Liv’s family is still making their merry way across Europe (one each in Germany, France, and Italy at the moment, I think), and Sam hasn’t seen his grandparents on my side for a few weeks either (they’re making their daily merry way across Whangarei to work…), so another update.
The last couple of weeks have been quite busy, with extra work on, but the weather has finally improved (for a while it seemed like we were going to have rain the entire time Nana was in Europe!).
We visited the Pukekawa Playcentre yesterday for their “Carnival Day”. Sam played on the playground again (Adam’s birthday party was there last year), did some painting, ran around on the tennis courts, patted the donkey, and seemed to have quite a bit of fun (he warmed up to the other people quite quickly, so hopefully the shy time is wearing off, or has been worn down by seeing so many people recently). Everything was quite good, except that I woke up with a rather sore wrist for some reason, and was stung by a bee on the underside of my foot (feel free to insert comments about shoes here) at the Playcentre, so was a bit tender on the left side. We visited the Kellys for a little while afterwards and came home mid-afternoon.
Liv and I watched Shrek the Third last night. One of the things I really admire about the work that Pixar does is that they stay away from sequels (apart from the Toy Story sequel that Disney made them do). I don’t know if Dreamworks has managed to do anything much worth seeing apart from the Shrek franchise. However, even though it was a sequel it was still pretty funny (better than the second movie) and worth watching.
Olyvia looked after Adam & Regan as well as Samuel last week (and Madeline and Veronica were here for a while, making four little ones to look after) while Jo did some job interviews, and did remarkably well with the three of them. She’s doing it all over again this Tuesday, so hopefully that goes as well!
Sam had swimming again as usual this morning, and it went well again thankfully. Recently he’d been a bit shy (like elsewhere) and struggled to take part. Last week and this week he was back into it, though, and is nearly swimming by himself – he’ll even put his head under the water by himself now. He’ll probably be moving to the next class up at the end of the term. Liv, Sam and Sebastian then went for a walk with Milo & Debbie in the afternoon, and I’m told that Sam walked nearly the entire way around the park, so I imagine he’ll be sleeping pretty well tonight!
No doubt there were other things over the last fortnight, but nothing else comes to mind right now (there was a zoo visit with Veronica, Madeline and Jacs, but I don’t remember exactly when that was). Another busy week coming up, although there’s Easter at the end. Hopefully everything is still going well for all of you!
p.s. As you may have noticed, I’m managing to keep up with the photos a bit more now. In fact, in the latest bunch, there are even some from my cellphone that have been sitting there for a while (Sam looks pretty different on the swing at the playground up the road to a few months later on the swing at home!).
Last week we all drove up to 
After a quick swim and spa, we headed back south, with a brief overnight stop at the grandparent’s place in Whangarei (where Samuel tricked Grandma into staying up an extra hour and Olyvia and I were of limited use to Granddad’s quiz team). Back to Auckland the next morning to rescue the lonely dog (who did have great fun at Aunty Brenda’s, apparently). Short in time, but somewhat long in distance!
