Christmas Parade

This year three-quarters of our family were selected to represent the Valerie Lissette School of Dance on their Hamilton Christmas Parade Float. The two elves were super cute.

And everyone looked happy on the float (but I'm not sure how Ali Baba comes into the picture). Perhaps Helen's character is really one of the Magi.

The parade itself was during a dull, drizzly day, but smiles were maintained and the kids loved the experience. Once their float had reached the finish, we had to rush back down the parade route to see Santa float past (He was, of course, on the final float). The big red guy then rewarded our elves with some tossed lollies.

Video Silliness Part 2

The Star Wars video was so much fun that the next night it was the same deal, except Harry Potter this time...

Video Silliness

One balmy evening with 30 minutes before dinner to fill, the kids insisted we make a Star Wars video... Hoooo-kay!! So costumes, script, props and filming were all done in half an hour. I could only get the kids to agree to one take and there were a lot of unscheduled costume changes ("Daaaaad, I want to be the jedi this time!!"), but we had a lot of fun.




I bet George Lucas never thought of staging a lightsaber battle on a trampoline...

Lunar Eclipse

 

Took this photo during the recent lunar eclipse. Unfortunately the camera I own doesn't really have enough grunt to get good sky images. I used a long exposure but I guess the auto-focus isn't up to lunar standards.

Train Trip to Wellington

On the first week of the school holidays we took the whole family for a short vacation to Wellington. The first leg of the journey was the Overlander train down country as far as you can go by land. Starting (30 minutes late) from Hamilton, the train was pulled by a standard diesel-electric locomotive.
We stopped at National Park for a meal (and the south-bound & north-bound train crews swap over), the very friendly driver allowed me to take the kids up into the cab of the locomotive. They thought that was pretty cool... In this day and age of paranoia and over-zealous security around public transport, it was nice to get the chance to experience the drivers view.

As a bonus on this trip, when we pulled into Ohakune , a genuine, old-fashioned, steam powered locomotive was hitched to the front of our train for the trip to Feilding. The smell of burning coal and the clouds of smoke and steam added to the experience.
The train chugged along puffing like the Hogwarts Express. There was an open observation platform on the baggage car from which we could take photos, but really the people in the worst place to enjoy the steam train experience are actually the passengers... People driving on the road alongside the tracks probably had better views.
The steamer was taken off the front at Feilding and we carried on by diesel-electric to Wellington. The whole journey took about 11 hours. Thanks to Helen's preparation of activity materials for the trip, the kids were quite happy the whole time. In fact quite a few fellow travelers remarked to us how amazed they were at our kids good behaviour. Most comment started with "My kids would have been bouncing off the walls...". Makes you feel all warm inside.

We rolled into Wellington about 9pm and a quick taxi ride later we were in our hotel. The kids were exhausted and just crashed into bed and were sound asleep in minutes.

Flying Girl

Don't you wish that you could fly like my daughter does....

Experimental Photography Fun

We've been experimenting with long exposure photography. We all tried to write our names in the air using a torch as a pen. The camera was set for a 10 second exposure.
Here's Mine.



Here is my daughter's. She's only six but you can almost read her name.


And last but not least is my son's attempt. He's only four but we thought he made a good effort

The ghostly effect on the image of the person doing the "writing" is quite nifty as well. Maybe we'll try some fake ghost images next time.

Jedi Gimpage Goodness

My first attempt at really "photo-shopping" an image (Using the open-source "GIMP" package). Once again, having a cute little Jedi readily available for photos goes a long way. If you have an eager young Jedi in your household, for a modest fee I could give them the same image-inary treatment (suitable for framing as a permanent memento perhaps)

World's Cutest Jedi Knight

This is a picture of my 4yr old son in his Jedi Knight outfit (that his Mum made for him). If Anakin had seen this youngling in the Jedi temple he would have put down his light-sabre with a long "Awwww...howw cute" and the Republic would have survived intact

Meet the Rabbits

Coco and Sunshine
Originally uploaded by Kotukunui.

We have two new additions to the family.
Vermin!
Say "Hello" to Coco and Sunshine. Can you tell which is which?
The kids love to chase, catch and cuddle these fluffy bunnies. We've built the pair of them a bunny palace by renovating a tired old hutch we bought second (or third) hand. Luckily they are both males so we shouldn't have too much trouble with unwanted offspring.

Another Flying Post

My mate Tony needed a ride over to his beach house in Pauanui. What better way than by our Yak-52 express.
The happy guy in back is Tony. As you can see from the back of my head, I was a bit busy flying the plane to be able to mug for the camera.



Tony, next time, you fly, I'll be the star...

If you are anywhere near Hamilton, NZ and want a thrill flight, just give me a yell.

Caution - Vanity Post!

Look how smart I am ;-)

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How smart are you?

And I even have a nerd score