Adventures with Gill, William and Mallory

New Zealand is a long way. So we always appreciate it when people come and visit from a long way away. So nice to see an old friend and her wee ones. We had a fun week starting with some nice walks on the volcanoes at tongariro national park through the native bush and to waterfalls. Freya's first time to the volcanoes. 

Freya enjoying her walk with views of ruapehu in the background. 

Mallory being chased out of the bush by William. 

Then we had a few days in wellington going to the botanic gardens, cable car, zoo, beach....and multiple playgrounds around town. The weather was very cooperative, with virtually no wind (for Wellington) and fairly balmy for this time of year. William also enjoyed playing and grooming our cat mifi.  While Freya enjoyed having some big kids to watch, copy and play with in the bath. 

At the beach paddling and throwing stones.....

Riding the purple dinosaur with Mallory. 

William and mifi cuddling. 

Hope it isn't too long before we see you again. 

 

11 months

Kamikaze girl when it comes to going down the slide face first in the playground......but Freya isn't quite walking yet. Very good at pushing her trolley and starting to stand up and let go balancing for a few seconds, or longer if she is distracted. Life is certainly full on...this little girl isn't one for sitting still. The comment from care he was "she is a busy little girl". She is enjoying crèche and has lots of friends and fans....she loves to be outside with the older kids racing around, playing in the sandpit and climbing on stuff, and walking with one of the walkers! 

Her favourite toys at the moment are clothes pegs and a bunch of bottle caps we have been saving....taking them out and putting them into things. She also loves the stacking cups...although they don't stay stacked for very long these days. She also plays with her teddies and soft toys a lot more, putting them in the bassinet with everything else...and giving them the occasional hugs! 

 

She is also more interested in her books...and not just chewing them. She likes to turn the pages and opening flaps and touching the books that are fluffy and different textures. 

We still struggle with sleeping. But have had the occasional good night where freya has only woken 2 times. Usually more like 3 or 4 still. She struggled to cope with daylight savings....we had a few vEry early starts this last week....

Our stream of visitors continued. Which Freya loves. She loves having someone to pay attention to her and play. So nice to see you Julia. 

Home life is a bit more hectic as Aaron now has a full time job as a achitectural technician in town. He seems to be enjoying the challenge of his new career so far and he has survived the first few weeks. However the house and garden are suffering from a bit of neglect as it is hard to get much done when I'm at home with Freya. Oh well.....life is too short to worry about that! 

10 months

We have had a busy month with lots of visitors...and a very active little girl! Freya has been enjoying having lots of attention. So nice to see James and Becca and Louisa and Christian. 

Freya got her 8th tooth a few weeks ago ...so we are looking forward to a few months of no teething ;). Freya is crawling faster and faster, climbing up the stairs in the garden and pulling up on everything, even things that aren't very stable or don't have much to grab on to. Last week she started to pull up on her trolley and started walking off...she hasn't quite got the hang of steering yet, so lots of crashing in to the walls and furniture, so lots of adjustments in direction required from mum and dad. She is managing to balance for a few seconds at a time....so perhaps we are not far off walking? 

Walking with my trolley

Climbing the stairs.

She seems to be enjoy crèche, and is pretty settled there. She has a couple of friends who have recently started. So she has been helping them settle in. Swimming is also going well, with lots of underwater fun. And Freya managed to successfully ride a tricycle the other day. 

 Riding the tricycle

This parenting is pretty exhausting....even just watching her race around. 

9 months

Freya is 9 months....and changing so fast. It seems like every week she has a new trick. She has finally learnt her name and can clap and give high fives and she is starting to pull up and let go - balancing for a few seconds, and has been taking a few steps with her trolley. Still a little way off walking...but not too far. She is certainly getting around and exploring everything and is very social, getting very excited when she sees a group of kids at the swimming pool or the park. Her favourite game is peekaboo...which she plays herself now. 

We are also getting a few new sounds too. However the biggest challenge has been teething the last month and a bit. Freya now has 7 teeth....just waiting for one more on the bottom left to appear. Possibly related to the teething (or not), but Freya has been struggling eat. We have finally got the hang of eating finger foods without gagging all the time. So Freya is starting to eat a little more. Her favourite foods are yogurt, and she really enjoyed cherries, although she looked like a little vampire after. She also likes the pancakes her dad makes on the weekend. 

Breakfast time....yogurt....yum

We just had her 9 month check up and she is now 10.06kg and 71.5cm tall. So continuing to grow fast and following the same 95th and 75th percentiles on the charts. We are now in 12-18 month clothes....although over the summer she often doesn't wear much at all. She especially enjoys playing with water on the back deck to cool off. 

Bathing on the back deck. 

Annual pilgrimage to rotovegas!

Over the last few years Aaron has made an annual trip to Rotorua to visit the mountain biking Mecca that is whakawareware forest. We were not sure how we would do it this year with a little one... But we're determined to give it a try when our friend Dan suggested a trip over the Waitangi long weekend. This would be Freya's first long road trip..so we weren't quite sure how she would go. We left 3pm after crèche and we kept her entertained in the car with a new toy every 30 minutes or so. Thanks to our friend mike for giving us a bunch of new toys just before the trip...perfect timing. Then after dinner she slept the rest of the drive. So it worked out perfectly.....and we won't be quite so scared of longer road trips in the future. 

Freya playing her new xylophone 

Unfortunately the weather forecast for the weekend wasn't great, so when it wasn't raining the next morning Aaron, dan and Charlotte jumped on there bikes, while Helen tested out our new osprey poco baby backpack on some of the walking tracks in the forest. It did start raining, but in the trees it was pretty sheltered. The next day, however, there were some much stronger showers, so we decided to go rafting instead of biking. So Dan, Charlotte and Helen went down the kaituna river, over the largest waterfall that you can raft over as a punter...7 m. We were one of the few boats that tipped and we all swam, including the guide. The rafting was great....lots of Rapids down a beautiful gorge. Aaron and Freya watched us from the walking track. 

Freya fast asleep in her poco

Going over the big falls before flipping over

Dan, Charlotte and Helen ready to go rafting...sorry Freya you are just a little too young! 

We did a few more rides over the rest of the weekend, taking it in turns to look after Freya and take her for walks in the backpack, which we are really pleased with. Thanks to Charlotte and Dan for letting Aaron and I go for a ride together. Helen even remembered how to ride a mountain bike off-road again. We also went in the hot spas a few times...which Freya really enjoyed. It was a great weekend. We look forward to our next trip to rotovegas....next year, or maybe sooner 😉

Back to work...

9 months has flown by....time to go back to work and earn some pennies. In theory I could take a year off in New Zealand, but I feel like it is the right time to go back, especially as it is a little bit quieter over summer. I have been going to work every couple of weeks over the last 9 months, and doing some work in the evenings to keep me sane...yes you heard that right! So it felt quite normal to go back to work on Monday. 

However for Freya starting crèche was a new experience. She has been a couple of times before Christmas to see what it was like, but only for a couple of hours. After the last few weeks of playing with her cousins we figured she would cope with playing with other little ones, especially the older ones. So she was fine and had a great time playing, but wouldn't sleep, and then she was so tired she wouldn't want (not that she eats much anyway). Aaron had a very frustrating day as he was there with her most of the day. 2nd day was better...we went with a plan, and she slept okay and ate better. 3rd day was pretty good and Aaron left after she went down for her morning nap, and I went in for lunch and afternoon tea. Crèche got her down for one of her naps. She has a little friend who is almost 1 called Hanna, who is at a similar stage to her, crawling and pulling up on things. At lunch they were sitting in their high chairs jibber jabbering away to each other. So hopefully she is starting to get the hang of it. 

48 hours in Singapore

The final stop on our round the world tour was hot and humid Singapore. The primary aim of the stop was to break up the long trip home and get some sleep and hopefully over some of the jet lag, but it was also an excuse to explore Singapore. 

We took the underground subway to the city and arrived at our station Lavender to be greeted by the oppressive heat and pouring rain. Completely unprepared for this weather we set off in to the rain. At least it was warm! Within a couple of minutes a random woman gave me her umbrella....wow, what kindness...a great start to our stay. We dumped our stuff at the hotel and headed out to little India and found a vegetarian curry house for a delicious dinner. 

After a slightly rough night, in not the most salubrious hotel (although at least the air conditioning worked well), we set out to explore. We headed to the Marina Bay Area, to see the famous hotel and the gardens in the bay. Unfortunately we set off on the subway during rush hour.... However when we got to the mall at Marina Bay it was completely empty as we were there before the exclusive shops opened. We walked around the empty waterfront on the double helix bridge and around the strange looking art and science museum, taking in the views looking back across to old Singapore mixed in with the new city. We then crossed over the sky bridge, through the Marina Bay Sands hotel to the gardens in the bay. This is a series of gardens with several large domes which house indoor flower gardens and other plants, but also the very impressive super grove of gigantic trees with creepers and ferns slowly climbing their way up the structures. 

Freya and Aaron on the double helix bridge.

Looking up at the Marina Bay Hotel all 57 floors

Looking down on the super grove from the observation deck at the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel from 57 floors high

The super grove from the ground

It was hot, so we headed to the children's water garden. This is an area of fountains and sprays for kids (and adults who are supervising!!) to run through. It was great to cool off and Freya loved playing in the fish fountains. 

Water fountains and sprays in the children's water garden with one of the garden domes in the background.

Freya playing in the fish fountain

Next we headed to Chinatown to find some lunch. It wasn't quite what we expected...it was much more cosmopolitan with lots of different culinary delights. We chose Vietnamese. By mid afternoon the heat was too much, so we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap. We emerged again just before dinner and headed to the Arab district checking out the mosque and the old buildings, before finding some dinner at one of the Turkish restaurants. Another great meal. 

The Arab district and the mosque

The next morning we went to check out the old fort canning on the hill, then briefly checked out one of the many shopping malls along Orchard road, before heading back to check out of the hotel. We headed to the airport mid afternoon and after checking in for our flight we headed to the airport swimming pool and swam and hung out for the rest of the afternoon before boarding our flight. The swimming pool at the airport is just awesome....so much nicer than spending hours in the departure lounges. 

Plenty more of Singapore to explore and delicacies to eat. Next time....hopefully at a cooler???? Or at least a less humid time of the year.