Gracie's 8th Birthday Party

An invitation was given to every kid in the class, "Come to the school grounds for a birthday party, lunch and games Saturday from noon to three and plan to get dirty!"  We played capture the flag with flour bombs.  Each player armed with a paper bag of flour, the red vs the yellow.   We set out the rules and separated the teams, the red defended the playground and the yellow had the grass hills.  The flour bombs were under control for a little while... We stopped at 1:45 to sing happy birthday and blow out candles at which point most of the kids had white hair.

Eva, Tui, Brodie, Tayla and Gracie

Ben making a run for it

Gracie gets caught by Emma and Tui

Grace, Tom and Echo are freed from jail by their teammate Paige.  

Andre with the Yellow Flag and the first Red victory.

Amelia and Andre.  Until this moment Andre had very little flour on him.

Tom on the approach

Gracie with the Red Flag and the first Yellow victory.

After a few games we decided to make it harder by hiding the flags.

Ben sneaking into Yellow territory

After brownies and milk we moved to the big field and played a few more games.  We played hide and seek, sardines and octopus, some kids played on the jungle gyms while others blew bubbles or rode scooters, bikes or skate boards.  Choice of fish or hotdog with chips and water to drink was the lunch menu, which they devoured, no chip left behind.  The water ended up on a few heads, as is the way of eight-year-olds, the result left a few girls sporting doughy dreadlocks by the afternoon.... Even after a shower Grace still had flour in her hair.  

Brodie securing the Yellow flag

Waiting on the other team...

Charlotte going after Gracie

Gracie, Tayla and Amelia blowing bubbles

Brodie, Andre, Gracie, Tayla, Amelia

Emma and Gracie

Jessica, Tayla and Charlotte

Emma making bubbles

Echo

Brodie and Gracie, taken by Echo.

We were exhausted by the end but it had been fun.  Grace was happy, the party had been a success and we survived it... 

Sea Kayaking

We have completed our first family sea kayaking trip!  This was a first for all of us, our friend Yan had a few trips under his belt so he was designated trip leader.  
We put in at Carey's Bay in the Otago Harbour, about 10 minutes from our house.  

Once out of the Harbour and out in the open ocean we stopped at Aramoana Beach for lunch and a few pictures.

The cliffs were truly amazing.  John and Grace had a close encounter with a blue penguin swimming out in the ocean and a seal playing in the waves off one of the rocky beaches.  They were able to paddle right up next to him.  Pretty cool!!

My first attempt to surf a kayak was in the approach to Long Beach, which ended in my first swim in the Pacific Ocean... Above you see Yan graciously pumping the water out of my boat.  Surprisingly the water wasn't too cold, though once out on the beach in the wind for a bit I was reaching for dry clothes.  Grace was a bit cold as well so she put on John's black fleece... Which made her look like Quasimodo or Igor... I could not stop laughing at her.

In length the whole trip was around 16 kilometers and took us around 5 and a half hours to complete.  The takeout was in a tiny town called Waitati which is around a 45 minute drive to our front door.  Since we set shuttle before our trip we had both cars at the takeout and we were able to head home without delay.

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