Loving the school holidays

It’s such a relief not to be rushing out the door every morning. The girls are loving having time together and we’ve having lovely first week of the school holidays, despite the loss of dear Simba.

On Tuesday we took the bus into the city to visit Capital E, where we made princess crowns and enjoyed a fun time. The sun came out whilst we were busy with our crowns and so we took a lovely walk along the waterfront. The girls spotted the ‘Croc Bikes‘ out and were really keen to have a ride. We had a lovely half hour, but it was quite a workout for me (used to having Dan to help pedal!) – especially with a gentle breeze blowing toward me on the return leg!

On Wednesday we received the sad news about Simba. After we’d visited him we went down to Oriental Parade for brunch at Parade Cafe. The girls then spent a good half hour throwing pebbles into the sea – whilst I looked on and glanced at my newspaper in between making sure no one got too close to the edge of the wharf!

In the afternoon we went kite flying to honour Simba’s spirit making his journey to the other world. The girls had a blast running down the hill and successfully flying their kites.

Yesterday, we met up with Marrisa and Bethany to watch ‘The Snow Queen‘. Charlotte was keen to sit right at the front and was in total raptures. Sophie sat up with me and showed great concentration staying for the duration of the performance. But it was a little hard to understand and there were some rather scary parts – which prompted a ton of ‘Why?’ questions from Sophie!

After the performance the girls asked to visit the ‘Saddleback Cafe‘. We had a beautiful lunch and play by the stream. The horses were busy getting new shoes, but we had a lovely time talking to the children helping out and many were on school holiday programmes – what a magic way to spend the holidays!

We took the long drive back, via Makara Beach, where we have spent many a fine family day. It felt so good to be driving the winding country roads with shouts of, ‘Sheep! Cow! Horse! Pukeko!’ coming from the back! Charli has recently got into a ‘Times Table’ CD with, I have to admit, quite funky music! So with our ‘Times Tables’ blasting and some singing along from the back we enjoyed a fun scenic drive.

This morning, the girls have been playing fairies and have set up camp in the lounge reading stories to their unicorns!