Term 3 holidays--first week

I love having a two week holiday between terms, perhaps because I can choose not to work during that time. It's two weeks of full days with the girls, going on adventures around town and not adhering to any schedule. We let the day take us where it may.

The bus routes all changed in July and they've added double decker buses so we just had to take one...

We took the double decker downtown and went to Capital E, a city sponsored kids' space for art. They were making Taniwha puppets (Maori sea monster). Puppet show with baby audience.

The Vegetative Couch at the Botanical Gardens.

Spring!

Climbing up a big Pohutukawa tree

Long mornings in PJs, drawing at the breakfast table

We went to Zealandia, a fenced-off watershed with no predators and tons of wildlife you can't normally see, like Tuatara. We had such an eventful trip! We saw a New Zealand falcon swoop down and catch a duckling. We also saw a weasel, which had made the news lately for having gotten into the sanctuary. We led the ranger back to where we'd seen it and they set up trapping there. Very CSI!

On Friday I took the twins for the day. Reading at the library...

Ice blocks at the park...

A weekend scene, the girls reading together out on the lawn, Lucas pegging out the laundry

We went tide pooling at Owhiro Bay and found the exoskeleton of a spiny lobster.

The Ghost Phone on Owhiro Bay Beach, under the bridge. Installed last year, non-working, for calling out across the ocean to lost loved ones...

We hung some more seaweed on Seaweed Man

With the Robertsons we did our favorite hike, Oruaiti and barely made it around the beach before the tide came in. We have renamed this beach, Naked Man Beach. Apparently it's a nudist spot. 

The girls off and running towards a hole in the rock. Though so close to the city, feels so far away!