they say winning doesn't matter!

We have been beavering away this week on a wee project.....but we can't say too much about it in case someone nabs our ideas;-)
For the past two years J11 and J12 have entered the Science Competition at the University of Auckland. The first year they got a highly commended award for their astronomy board game, and last year's website design came first. YIPPEE! They're not sure they'll be able to equal that effort, but they sure are trying!! This year the brief is another board game.....and all they'll say for now is that it has something to do with the weather.
K9 is also old enough to enter this year and he is making one about.....ooooh, we can't tell!

Watch this space.

What A Country We Live In!

Yesterday we had one of our favourite-est adventures....hiking in the bush.



We climbed this cliff - it doesn't look very big in the photo but when we got to the top of it we looked down and saw our van and it looked like an ant, so it must have been quite high.
Halfway up M4 found a birds' nest, which he carried, because he didn't want to miss it on the way back down.
Some of the trees were so low to the ground that we had to crawl under them - even Mama got down on her hands and knees with ER(10mo) tied to her front!
From the top we could see a waterfall - and we could even hear it. We could hear the sea too as we sat there eating Easter eggs!!!!!

Mama and Dadda helped the two little ones and J12 and J11 helped M4 and L6....coming down was really slippery in places and we skidded down the hill.

T2 walked all the way by herself. Usually Dadda ends up carrying her for the end of our hikes, but this time she walked and didn't even ask to be carried.

Then we went to the Angoves....they have a huge garden and they had hidden eggs in it for us to find. We put the wrappers in M4's nest.

It was a wonderful day.

HOT X BUNS

Yesterday we made hot cross buns to be ready for today...the day we specially remember Jesus died on the cross to forgive us for all our sins.

Moving House

Mama and Dadda have a track record of staying in a house for under a year....well they used to....they lived in eleven houses in ten years! But now we have been in this house for five years. We gave it a big tidy-up this week and moved furniture around and cleaned every nook and cranny. It looks really nice now.

Here's Mama and Dadda's bedroom....


with the chair Mama recovered:


Here's one girls' room....


and the other one:


And all the boys are in together (the girls would be too except that there's only one set of bunks so they get split up)


Once someone said it was sad that we would never get to have our own room and Mama said that she doesn't expect us to do anything she doesn't do. She shares with Dadda and we get to share with our siblings;-)

Christmas lingers

Thanks Mr and Mrs H for such a wonderful Christmas present.......you'll be wondering if we ever finished it....this proves we did....every single one of those 1000 pieces! We'll get it out again when winter sets in and give Mama a few more hours of Peace and Quiet. Incidentally, Mama thinks this picture (which she is sure is of a family carvanning around the world) is a miraculous sign!!!!!!

Sir Edmund, here we come!

When we did the Try-athlon we were given vouchers to go rock-climbing.

THAT promised to be a real ADVENTURE.

On Saturday Dadda took us. And it was every bit as good as we had imagined.

Now we're ready to climb Everest!

snow, sea lions and sleeping bags

On Saturday night our homegroup had a movie night at our local church hall organised by "Grandma and Grandpa Boyd", the oldest couple in our group. They had set up an In The Dark By The Light Of Torches Easter Egg Hunt to begin the evening and then provided popcorn and icecreams to munch on during the movie. We all snuggled down in our sleeping bags and watched Eight Below (or Seven Under as L6 kept calling it all week!) There was one very scary part on the movie when a sea lion jumped out of the whale's stomach. L6 jumped right off the couch where he was giving Mama a cuddle. M4 would like everyone to know one of the dogs got bitten by the sea lion.

The End.