Lake Tekapo take 2...

On the 21st we drove up to Lake Tekapo,  This is only about 1.5 hours from our home in Ashburton (and if you have been following along, yes this will feel like deja vu) and has great views of the glacier fed lake,  Mount Cook and has (my favourite) the hot pools, ahhhhhhhh...

We shopped a bit, walked around a bit and lazed in the pools.  All was good.

There was this cool band playing jazz in the park, had to snap a few pix. 

and then the pools, ahhhhh...

and then we went to the lake and skipped stones etc...

Time Warp April 15th 2012

After we went to Dunedin the kids entered two weeks of school holidays.  Jamie and Luke were in Oscar (basically daycamp) for the two weeks and Joelle was in an overnight riding camp for a week - heaven on earth for her.  Of course she forgot her sleeping bag and her show gear.  Typical.
Adrian slept in, did some skateboarding and tested the limit of texting on his phone.  Heaven on earth for him.

On the sunday Joelle entered her 1st Dressage competition.  She was in 3 classes and came home with a 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

Thankfully at Level 1 Dressage in New Zealand her show gear from Canada is completely acceptable and we did not have to buy anything new at all!!!!!   I am still in shock.
Most of the girls wear collared shirts with ties but the official rules state the rat catcher collar is good to go. Yay!

But she did forget her riding coat and I was driving to the showgrounds at 7am to bring a coat and shirt.

I watched her 1st class and then had to go to Christchurch to pick up Natasha who was flying in from Canada.  Natasha has been doing a gap year and has been working very hard saving her money and decided to spend it all travelling the world before she goes to university.

I have to say we timed that trip perfectly.  I had just said to Adrian, we will wait here for a few minutes (by the exit gate) and if she does not show up we will go to the luggage carousels.  Then she walked through the door.  Perfect timing.

Here she is completely jet lagged and enjoying a couch and a blankie.

So the rest of the week she got settled timezone wise and hung out with Joelle and Adrian exploring Ashburton.  She tried hard to find a job but where she was only here for a short time that did not work out.

She recovered nicely and we went to Christchurch shopping on the 17th.  Adrian, Natasha and I went to check out the container mall.  Quite a bit of the downtown shopping area was destroyed during the earthquakes and a trendy (read expensive) mall has been built out of shipping containers.

Here the two teens are missing the critters from their homeland...

After that we walked around downtown a bit and I went to Vino Fino to get some wine...

On the way out of town we hit the Westgate Mall and entered "Mall Hell"  Thankfully there were comfy chairs and a Starbuck (and a deadline when we had to be back in Ashburton)  whew....

More to come...

Slack Blogger

So over a month has gone by since I done ANY blogging. No, we did not fall off the face of the earth but life has been really BUSY.

Our niece Natasha arrived for a month and she is now doing a European tour.  But hopefully we kept her entertained while she was here.  We went to Tekapo, Hokitika, Auckland and a few different bits of Christchurch.

I have just downloaded over 400 pictures from my camera so you are warned.  This is the weekend that I am planning on getting all caught up.  We will see if I can live up to my hopes!!

Happy Reading!