Toby and a Bubble Blower

Quick Video from Toby's Party

Pictures of the Weekend

Here are some pictures of the weekend. Saturday was the Chinese Festival in Hagley Park, where they put Chinese lanterns on display, with some really clever animals and other things. On Sunday we took our new inflatable boat to the river.

Lily's Latest

Here is Lily's latest poem from school:

Summers Here

Summer seems to have arrived in Rolleston and we connected up the hose to the climbing frame to cool the kids off at the weekend. We usually get a few weeks of nice weather before the sun becomes so hot it peels the skin from your face within minutes of going outside. It's raining now mind, so I might have spoken too soon!

Halloween Hell and Cricket Heaven

We had eight groups of trick or treaters today which equates to about 30 kids. That's a ridiculous amount of trick or treaters and very annoying when you have to keep answering the door all the time. We ran out of sweets in the end and had to hide in the bedroom.

Better news however is that Toby is now old enough for backyard cricket and can chuck a ball at least 2m for me to whack into the shrubs with my tennis raquet. Happy days are here!

Victory for the All Blacks. Hooray!

Yesterday was a great day for NZ with the rugby world cup victory, the first for 24 years. It was a tense and nervy final which could have gone wrong any minute and I can't say I enjoyed it. But the country has apparently gone mad for it today, with thousands of people dressed in black lining the streets in Auckland to see the team parade past on the back of utes, with bagpipes, dancing and the like.

Rolleston on the other hand has remained quiet.