Easter Monday we hopped in the truck for an Adventure Day. We headed up to Garston and then turned off to take the Nevis Road. This involved a steep ascent on a windy, dusty road frequently with 6 inches between us and a swift decent to the bottom of the valley. As Chris' truck is not 4WD he took this road at a fair clip to ensure that we kept moving in a forwards-and-upwards direction rather than a sideways-and-downwards one. There was a lot of bouncing and skidding. But the bouncing, skidding, sheer drops and general scariness of the ascent left Chris unfazed and for some reason unfathomable to me, he felt it was perfectly acceptable driving behaviour to remove one hand from the wheel for the purposes of pointing out various bits of scenery.
Those of you of a certain vintage will remember a series of Toyota ads involving Barry Crump and his passenger Scotty. This example pretty much sums up both our ascent and the subsequent descent:
The descent was a lot less hairy in terms of steepness but in place of that were the obstacles of stream crossings and large rocks to negotiate. Chris did a great job of picking the right places and only once did he confess that he was unsure if we were going to get through a particularly deep crossing.
See the shadowed side of the hill behind me and Tyler? Chris and his mates rode their dirt bikes up that recently!
We stopped at the Bannockburn pub for lunch in the sun and then went on to Queenstown where we took Tyler up in the gondolas and then did the luge. We followed that up with a round of indoor mini golf. We headed home well satisfied with day's activities.
We had Tyler's parent-teacher interview last Monday. The teacher goes through each subject and Tyler has to say what his current goal is for that subject and the teacher explains what he is working on. We started with reading comprehension and in terms of where he's at, he's way ahead of the standard and she said his results in the PAT test (yes, they still do those!) puts him in the top 10-15% of NZ. He gets that from me. She said everything else he is fine in, no concerns at all. Although he can get distracted sometimes. He get's that from his father. :)
Only a week till the end of school term so Tyler's touch, t-ball and summer soccer have finished. My netball has started and we are yet again going to spend the entire season outside - rain, hail or shine - due to the continued delays with the reconstruction of the Stadium.
We are still dealing with the uncertainties of a potential closure of Tiwai, but life goes on in the meantime and we have a holiday to the Gold Coast to look forward to later this year.
See the shadowed side of the hill behind me and Tyler? Chris and his mates rode their dirt bikes up that recently!
We stopped at the Bannockburn pub for lunch in the sun and then went on to Queenstown where we took Tyler up in the gondolas and then did the luge. We followed that up with a round of indoor mini golf. We headed home well satisfied with day's activities.
We had Tyler's parent-teacher interview last Monday. The teacher goes through each subject and Tyler has to say what his current goal is for that subject and the teacher explains what he is working on. We started with reading comprehension and in terms of where he's at, he's way ahead of the standard and she said his results in the PAT test (yes, they still do those!) puts him in the top 10-15% of NZ. He gets that from me. She said everything else he is fine in, no concerns at all. Although he can get distracted sometimes. He get's that from his father. :)
Only a week till the end of school term so Tyler's touch, t-ball and summer soccer have finished. My netball has started and we are yet again going to spend the entire season outside - rain, hail or shine - due to the continued delays with the reconstruction of the Stadium.
We are still dealing with the uncertainties of a potential closure of Tiwai, but life goes on in the meantime and we have a holiday to the Gold Coast to look forward to later this year.
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