Maxing it out on a Sunday – and the rest!

Last Sunday was a ‘beaut! The temperatures reached 19 degrees and this is the middle of winter! Days like this are sent to us in Welly to keep us sane in the midst of frequent southerly blasts from the Antarctic.

Within a day we managed horse riding, vertical bungy (see earlier posts – here and here) and climbing at Fergs (see an earlier post) on Wellington Waterfront. Charli and Dad even managed a swim at the Splash Pool to top it all off!

Sophie loves horses with a passion beyond her years. Everyone at the stables knows her well, including Duchess – the horse she regularly rides. She pricks up her ears when we greet her and really pulls at our heart strings. Duchess always gives Sophie a good ride; even stepping up to a trot a few times, with Dan leading, and Sophie loved it. One of the ladies said, ‘You’re going to be in trouble when she gets older!’ – and don’t we know it! Charli says, ‘I love ballet dancing, but I like horses too – just not riding them, I prefer my feet lower to the ground!’. Charli did try riding a few times before coming to this decision and we’re so proud of her spirit to try new things and find her passions. She is now very happy to be around horses, stroke them and lead, but leaves the riding to her little sis.

After a beautiful morning at the stables we headed to Wellington’s Waterfront, where both the girls had a fabulous time ‘touching the sky’ on the Vertical Bungy. The girls are well known and have been given a ten-trip discount card. They both like to compete on who can go the highest and even manage the odd backward somersault from time to time!

Since Sophie had fulfilled her passion of riding in the morning, Charli asked to go climbing. She has always been extremely adept in climbing – in fact she was climbing before she was walking! She has great balance (went roller skating for the first time this week and didn’t fall once!) and this is one sport where she doesn’t mind her feet being off the ground – just as long as they are firmly on the wall!

With school holidays there has been no ballet for Charli and she’s really missing it. She frequently dresses in her ballet gear and puts on the music to her favourite ballets to give us a twirl. She goes to sleep at night listening to her favourite music (on full blast!) which so takes me back to my childhood – when my Mum would call up from the kitchen several times, ‘Night, night, Sarah!’. I’d frequently stay up too late listening to ballet music or singing myself to sleep – for an hour or so!

Meanwhile, Sophie is busy making wishes for a horse of her own one day, telling us, ‘One day I will have my own horse, called Drum, and muck-out every day!’ – at least she understands the priorities of caring for a horse! She takes herself upstairs around 6.30pm most nights and sits for half an hour, surrounded in books, ‘reading’ them to herself. When I say ‘reading’, she isn’t actually reading (though she does read some words and is showing strong signs of being an early reader). She really can spin a story from looking at the pictures and if you were to stand outside her door and listen you’d think she was!

She’s a clever cookie and this helps in forming a strong bond with her big sister. They’ve had such a great time over the school hols – often happy to stay at home and play copious board games. Favourite games include ‘Snakes and Ladders’, ‘Guess Who’, memory games (with Peter Rabbit cards), ‘Thomas card game’ and another game which I haven’t even worked the rules out on – they seem to have done that for themselves and play happily on it for half an hour in their own private code!

Loving these holidays!