Project Life: Week 14

Another week has flown by and it’s now the school holidays.  I’d like to say that I’m actually having a holiday but I’ve still got loads of paperwork to do so I’ll be going to school for a few more days yet.

Meanwhile, here is a look at the overview for Week 14.

The week started off with men doing concreting in the driveway.  Several weeks ago when they had to cut into the driveway to fix the water toby they said they’d be back ‘later’ to redo the concrete… and it seems like ‘later’ meant this week.  They did a good job and it looks great now!

This week was really packed at school… we had two nights of parent-teacher interviews, Whaea Hiria had her last week with us, we finished our camp fundraising (hopefully) and we had the draw for the Easter raffle.

Parent-Teacher interviews are always interesting… you DO get to meet a lot of parents but often the parents you really NEED to see are the ones who don’t come.  I did get to meet the parents for 22 of my children so that was pretty good going!

Here’s a close up of the start of the week:

It was Whaea Hiria’s last week with us as she’s taking up a teaching position at another school.  We’ve been so lucky to have her with us and she has made a real impact on the kids.  On Wednesday Hiria bought in pizzas for lunch and the kids enjoyed having a picnic in our classroom… especially when they found out there were chocolate treats as well!

On Wednesday we also had the Easter raffle draw and Madison from my class was lucky enough to win one of the baskets of goodies.  I’m sure her family will be really thrilled with all the chocolate!

My kids also surprised me with an Easter egg and a beautiful card that they’d made for me.  I was so touched by their thoughtfulness.

Here’s a close up of the rest of the week:

On Friday Mum came over to spend the Easter weekend with us.  The plan was that we were going to attack the blackberry and attack we did!  Mike had organised a trailer and it really didn’t take long to fill it up.  We had blackberry going in all directions and we found the roots were actually quite easy to pull out.  One thing we hadn’t planned on though was finding a wasp nest!

Mike was right up at the top of the retaining wall and the next minute he came flying over the side… shirt coming off as he ran… straight around the garage… hooked up the hose… and washed himself down.  In his own words… ‘There were a PLATOON of wasps’ after him!  He suffered stings on his back, stomach, arms, legs and a really sore one on his ankle.  He felt a bit better after having a shower and luckily we had some arnica cream to help with the soreness.

Later that day we went to the Redwoods to take Toby for a walk and thankfully Mum took her camera with her because we came across a whole forest of toadstools.  They were absolutely stunning to look at and Mum took heaps of photos.  Luckily for me she let me borrow her camera so that I could get a few shots of my own.

On Saturday we carried on in the gardens and then we did two loads to the dump.  The fees weren’t too bad either.  It’s only a single axle trailer but with the high sides we were able to get a LOT into it!  Our first load was all the blackberry along with the rubbish left behind in the garage… $30  We did three more loads over the weekend but they only had green waste and at $10 per load it worked out pretty economically.

On Saturday night we also went out to dinner with Krystal and Chris.  We all like Indian food so we went to the Chimney for dinner.  The food was great but it took a LONG time to arrive and the service was pretty shocking.  I have a feeling we won’t be going back there again.

We did make a new friend over the weekend… Mr Weta decided that he was going to come and see what we were doing in ‘his’ garden.  I’m not a huge weta fan and we don’t normally see them in our garden but this guy was quite impressive!

Mum headed off on Sunday morning to see my sister (it was her 11th wedding anniversary – Happy Anniversary Kate and Simon!) We did our loads to the dump, came home and Mike kept on clipping away at the privot roots and then we got cleaned up and watched a movie together.

It’s been a pretty productive Easter weekend and today we’re heading off to Taupo to have brunch with a couple of my girlfriends.  We definitely feel like we’ve earned a break.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Easter weekend xx