Cameron's 5th birthday

Cameron's chocolate cake baked by me with the children's help. Teresa decorated it.


My beautiful boy having his party food on the deck. We invited 4 of his friends from kindergarten but 2 couldn't make it. It was short notice, straight after the 6 week summer holidays, back to kindy on Wednesday and gave out the invites and the party was on Saturday. Cameron wasn't bothered he still had a great time.

His kindergarten birthday when everybody farewells the person turning 5 and leaves for school. Cameron is handing out pop corn to the other children and then takes the rest home. Because Cameron will be going to Napier Central School where Teresa works and not the local he won't see these children again.

I'm writing this on day three of Cameron's school life and he loves it and I love having the house too myself most of the day I'm getting tons done especially as I no longer have the daily walk to kindy. I was sad to ending my relationship with the Kindergarten but I won't miss the walk and am excited about this new chapter in my/our lives.

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Weekly training 8Sep-14Sep

Weekly Training
Swim	2 sessions with fist gloves. Alternating 200's and 100's making me concentrate on stroke. Alternating adding shorter stuff now in fistgloves with no legs (held together -try it and see)managed 4x100 and no fistgloves with band did 2x200m on Monday around legs. Aiming to be able to swim with the band and fistgloves (again try it). Needed to swim backup session on Friday night but pool was unexpectedly closed when I turned up.	3200
Bike	2x60min McCormack style intervals I've dropped down gears to concentrate on increasing my cadence to above 90- the problem I found is that I often found myself without a gear that suited the cadence and hr I needed to be in , often the gear was too high or low. So I am warming up and they see what gear I can sustain. Again I used to this before the hr monitor. 1x47.5min strength on trainer trying to do 40+cadence in 53-12 whilst keeping hr as low as possible around 130.	37.5miles
Run	1x4mile 2x5miles(running as I feel )times are getting quicker. OLd niggle in ankle has come back to haunt me.	14miles

Weekly core Training
Swim cords	2 sessions Building specific strength - 11 on each arm
Back	2 sessions
Abs	2 sessions 8 different exercises based on crunches and leg lifts
Weights	2 sessions with dumbbells
Push ups	2 sessions - some moving side to side and Hindu push ups
Stretching	6 sessions

We've been discussing future plans this week. The major one that we are planning is temporary move back to Europe(not the UK) for Teresa to teach in an international schoolprobably in about 3 years time. The reasons to do more travel, learn a language, give the children and ourselves new experiences and give us something to look forward to. We are very happy where we are, especially me and the move would mean once again stepping outside the comfort zone but it is something we have to do or it will become a lifelong regret.

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We survive birthday party

I forgot to mention midweek that I was off training. Trained in all 3 disciplines Tuesday as normal but didn't feel very well, feeling really tired especially in the shoulders and some symptoms of a cold. Both children are unwell and I had spent the previous weekend cutting /pruning some of our trees to provide some of next years fire wood.

The birthday party: Teresa and I are both teachers and have plenty of experience of handling lager amounts of children classes of over 30 and sometimes much larger groups and yet we were caught out on Saturday. There is nothing quite like a storm of 6year old girls in party mood especially when they have had 3 parties on successive weekends.

In the post party analysis and reflection we concluded that:

1. They were high before they got here


2. They wanted a sugar fix


3. The girls all know Teresa and I because we teach at their school- so they were familiar and not intimidated by meeting Emily's parents.
   
4. But the most important point was that 5 of the girls arrived together

This was significant because poor Emily got hit with 5 presents all at once and while she was dealing with one gift the girls lost interest and started getting their fingers into everything.

My initial reaction was to do what I would do as a teacher and get them all sitting down and quiet ready to listen but I held back because I didn't want to be overly strict because I thought Teresa would tell me off. As it happens Teresa wished I had because she realised that what was needed. We fianlly regrouped and got them busy doing games and eating and towards the end it started going as planned just in time for the parents to come and get them.

This is Emily's first party as a school girl and there will be many more parties and lessons have been learnt at this one. On a positive note the road was usable and the weather stayed fine so they could let off steam in the garden.

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Emily turns 6

Teresa and I can't believethat it was six years ago our lives were turned upside down and back to front by a little bundle called Emily Charlotte. and yes she does look evil in the photo. But rest assured 99.9% of the time shes not.

I need to get a 6year old one on here. Party is on Saturday we're hoping for good weather so they can all go outside, but the whole of New Zealand has been covered in a huge storm and the signs are not good. On top of that the council are beautifying our road and you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs - road dug up+torrential rain+eight little girls in pink= nightmare.

I found this today which dented my faith in the police a bit more.

And an article about it here

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