South Africa. Very cool!

We had lox on toast and cheese and crackers and fruit and chocolate gelt .

The boys played in the sunny backyard on a tire swing. Liz let us borrow her menorah and she even gave us some candles.

The Big Move!

Our container is arriving from America on Monday and will be unloaded at our new house in Hokowhitu! Yeah, we are really excited to see our American furniture and toys. We last left it in a container on Sept 29th at our old home in Kingston.


Since then, it has gone to the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean on a freight cargo ship and passed through the Panama canal. Weeks later on Nov 15th, our stuff arrived in Aukland and then went through a week of quarantine and inspection.
Then it got stored for 2 weeks by the moving company while our landlord moves out off her 4 bed 2 bath house in Hokowhitu. We get the house keys tomorrow and the movers for the container are working on Monday to unload our American stuff.

 

Just in time for Hanukkah!

Visit to the Fire Station

Ben has joined the Te Awe Awe Boy scout troop in Hokowhitu, and we went on a pack field trip to the Fire Station this Tuesday.

The coolest part of the trip was seeing the fire truck leave to go to a car accident, because the fireman and firegal put on their gear in under 1 min and were out of the station in a flash in a big engine truck.

 

Also, the had a big wreck in the back of the fire station building to show the kids how crunched up the car can be on arrival to the scene, and tools they use to break open the car to rescue people pinned inside. The New Zealand slogan for speedy driving is, "The faster you go, the bigger the mess." This message is brought to you by public service announcement on TV where you get to graphically see someone's brain hemorraging and their shoulder and sternum cracking against the window. Lovely....

Kiwi Christmas and Hanukkah

We have our Hanukkah tree up and decorated in blue, silver, and gold.  There are only 7,000 Jews in New Zealand, so we are a super minority here. 

I have decided to let Kiwi Santa come visit us this year for Christmas, since I don't want the kids to be feeling left out.

We got "Santa is Coming to New Zealand" a book about Santa being caught in a storm and crashing into SkyTower in Aukland.  A Kiwi classic, for sure!

We went to the Christmas Parade yesterday, and the elves on the float in striped leggings and red tutus threw out lollies to the kids that lined the Square, so my kids thought that was awesome.  My favorite was the Christmas UFP float with space aliens.  Uhh...another Kiwi classic?

I would upload a video, but my past attempts have failed due to insufficient bandwidth. Mike misses his high speed internet terribly....

Kite Day

Last Saturday Zack's school held a Kite Day at the Marist Sports Club and hundreds of people came out to eat burgers, sausages, and fly kites.

 Our octopus kite flying high in the sky.

 Mike is an experienced kite flyer.

 Ben poses in front of the flying field at Marist Club.

 

The kids mostly had octopus kites, since that is what the preschool was selling for the event.  Mike managed to get the kites to fly, but the kids had some trouble with it.

It was a nice day and we enjoyed the partly cloudy weather for about two hours before I headed home to cook the Thanksgiving turkey. Here is Zack mixing up pumpkin goo for the pie filling.  What a good helper!

Builder's Butt

These are a few of the many silly signs that I see on my way to Zack's school in Kelvin's Grove.

Get your garden STONED

Not like this:

A Marijuana Garden

or this:

A Garden Frog smoking a joint

BUT this:

A garden quarry
 

Builder's Butt

Not this kind:



But this kind:

And the thought of the day, brought to by the back of a truck:

FAILURE OFTEN COMES BEFORE YOU WIN!

Anyhow, thought I would share.

Kiwi Thanksgiving

It's time to celebrate Thanksgiving in New Zealand. I have made my pumpkin pie from a local greenish gray pumpkin. The first pie was burned along the edges, but the second pie came out great!

My $84 turkey has defrosted and is ready to cook.

We went last night with green beans and one pie to Ian and Monica's house in Palmy to celebrate Thanksgiving with some other Americans and their Kiwi extended family and friends. We brought candy corn, which Mike had shipped us from America.

 Ian is NZ native and Monica is from Long Island, NY, so their kids have dual citizenship, which is neat.

Some of the Kiwis were relieved that candy corn is made out of corn syrup and not pieces of actual corn. "They look like teeth!" one person said. "Oh, they are lollies. I have seen these on TV but never ever had one in my life. They are quite good, "another Kiwi said. Too funny....

We stayed to chat and party until 9:00pm or so. BThe kids bounced on the trampoline until sunset and then tired themselves out.By the end of the party, Zack was asleep on the couch and Ben was zoned out watching Smurfs on DVD. It was great fun.



Thanksgiving day two was also a hit!  We celebrated in the evening with Kerry and Darren, Esther and Matthew, and Siouh Kim and Malcolm.

 The turkey was cooked and two more pumpkin pies were made (couln't bear to serve the burned one).

Everyone took turns cuddling the cat, and Darren gave Mr. Purrsalot some turkey.
 The kids played in the sandbox in the back, since it was a warm sunny day.

Esther made a delicious sweet potato casserole and Kerry made a yummy pecan pie.

The kids loved the desserts the best, of course!

Mike celebrated his 34th bday with a chocolate cake and a long speech about the twenty things he was thankful for, like friedns, family, the internet, and the "real housewifes of Orange Conty" TV.


Mike's 34th bday!