Beach weekend with Rangers

Over the last few years it has become a bit of a tradition for the rangers to head to the beach for the weekend at the end of year. We are very fortunate that the other ranger leader, Jo, has a very nice family bach at Peka Peka beach on the Kapiti coast, which we are allowed to use. This year the weather wasn't great - but we still made it out kayaking and swimming on both Saturday and Sunday morning. Some of the girls got quite good at surfing the small waves. The rest of the time we spent playing board games and cooking... pizza, cookies, meringues, spring rolls...

Hannah kayaking

Sophie on the swing at the beach house

So the end of rangers for another year... lots of certificates and awards presented to the girls. A couple of girls leaving us to head off to Uni next year. Can't believe I have now been doing rangers for almost 5 years and seen quite a few girls grow up.... I guess I might have to as well next year!

Peanut - 19 Weeks

Today we had our 19 week anatomy scan to check how peanut is developing. Perhaps we need to stop calling it peanut as it is a little bit bigger now.... 

Everything was fine. A good strong heart beat and everything else was present and correct and normal size - so that is a relief. For a while she kept putting her hand in front of her face making it tricky for the ultrasound specialist to measure the nose, chin and jaw, but eventually she moved it away. I say "she" as they are 90% sure that it will be a girl as there was no evidence of any boy bits...

A few scan images below.... 

  

Goodbye Safi

Tramping on Mt Taranaki

The New Zealand Geosciences conference was held in New Plymouth this year. A great excuse to go for another tramp on Mt Taranaki. However, I am not in top tramping fitness... so we chose a pretty easy tramp up to Pouakai Hut, only 2 and a half hours from the carpark, starting off pretty gently and slowly getting steeper. I went with one of the students who grew up in New Plymouth and had done this tramp many years ago and wanted to take her 10 year old niece on her first tramp. We were also joined by her brother, Ralph.

Sophie, Ana and Ralph Barton

On the drive up to New Plymouth it was rainy and cloudy and we could barely see Mt Taranaki, but as we arrived at 1pm in the afternoon the clouds lifted and we walked up the Mangorei track in the sunshine and got some great views back down to the city and the coast. When we got to Pouakai Hut we dropped our bags and headed up to the ridge above the hut and got some great views across to Mt Taranaki. It was perfect weather with no wind and warm, so we spent quite a bit of time just hanging out before heading down to the hut for dinner. 

Pouakai Hut

Looking across at Mt Taranaki

We had a nice evening eating and playing cards. Unfortunately when we woke up in the morning it was cloudy and drizzling... we had originally planned to walk out along the ridge to North Egmont (part of the Pouakai circuit), but there was no point as we wouldn't have been able to see anything. So we had a lazy start and then pottered back down the same way. Probably enough for Ana, the 10 year old... 

I felt pretty good on the walk up - but had to take a little more weight on my shoulders as I couldn't tighten my waist belt around the small "bump" that is developing. So this will probably be my last overnight walk - unless I can convince someone else to carry most of the stuff. I will just have to stick to some day walks over the next few months. 

6th Annual Kiwi Thanksgiving

Strong winds meant an indoor Thanksgiving this year

4.5kg of yum!

Thanks to: Sam, Barbara, Thomas, Elsa, Andrew, Dee, Olive, Leo, Reo, Greg, Clare and Andrew for sharing the day with us.

And of course Helen and Peanut for cooking up a storm.

Sunny day on the other side of the harbour

Snow capped Kaikouras

Lake Kohangapiripiri

Bluff overlooking the South Coast

Pencarrow Lighthouse

Miramar Peninsula and Mt Kaukau

Reclaiming the Slope

Summer is teasing us and on days like today Aaron has been out in the sunshine trying to re-tame the garden after the neglect of the winter... removing all the weeds and planting some new plants in the hope that eventually we will cover the slope so well that the weeds don't have a chance.... ;) we can live in hope! It is a great time of year with garden coming back to life and the veggies all coming through. I just hope that the inclement spring weather (usually very windy) doesn't destroy too many of the plants... that is why we keep a few in the greenhouse as back up to replace any that get decimated!

Bring on summer and nice days in the garden and outside!