Wellington

Well, life is certainly not predictable, and this last week has certainly shown that to be true.

This time last week I was frantically working away to get a job finished. I was then going to spend the weekend cleaning up the house while Daryl and Kyla were in Wellington for the National Secondary School athletics Championships, to have it all ready for Paul and T to move in while Daryl and I took a few days off to relax in Queenstown.

Friday afternoon it all turned to custard.

I was on my way to Kyla's school to watch her emcee and receive an award at the prizegiving. My cellphone rang, and being the good girl that I am, I pulled over to answer it. It was Daryl, telling me that some V.I.Ds (Very Important Deadlines) had been suddenly changed, and not only was our trip to Queenstown off, but he needed to pull out of going to Wellington with Kyla in order to stand any chance of actually meeting the deadlines.

So, in addition to watching Kyla emcee (very well I might add), I was also texting Daryl, Mum, T and Sandra to cancel arrangements and make new ones. Daryl found me a flight on Air NZ (as Jetstar refused to change the name on the ticket he already had) and the madness began.

Just for the record (in case you didn't already know), Kyla was 1st in Spanish, Graphics, Digital Technology (computer stuff), and 3rd in Social Studies, and received a Dean's Citizenship award. It also happens that on her report it records her as being 4th= in English. She has worked hard and achieved exceptionally well this year!

So, after watching the prizegiving, I raced home to empty Daryl's suitcase and pack mine. Daryl arrived home, and we raced out to the airport with my flight leaving at 5:30, and Kyla's at 5:50. I have to say I was feeling a little shell shocked when I left, and not at all sure that I would enjoy myself.

It turns out that it was a really good weekend.

Kyla was not competing on Saturday, as the 3000m track race she was entered in had been changed to Sunday at 11am, 3 hours after her 3000m road race. This change meant that her coach opted to scratch her from the track race - her preference was always for the road race anyway, and it was not reasonable to compete in two 3km events 3 hours apart.

We spent Saturday watching other team members compete, and it was a good day. We took a break at one point and wandered down the road to check out a french patisserie that we had passed in the van on the way to the Athletics.

It turns out that they did a fantastic raspberry and chocolate tart, and chocolate filled eclair. The coffee was excellent too. We shared them both, and it was the best thing we ate all weekend!

Kyla's race was the 3km year 9 girls road race, and was held at 8am on Sunday at the Westpac Stadium/Cake tin. It was a little odd - they didn't actually run on a road at all, rather the circuit did a loop of a very long carpark, before going into the top tier of the stadium, and around there before emerging back into the carpark.

Kyla started serious training for this about 6 weeks ago, and her time then was around 15mins for the 3km. She completed the run in a very impressive 12:26 which was a personal best for her, and put her in 30th out of 40 girls. I am amazed that any child that has my genes can achieve that - clearly Daryl's genes are dominant. A fine effort and her coach was very pleased, as were we. I tried attaching a video of her finishing, but sorry - no luck!

We returned to Auckland on Sunday afternoon, and now prepare for Christmas. Daryl is working crazy hours to get things done. Our tickets to Queenstown have been transferred to mid January - whether we get to go then or have to rebook again remains to be seen.

Gingerbread house

Well, it sure has been a while since I wrote anything on the blog!

Today we had our second annual gingerbread house making evening at Paul and T's house. This year the theme (chosen by Paul and T) was "Hillbilly house".

To begin with, we were a little unsure what to do for this, but T's Dad told us that as long as we remembered to put a shotgun by the front door then it would be perfectly acceptable as a hillbilly house.

We decided to model ours on a house we saw a few weeks back at the Howick historical village.

For the mud bricks, we made russian fudge and ginger fudge… yes, I know, neither of those are gingerbread. The ceiling diaphragm (to help stabilise the walls), chimney and roof were all made of gingerbread, along with the doors and

windows.

So far we have not actually eaten any of it… but I am sure it will not last long.

The only criticism that there seemed to be of our house is that it isn't quite ramshackle enough. We would like to point out that the windows are not level, and the gaps between the bricks (and the bricks themselves) are not even!

A fun time had by all, and no doubt Paul will have a good blog showing all the houses up soon.

Day 7 with the caged animal

Today we enter a new stage of Chica's recovery. She has pretty much ignored the wound with it's dressing since the operation, but over the last day or so I noticed that the dressing was beginning to come off. Now this is fine, until she starts licking at the wound. So, we went for a walk this morning to the vet - her first time off the property since the op last Wednesday.
That was an exercise in frustration for both of us I am sure. For Chica the frustration was that she is desperate to run, and I won't let her, and for me the frustration is that her on leash training is pretty much being undone as she is so frustrated at only being allowed to walk. Normally I would wear her out with some ball chasing before we go for a training walk. But I digress.
We saw the vet's nurse, who removed the dressing that was by now only hanging on by a corner. The wound is ok, but a little weepy, which may be because the dressing was flapping around, or it may be that Chica was licking at it. The solution?

I don't think she is very impressed with me for this.... the look she gave me was accusatory to say the least.

A caged animal

Chica is officially 5 months old tomorrow, and with this milestone comes the choice of whether to spay her or not. Quite frankly, one puppy is enough work, and there is no way I would consider looking after several, and then having to find homes for them! So, it was off to the vet yesterday. Chica and I walked along the road, and she was so keen to get in there that I had to laugh. She had no idea what was going to happen - but then how could she given that she has only ever had fun there.
She is now missing the essential bits for reproduction, and thus we are safe from ever having to care for a litter of puppies - phew!
We have our instructions on how to care for her, which include quiet rest for at least 36 hours, and on leash walks only for 12-14 days until her stitches come out. For anyone who has met Chica, you will understand how difficult this is going to be. She is currently a caged animal in the family room, and is doing a fair bit of whining about being confined. Thankfully the noise of the TV seems to calm her down enough for me to get out of the room without her going crazy.

Week 65 Challenge - Sausages

What to do with the humble sausage? That was the challenge last week.
I thought I would go a little bit retro on this one, and so had a look through an old Alison Holst book. I found a recipe that reminded me of something we did in Intermediate School Cooking, and though it would be worth a go - A sausage and apple plait.

I had bought some nice looking pork sausages, and combined the meat out of these with diced apple, sauteed onion, cooked diced potato, egg and herbs. This was laid along 2 joined flaky pastry sheets, and the pastry plaited over the top of the sausage mixture. A quick brush with some beaten egg, and it was into the oven to bake.

As the plait had potato in it, we only needed some green veges to go with it. It was very tasty, and Daryl gave it a 4.5/5, and the kids were more than happy to eat it.
It was a great way to stretch 500g of sausages, and I will definitely use this recipe again.

Puppy preschool

Hooray! I had a call from the vet today, and they must have got enough people for the puppy preschool classes as they will be starting next week!!!

For 1 hour from 6:30pm, we will go to the vet along the road, and Chica will get to socialise with other puppies, and we will get to learn some basic training etc.

I am really looking forward to this - a great chance to get her off the property in a safe environment, and get her used to other dogs.

Roll on next Wednesday!

On another note, Daryl tells me that after the 30th of June, he will not be so busy at work - will we actually get to eat dinner with him again?

Sunshine helps...

After wishing this morning that we had never even got a puppy, I am feeling a little more positive this afternoon.

The sunshine definitely helps, and I hope (probably in vain) that we get a lot more of it.

Chica and I have just spent some time out on the deck with tiny squares of luncheon sausage- with the aim of teaching her to sit. The lesson began with Chica rushing madly around me as she smells the luncheon sausage, and me thinking what a silly idea this was. Once she had calmed down a bit, I saw glimmers of her beginning to grasp the idea of "I do something and then I get the treat".

We will work on this more, and hopefully have some success!

More rain..

Turns out it is quite hard to keep a little puppy occupied when it continues to rain.

When we take her for a walk onto the lawn so she can do her business, she often gets to the end of the deck and sits down. At this point she looks at us with her head to one side as if to say "you have got to be kidding me… have you seen the size of the puddles down there!"

She has spent most of the morning in her cage inside, surely there will be a break in the rain soon so we can have a quick wander around? It would be much easier if I was allowed to take her for a walk along the road - hopefully the next 5 weeks are not continuously wet!!

Rant over.

Chica

Well, there have been a lot of posts on here lately about food, but there is (apparently) more to life than just food!

On Saturday, we acquired a new family member in the form of a 7 1/2 week old puppy who we have named Chica. Chica is the spanish word for girl, and sounds remarkably like the word cheeky… which is an apt description for her!

She is a border collie springer spaniel cross, and so is full of energy. Her first night home, we were expecting her to cry a lot, and were lulled into a false sense of security when this did not happen. Sunday night was a different story altogether. She howled and whimpered and carried on till after midnight, and then finally went to sleep, only to start up again at 5am!!! So, come Monday morning, we were all feeling a little tired. Last night, she was perfect, sleeping through without a problem.

She is so cute, that we will forgive her for the bad nights… as long as there are more good nights than bad!

We have just had confirmed by the vet today that she has to stay away from dogs that we do not know, and places where unvaccinated dogs may be/have been until she is fully vaccinated (13 weeks). This is a little disappointing, as we were looking forward to taking her to soccer practices with us, but she will just have to wait, as the risk is that she could catch Parvo Virus if we take her out before she has had all her vaccinations. She can come with us, but will have to stay in the car, or we would have to hold her the whole time. I can picture that getting a little tedious. Oh well, it is only another 5 1/2 weeks.

And what does Missie think of her? Not much.

She has met her, briefly. She looked at Chica for a few seconds, arched her back, hissed, and took off. This has become known as a "Missy fit". We have seen a few of these now.

Missie is spending most of her time on the top bunk in Braden's room at present. I think she figures that this is as far away as she can get (horizontally and vertically) from this silly little animal that we have dared to let onto the property! I hope she comes around soon, as I rather miss my lap warmer when I am in the office working, and my furry friend that keeps me company when I go outside to hang washing, or stand in the kitchen cooking. Come on Missie, smarten up and show the silly puppy who is in charge!

Week 58 Challenge - Pork and Apple

This is a little out of order, as this challenge was a few weeks ago now, but I thought I would post about it anyway.

It was my week to post the ingredients, and I decided that the classic combination of pork and apple would give people plenty of options. For me, this was a great reason to cook the piece of pork belly that I had in the freezer.

The pork belly was simmered for a couple of hours in stock and apple juice with vegetables, and chilled overnight. The next day it was roasted quickly in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. As it was roasting there was an enormous POP! Some of the fat under the skin had exploded, sending bits of nicely rendered pork fat all over the oven door. We decided to remove it from the oven at this point and try to get the skin to crackle a bit by pitting it into a hot frying pan. Apparently this was not a very clever move, as some more of the fat exploded, meaning that we now had to clean the side panel of the fridge, and spots on the floor!

We served this pork with a cauliflower

puree, apple compote, cabbage, apple and fennel slaw, and a jus made from the poaching liquid.

It was all very tasty, and although we looked at the small servings of pork and thought it would not be enough, it was in fact so rich that there was plenty.

Lauren's 9th birthday

Lauren has now turned 9 - her final single digit birthday. I think we must be getting old if our youngest is 9 already!

Lauren chose to go to West Wave for a swim with her friends, followed by dinner at La Porchetta. She and her friends had a lot of fun, although they were a little disappointed to find the Hydroslide was closed.

Well, I have told a few of you about Lauren's pizza birthday cake, and so here is the promised photo (complete with pizza box), along with one of Lauren and her friends at La Porchetta.

Kyla is now officially a teenager!

Well, we are now the proud parents of our very own teenager.

For her birthday this year, Kyla chose to have Sammie and Mikaela come over, and the three of them spent the afternoon/evening cooking a fantastic meal consisting of 3 courses from the Masterchef NZ and Australia cookbooks.

I know that Kyla is planning to blog about the meal, so I will not spoil that by giving details here. I will remind

her to blog about it soon. Suffice to say, the meal was fantastic, and we are hugely impressed that 3 girls can cook Masterchef food with very little or no assistance! Bookings open soon. :)

Once again we had a family gathering to

celebrate Mother's day/Kyla's birthday/Jayna's birthday. As usual it consisted of lots of fun and good food with a liberal dosing of noise. I made a birthday cake for Kyla and Jayna to share, shaped as a lap pool, due to their shared love of swimming.

Daryl and Kyla made dessert, which was the Croquembouche from the Australian Masterchef cookbook. It was a fantastic effort, and tasted amazing. They are so clever! Due to difficulties in sourcing a Croquembouche cone, a traffic cone (legally purchased) was used. It works really well, so if you ever need to borrow it, just ask!

Easter Camping

Another Easter Camping has come and gone, and it was another fun time for us.

The weather was pretty good - apart from Monday night which was pretty wild really.

The kids had a fantastic time at the beach, sliding down the hill, and making egg protectors which were then tested by throwing them down the hill

. It is amazing what a raw egg can survive!

So here are a few pictures showing the kids at the beach.

T looking particularly tall - or is it Daryl looking particularly short?

Missie

Well, Missie may be grown up now (she had her first birthday a couple of months back) but she is still cute.

As is typical for cats, she has a variety of sleeping positions, and one day I caught her looking particularly cute sprawled on Kyla's bed.

A couple of weeks ago one of the kids came running through the house (not unusual despite the no running in the house rule) shouting (also not unusual despite the inside voices only rule) "Missie's got a mouse!" (very unusual!).

I bravely (or not) followed them down the hallway to see said mouse, only to have one of the kids inform me that it was now in my office, between a chest of drawers and the wall. Missie was trying backing up their statement by pacing around the drawers looking intently for the mouse.

I moved the drawers, and she was able to herd it back into the entry, where she proceeded to continue to play with it before Daryl rescued the mouse and dispatched it into the creek. We figured that was more humane than letting Missie bat at it, which would have been a slow and painful death. So it appears that Missie is not just ornamental after all?

Week 54 Challenge - It's a wrap

Something wrapped in something else was the basic idea for this week's challenge.

I often use tortillas, so that option was out. I have a really nice fish wrapped in rice paper meal, but have done that before, so that was also out, and I figured a stuffed pasta was kind of cheating as I have done that before too.

I settled on making some savoury pancakes, which I filled with chicken in a curried white sauce sort of thing, and then folded up and baked in the oven with a little more of the sauce spread on top and a bit of peach and mango chutney.

The kids really enjoyed them... Braden going so far as to ask me to make them again sometime, and telling me he gave it 500/5. Not a bad review I think.

So, yes I will do them again sometime.

If I was to get picky about anything, I would say that they could have stayed in the oven a bit longer, but everyone was hungry, and they were heated through so it seemed pointless to wait.

Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago, Sandra, Tiffany and I went to an Easter cupcake decorating class at Milly's in town. This was our Christmas present from Sonia, and proved to be a whole lot of fun.

They provided the cupcakes, the icing, filling for piping into the cupcakes, and two people full of ideas and experience to help us. We were given a demonstration of some basic techniques, and then the idea was to get on with it, and ask plenty of questions. We learnt how to use some very cool icing nozzles to give different effects, as well as colouring and moulding fondant icing.

So, here are the cupcakes:

It was loads of fun, and has inspired us to give this a go with the kids during the school holidays, in the few days before we go camping.

On the topic of camping.... feel free to start praying that we won't we be rained out!

Update on Daryl

And here he is in all his uncomfortable glory!

Daryl went off to the Dr this morning, in time to arrive there as soon as they opened. This may have been due to the discomfort of having his nose stuffed with dressings, or may have been related to the fact that he had not eaten since lunchtime yesterday and wanted the all clear to be able to eat!

Anyway, the Dr removed the dressings, and pronounced him ok to not have them replaced, so his nose in now unstuffed. You would think that it would now look smaller than it did yesterday, but alas no. It is still fairly big and swollen. He encouraged me to have a look up his nose with a torch, and it is fairly clear to see that all is not as it should be - one nostril is a lot more open than the other.

He is fairly uncomfortable, I think, but is pleased to be able to eat. He should get a phone call from the specialist tomorrow to arrange an appointment to see what needs to be done.

Soccer - a non contact sport?

Well, this afternoon the mens team had a pre-season game of soccer.

I have had a flurry of texts from Kyla over the last hour or so... Daryl has broken his nose - rather spectacularly if all accounts are to be believed.

Apparently (and I have yet to speak to Daryl to verify this) he was running full speed, and collided with an opposition player. Kyla's text read "His bone is gross and he is bleeding."

I have yet to see him, as he is still at Westgate and his support network of Phil Brown, Craig and Paul are working together to get all 3 of our kids to their respective destinations, and will bring Daryl and his car home.

I will add a photo (Daryl permitting) and update when I know more.

So much for soccer being a non-contact sport... and we haven't even started the season yet!

Week 51 Challenge - Slow Cooker

Instead of an ingredient this week, we were challenged to use a slow cooker for a recipe we had not made before. I took the opportunity to try a dessert idea that is in the Alison Holst slow cooker book.

I made a coffee creme caramel, and cooked it in the slow cooker with a little water in the bottom. I was hoping for a lovely smooth texture, but unfortunately the result was very disappointing. As you can see from the photo, there were lots of air bubbles in my creme caramels, which I think indicates they were overcooked. I am surprised by this as the recipe said 4 hours on slow, and they would only have been in the slow cooker for around 3.5 hours at the most.

The creme caramel tasted really nice, and so the texture was a real let down. I will try this again sometime, as I know it should work, and if I can get it right, it will be a great easy dessert.

Finally - a break!

As some of you may have noticed, we were not in Auckland for the weekend.

Ever since the Christchurch earthquake, Daryl has been ridiculously busy with work - working at least part of each weekend, and long hours during the week. The craziest he did was last Monday - working from around 7am, then joining us at Mum and Dad's for dinner, before heading back to work around 8pm. He showed up at home around 4am and packed his suitcase ready to a trip to Sydney before coming to bed at about 4:30. He then had to get up at 5:40 in order to catch a taxi to the airport at 6am. In Sydney he worked a full day before having dinner at 8:30pm Sydney time, and finally getting back to his hotel around midnight NZT. That is a lot of hours with very little sleep.

On Friday afternoon, I was at the point of thinking "we have got to get out of here and have a break". So I had a look on the internet at Kuirau Park Motor Lodge. It is a fairly basic, and reasonably priced motel in Rotorua that we have stayed at before. They had suitable rooms available for the weekend, so I tried ringing Daryl to see what he thought of escaping for the weekend. He was (as usual) difficult to get hold of. Turned out he was in a meeting, but he did respond to a text. It was still looking like it would be too hard to organise, as I was not able to actually talk to Daryl to figure out if it was worth doing.

Eventually his meeting ended, and a short phone call to the motel resulted in them saying they would leave a key out for us as we would be arriving after the office closed. A flurry of packing ensued, and bikes were loaded on the car. We joined Daryl in town for dinner, and then headed down to Rotorua, arriving at about 11pm. We found the room, and it was time for bed.

Saturday morning was beautifully fine, and the kids were keen to get going. We started by having breakfast at Lime - a lovely cafe that does great food and coffee.

From there it was off to the forest for a spot of mountain biking. We ended up doing 20km which everyone managed very well. Kyla and Daryl sped off ahead at times, and Lauren set a very good pace for Braden and I to follow. Mountain biking was followed by a swim at the motel pool, where Lauren and Kyla took turns performing belly flops into the pool. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, and then a wander over to the playground by the lake for a game of Lava (try to get all the way around the playground without touching the ground) before having dessert at another restaurant.

Sunday was going to be a more relaxed day. We went to a bakery and get some breakfast which we then ate at the park before hopping on our bikes for an easier ride around the lakefront. However, the path continued, and soon we were at the far end of Rotorua, not far from the forest. Daryl asked the kids if they would like to keep going and do a quick forest loop as well, and they were all keen, so off we went. Somewhere in all of this riding, the kids had decided that if we managed 30km that day, then the weekend would total 50km. So, ride we did, and by the time we got back to the lakefront for a late lunch, we had managed an impressive 33km, totaling 53km for the weekend. The kids really do have impressive stamina!

After lunch, we packed all the bikes back into and onto the car, and drove past Nongotaha to a place called Hamurana. There we went for a short walk, to see an absolutely amazing spring. The spring is 15m deep, and the flow rate is an amazing 4,500,000 L per hour! It was worth the detour to drive there and see it.

Unfortunately in the rush to get away on Friday, I neglected to pack a camera, so we have no photos to add to this.

All in all, we had a fantastic break, and really enjoyed the time together as a family, doing things we all enjoy. Missie was very pleased to see us back after a weekend on her own.

Week 50 Challenge - Tomatoes and Lemongrass

I have completed another challenge, and this time I have (unintentionally) used both ingredients!

I decided to have a look for a Thai style soup that used lemongrass, as that is something I have never tried to make before. I found a recipe for

Thai Chicken Soup with Coconut Cream and Lemongrass on the Tegel website that looked like a good one. As it happened, the soup used both Lemongrass and Tomatoes, and even though I made it with both ingredients, it wasn't until I posted about it on the Foodlover's forum that I remembered that Tomato was the other ingredient for this week!

I couldn't find fresh Kaffir Lime leaves, but

did manage to find some dried ones, and as they are removed from the soup before you eat, I figured they would work just as well.

We had the soup poured over some rice stick noodles, to try and fill the kids up.

It was a good, quick meal to make and tasty to eat, but I thought the lime was a bit overpowering, and the subtlety of the Lemongrass was a bit lost. The flavour of the ginger did not come through either. Apart from that, it was good, and I would give it a 3.5/5. I will try this again, and play around with the balance of flavours to see if I can get it so that all the different flavours are there.

Week 47 Challenge - Mexican Food

We eat several different meals that we consider to be mexican, although in reality they are probably a very loose interpretation of what Mexican food really is. The challenge for this week was to cook a mexican dish we had never made before.
While wandering around on the internet looking for ideas, I thought of Mexican Pork and Beans - something I have never had, but must have heard of somewhere. As it happens, there are literally thousands of recipes for Mexican Pork and Beans. I was wanting to make as authentic a dish as I could, which is made more difficult when you have never seen or tasted the dish before.

I came across this recipe for
Mexican Pork and Beans. The ingredients and spices looked to be a good balance from what I had read in numerous other recipes.
It also helped that there were no strange ingredients to source.

I made this on Friday night, for Craig and Sandra (and kids), and Paul and T. I cooked it in the afternoon, and we finally got to eat after Summer Soccer.
We had it with Rice, Tortillas and Salad.

This gets a 4.5/5 from me. Really tasty, with just the right amount of chilli in it to make it warm but not hot. Having beans in the dish meant that the 1kg of meat stretched to feed 6 adults and 6 children. I used a pork shoulder roast, deboned and diced. There could have been a bit more meat in the dish, but realistically we probably didn't need more - it was just tasty enough that we would have eaten it if it was there.

Yet another recipe to add to the repertoire.

Week 46 Challenge- a budget meal

With our regular meals, I try to keep to an average of $10 meat per meal to feel our family of 2 adults and 3 kids. With the challenge for this week being "a budget meal" I decided to try and make the whole main course for as close to $10 as I could, including meat.

I found a Destitute Gourmet recipe for Peanut Pork and Rice. This recipe also happened to be a one pot meal, where everything is cooked together, which is always a bonus when it comes to cleaning up afterwards.

I think the total of ingredients added up to $11.47, which fed us all plenty, and there was enough left over for Kyla to take in her lunch the next day. Having garlic, courgette and beans from our garden certainly helped to keep the total cost down.

We would give this a 4/5 and I will certainly make it again.

Week 45 Challenge - Grains

This week, the challenge was to use a grain that you had never used before.

I bought a bag of pearl barley last week, having read about making a pearl barley risotto. The challenge gave me a push to actually make it this week.

I was a little dubious about how this would work, and after a quick look on the ever useful internet, found a recipe that looked good.
I didn't have any mushrooms, so they just got left out of the dish, and I added some slow roasted tomatoes that I had done. The texture is quite different to a regular risotto, with a bit more bite to the barley grains. The risotto tasted really good, and the kids all happily ate it. Incidentally, Pearl Barley has a very low GI rating (25) which means that it does not impact your blood sugar level very much. This will make it a very good recipe for me to cook for Jill sometime.

I would score this at 4.5/5 and will definitely be making it again - probably trying it with different flavours as well, just as I would with a regular risotto. And at $1.90 for 500g, it is significantly cheaper than risotto rice. I used just under a whole 500g pack, which provided a large serving each for 5 of us, and a large lunch for Daryl the next day. Pretty cheap really.

A high school student

Kyla has officially started High School now, and is only a few months off becoming a teenager! She is also now eligible to go to Youth Group, which starts this weekend.
Clearly we are all getting very old.

I thought you might all like to see Kyla in her school uniform, ready for her first day.
It has been/is a big adjustment for her, but she is doing very well. She caught the bus to school yesterday for the first time, and this afternoon will catch it home. This is a big thing, as up till now she had never had to do this. Fortunately she has a friend from Waimauku School who catches the same bus, so they have been organizing to do this together.

She is in the GAT (Gifted and Talented) Class, and so there are very high expectations from the school about how hard they will work this year. Kyla has a very good work ethic, so I do not think this will cause her any problems.

No doubt she will grump at me for this blog entry, but I figured you may like an update anyway.

Week 43 Challenge - Stonefruit

After a break over Christmas and New Year, the challenge has re-started, and this week was my turn to choose the ingredient.
As it is summer, I thought we should go with a seasonal ingredient, and at the moment we are enjoying plenty of lovely fresh stonefruit.

Earlier this week Mum made us a summer fruit tart for dessert when we visited them for dinner. I got a copy of the recipe, and so for dessert last night I made this with the addition of a few ground almonds to the cake batter. For fruit I used blueberries, peaches and black doris plums.
I also made vanilla and black doris plum frozen yoghurt from a recipe I found online. I used the juice from half a lemon instead of adding the cinnamon, as I was after a fairly sharp clean flavour.

The cake and the frozen yoghurt were both great, and went down very well with our visitors. The yoghurt tasted very sweet before being frozen but once frozen had plenty of tang and freshness to it. I would definitely do both again, and will probably use the same frozen yoghurt recipe again soon with different fruit. I want to make peach frozen yoghurt when the black boy peaches are in season as I think the idea of a purple yoghurt that tastes like peach is quite intriguing.

Jumping out of trees

Last week, we visited Sandra, Zach and Jayna while they were staying in Red Beach for a few days. The kids had a great time, boogie boarding, swimming and digging in the sand. After a picnic lunch we walked along the beach to check out the rock pools.

There were lovely pohutukawa trees along the edge of the beach, and I asked the kids to climb on to one flat branch for a photo.








The photo done, the kids decided the easiest way down was to jump... which then meant we stayed there for around 10 minutes while the kids went up the tree and jumped out..... quite a few times each.
Here are the kids in action..,




Zach











Jayna


















Lauren





















Kyla












..... and T contemplating the wisdom of such an action.

Didn't we do a good job of looking after T for you Paul?