A & P Show

Last week was the local agricultural show in Christchurch so I took the boys along to see the animals.

Not the first thing I'd expect to see at an agricultural show in NZ!!

Cameron had a go at milking

and so did Ewan

but they both seemed happier with the sheep

Summer sun

Summer has arrived here with the last couple of weeks seeing temperatures in the 20s and plenty of sun. So recently we spent an afternoon at Sumner beach playing in the ocean and hurrying through the cave before the tide came in.

Hurry up and get over here, Auntie Flea. The sun's shining!!

We knew that New Zealand was prone to earthquakes and was on the infamous Pacific Ring of Fire but in nearly five years we had felt nothing. In the early hours of September 4th we finally felt a tremor. And what a shake! The 7.1 quake was centred about 40km from us and was a hell of an experience. We were jolted awake and the violence of the shaking left us in no doubt immediately what was happening. The power went off straight away and as it was 4.30 in the morning we were left stumbling around the house in complete darkness trying to grab the kids. It is susprisingly difficult to negotiate doorways in the dark when you can barely stand from the shaking and the doorways are moving targets! But a few bumps and scrapes later we were all together and safe.

Talking to locals the next day it was apparent this was the biggest shake that Christchurch had ever had which was comforting in a way as I wouldn't want to have to go through that too often.

We all came through well and the house initially seemed to have coped pretty well. However, the subsequent aftershocks and the gradual settling of the ground has revealed increasing damage. Our chimney was taken down last week (before nature finished the job with another aftershock) and we are starting to notice tell-tale signs of damage under the house (uneven floorboards, doors not shutting properly) but nothing terminal and we are fully insured so we just have to wait along with the 100,000 other claimants!

We're all pretty amazed at the lack of casualties. In January Haiti had an earthquake of the same magnitude as ours killing over 200,000. The death toll from the Canterbury quake was 0. With that in mind it's a bit hard to complain about some broken bricks and wobbly floorboards.

We didn't take many pictures of the quake damage at the time but there are plenty here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4095395/Latest-photos-7-1-quake

Here are some of ours:

The two sides of the river moved in different ways during the quake leaving the bridge twisted

Some damage near the river

Cameron in a crack that appeared in the pavement

A Finlay-sized crack in the road

One of the many buildings in the centre of town that had to be demolished

Our chimney after the first aftershock. It gradually got worse over the weeks with each large aftershock

Update on Finlay

Winter is always tough on small kids and Finlay especially. Last winter he spent over a month in hospital so we weren't looking forward to this winter. But despite a fairly wet and cold few months he has stayed remarkably healthy. It's now mid-August and so far we've only had two nights in hospital for the whole winter. He did start to lose a little weight but we put him on a new diet designed to fatten him up. We've been told to add cream and cheese and all the naughty things that we're normally told to avoid to his meals until he puts on weight. We had a clinic at the hospital yesterday and we're glad to say he is over 11kg for the first time.

Meanwhile he continues to develop well. He has a few words. Worryingly amongst his limited vocabulary, alongside the usual 'car' and 'dog' are slightly unconventional words for a 2 year old, such as 'pump' and 'drugs'! I suppose it was inevitable. Should make for an interesting time when we next go through security at the airport. A bag full of syringes and a 2yo shouting 'drugs'!

His feeding is still an issue but he is eating more. Just not enough to sustain himself yet so we will have the tube in his stomach for a while yet. The next stage is to replace the cumbersome tube with a little button type port which will mean no more long tube constantly hanging from his tummy and hence no more painful incidents with car seats. So one minor op in the coming months.

Other than that he is up and about. Here's a quick clip from the weekend.

Long Overdue Update

So it turns out we're pretty crap at keeping this blog up to date. No surprises there!!

It's been a long winter that is now starting to turn into spring so hopefully there will be lots more exciting adventures to keep you up to date with in the coming months as we get outside and be a bit more active than we have recently.

So here's a few photos from the last few months:

Back in April it was Finlay's 2nd birthday. Here's a photo of the brothers all eagerly awaiting the cake.

We took a day trip to Ferrymead and jumped on the trams and trains while Cameron tried his hand at some more sedate transport

Back in June Cameron, Ewan and I ran in the marathon in Christchurch. I ran the half marathon while the boys did 2.5K. Cameron sped round in 12 minutes while Ewan took a more leisurely jog round the course in 22 minutes but then he was one of the smallest. And as I had to run alongside him after my run I was glad he slowed down for the old man. Here's us showing off our medals.

Other than that the winter has been full of days indoors reading,

football in the park,

feeding the ducks

and the odd game of chess!

Happy Easter .....

Well it's that time of year again and true to form the Easter Bunny did a fabulous job of depositing a fair amount of chocolate around our garden. The boys were up and about early (a little too early as we had daylight saving last night and our clocks went back!!!) and had great fun on their Easter Egg Treasure Hunt.

Finlay shows us that is very important to clean your teeth well especially after finding lots of chocolate!!!!!

Have a great Easter everyone!!!

Easy riders ...........

Now that I have a new bike that fits me and Ewan is far too big to continue sitting in the child seat on the back of Alan's bike we decided to invest in an extension bar to fit Ewan's bike onto the back of mine. With Finlay sitting behind Alan and Cameron on his own we could all go for a ride together so we set off. There are lots of fabulous bike rides around Christchurch but in the first instance we just headed around the locality, down to the river and back again punctuated by some much need respite in a local coffee shop .... well it would have been rude to pass it by!!!!

After the ride - a very happy boy!!

We look forward to getting out and about much more often, next purchase will be a tow bar and a bike rack so we can go further afield around some of the tracks around town ..........

Cross Country Running

This week was the end of term for Cameron and one of the activities that he participated in with the rest of the school was the Cross Country run on Monday. Both Alan and I went along to watch and were very, very impressed. After starting out with the main pack in the middle of the Year 3 boys we watched as he steadily took over one then another until he got to the front group maintaining 4th place throughout the race. The other 3 boys ahead of him were all older than him and he was the first in his class ....... Well done Cameron ..... maybe some of those Snowsill running genes have been passed down after all!!!

Busy baking .....

Last weekend Cameron had one of his friends, Max, over to play for the afternoon. Last time he came around Alan made some great lizard biscuits with them so the boys were keen to make some more. We all had great fun decorating once they had come out of the oven and below are the finished masterpieces and a very happy Finlay who didn't do much decorating but participated in the eating!!!!

Heading up to higher ground .....

Last week, as most of you will know, following the Chilean Earthquake New Zealand was put under a Tsunami alert. No major repercussions but we had planned to head to Lyttelton Port for the Lyttelton festival ....... decided against it and instead I headed up the hill with Cameron and Ewan via the gondola. A well travelled route by us now but always a good one and on such a beautiful day stunning views ...... luckily not of a Tsunami and I managed to get some great shots of the boys.