Picnic

October 6, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I took the children to town today. There was a Bookarama–a huge book fair–and I decided we would go secondhand shopping, as well. There are four secondhand shops in Greymouth, and I don’t get to them very often, but thought today would be a good time. Elijah was working in town, laying carpet or vinyl in a house (I forgot to ask which), so I asked him yesterday if he would like to eat lunch with us. I was just planning to take along sandwiches for us, but he decided he wanted to order pizza, instead. So, he ordered it and I picked it up. Then, we met at a beach about five minutes’ drive from where he was working, and we had a picnic. It was sunny and not too windy, although not very warm, either. The waves were gorgeous, and we had an incredible view of the Southern Alps, which were covered with a fresh layer of snow. It was a nice time together. I enjoy getting to spend time during the day with my adult sons who work! The cloth we sat on, by the way, is a sheet I had just bought at an op shop. Little Miss loves that set. I’ll be putting them on her bed tomorrow.

A Day at the River

May 23, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Some friends from Dunedin came for a visit on a weekend in March. We took them down to the riverbed for a picnic. It was a perfect late-summer day, and the children enjoyed playing in the water, as usual.

It was a wonderful day!

Picnics During Lockdown

April 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We decided, to make Sundays a bit more special while we’re on lockdown, to have a picnic by the creek down the hill from our town. We built a small fire and roasted sausages and marshmallows, and then played in the creek with Simon’s kayak and a couple of boats the boys built. When everyone had their fill of the water, we went across the creek and did target practice with Simon’s air rifle, aiming toward a sand dune. We really enjoy having this safe, private place to be outside! It’s within walking distance of our house, and the water is shallow enough there is no danger even if a boat flips.

Miss Joy loves boat rides! I apologize for so many pictures, but I couldn’t decide which of these to leave out.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination wading in the creek. That’s the Paparoa Mountains in the background.

Esther wanted the water drained out of the kayak before she got in. It took too long—she gave up waiting!

This is the boat Mr. Intellectual built. It’s nearly unsinkable, at least on this kind of water.

The willow trees near the creek were covered with these big aphids!

The trees were also swarming with bumblebees and wasps. I found out how hard it is to get a picture of an insect. Esther did better, though.

I tried out the kayak—fun!

These boys rocked the boat…

…and these two rode the waves from it!

When we went across to shoot the air rifle, Miss Joy discovered something new—sand! She was thrilled to have something new to investigate.

Simon really wanted me to try shooting. It turns out that I’m a pretty good aim when I can lean on something like this…but not when I have to hold the air rifle up myself!

Simon likes to give everyone a turn shooting.

The previous pictures were all from last week, when it was cloudy and cool. This week, it was sunny and warm. This was the view up the river as we walked down to the creek.

We pass this row of trees on our way up. It was such a beautiful day today!

Here are a few video clips I put together from our afternoon at the creek.

Christmas Day 2019

December 28, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Our family Christmas tradition, since moving to the Southern Hemisphere where December is the beginning of summer, is to go on a picnic. Usually, we go away from home somewhere that we don’t often get to, such as the beach. This year, no one felt like going away. We took votes, and all but two of us voted to stay home! We decided to go down to the riverbed below our village and have a cookout beside the creek that flows into the river down there. Gayle and the two little boys went down ahead and started the fire; the rest of us went down when we were ready. The big boys loaded their barrel boat onto the trailer and took it down. We let them off at a place where the creek and road meet, and they loaded our food and other things into it, as the easiest way to get it all to the picnic site. Esther and I then drove on to the parking spot while they floated and poled downstream. Here they come around the bend!

When we were stopped at the ford where we loaded everything into the boat, I let Miss Joy touch the creek. She wasn’t sure about the cold water, but soon loved it!

Off they go! Mr. Diligence laid back in the stroller and had a luxurious ride.

Once we reached our destination and unloaded, the boys went across the creek to cut sticks for roasting sausages.

Miss Joy got to taste a carrot stick—what fun!

Mr. Sweetie broke his arm last week, so he has it in a sling. It’s a greenstick (or hairline) fracture an inch or two below his shoulder, so they didn’t put a cast on it. He’s looking forward to not having to wear the sling next week! It hasn’t slowed him down much, though.

Simon took his air rifle along, so after lunch he boated Esther and I across the creek and we got to try shooting. I never hit the target, but felt better later when he said that he had discovered, after we went home, that the scope was a bit off.

Birthday Cookout

September 28, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Mr. Sweetie turned 10 yesterday. He wanted to celebrate with a fire down at the river, and roast sausages and marshmallows. We invited some friends to join us, but because of an emergency on their part, we ended up just having our family. We weren’t sure we could even do it, though, until the last minute, because it’s been rainy all week and was threatening this morning. About 11:30, Gayle and the boys decided to give it a try, and went down to the riverbed to start a fire. We’ve just gotten back, at 2:00 pm, and it’s still not raining—we got away with it this time!

I didn’t get any pictures while we were roasting our sausages. Once we were finished with them and the children had started roasting marshmallows, I remembered I had a camera! The marshmallow roasting was the amusing part, anyway. One boy declared that he couldn’t catch his marshmallow on fire. He roasted them slowly and perfectly. The next thing we knew, his marshmallow was on fire! He did do one perfectly for me. Another boy deliberately caught every one of his on fire. He’s too impatient to do them slowly.

Miss Joy seemed to enjoy her first cookout. She looked around, and slept for five minutes, and looked around some more.

Mr. Imagination charred his marshmallow, then worked at picking the charcoal off.

Several people put roasted marshmallows on top of their chocolate cupcakes.

Despite the early-spring chill, Mr. Diligence wanted to go swimming. He put on his togs and leaped into the creek—and came right back out again, shivering!

Several of the boys went up the creek with their sausage sticks to try to spear eels. They didn’t get any.

The last step before leaving was to douse the fire, which these two did, gleefully!

More Pictures From October 2018!

November 17, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Well, I should have looked at my memory card again before publishing last week’s post of pictures. There were several more good ones.

Mr. Diligence made the lions for the skit they performed at the concert. I found him a picture of a lion online, and Esther enlarged it. He glued them together, cut them out, and painted them. Then, he glued them to cardboard and made them stand up.

Simon learned to ride a backwards bike when someone loaned them one many years ago. He has wished for one ever since, so when he had a couple of days off work on a recent long weekend, he built one. When you turn the handlebars right, the wheel turns left, and when you turn the handlebars left, the wheel turns right. So far, all three of the older boys have learned to ride it.

I looked in the living room recently and saw Mr. Imagination telling Goofball to hold still. He wanted her to pose for him to draw a picture of her, but she wouldn’t cooperate. I suggested he hold her still while I took a picture, and then he could draw from that.

Here is the picture he drew and cut out.

Some of our friends from Dead Boring came to see us a few weeks ago. We met in Moana, and had a picnic together beside Lake Brunner. They had two 9-year-old girls along, and Little Miss, once she warmed up to them, had great fun helping them build a “hut.” It was basically an outline of grass, with flowers arranged artistically in it.

I wished I had taken a picture of this scene earlier. When we first arrived, the lake was calm and the mountains were mirrored in it, but then a wind came up. It was still beautiful!

This coal train came along, and stopped on the side track. Soon, we saw the passenger train come from the other direction and pass it, and then the coal train started moving again.

River and Tadpoles

October 27, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, we spent a Sunday with friends who were camping beside a river about 30-40 minutes drive from us. It was a beautiful, sunny warm day, just perfect for being outside—although a couple of us got pretty sunburned, because we aren’t used to being in the sun!

The children discovered tadpoles in a boggy spot close to the campsite, so they spent the afternoon hunting. At first, they were finding tiny ones, and then they started finding very large tadpoles. We brought some home, and they took home a large number.

The glimpses we got of the snow-capped Southern Alps were gorgeous!

This is the Haupiri River. If you’ve ever heard of Gloriavale, it is directly between where we were standing here, and the mountain in the background.

My big boys tired of hunting tadpoles and wanted something more exciting to do. They borrowed a rope and used it to lower themselves to a pier of the bridge.

Then, they tied a rock to the rope and used it to measure the depth of the river—till the rock fell off!

Little Miss loves having girls her own size to play with!

The gorse is in bloom everywhere. It’s so pretty—wish it wasn’t such a horrible nuisance!

Here is one of our tadpoles. They are living, quite happily as far as we can see, in a tank of rain water with a log floating in it for when they need to climb out. We’re hoping they live long enough to develop into frogs so we can release them!

Christmas Day

December 28, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Christmas Day here is sure different from anything we ever experienced in Michigan! There, most years, we stayed holed up inside the house, with snow blowing outside. Here, most years, it’s warm—if not hot—and sunny, and we like to go to the beach! This year, we took a picnic lunch to Claverley, to a beach we went out onto for a few minutes, once, several years ago. It turns out to be a wonderful beach for the children to play at, at low tide anyway. The beach is covered with tiny gravel, all worn smooth. It’s a dark color, so really attracts the heat of the sun, which felt good in the chilly wind that was blowing. Above the high tide line, the gravel was too hot to walk on comfortably with bare feet, but below that line there was moisture just below the surface and it felt just right. There was an area of rocks going out into the sea at one spot, and it made a perfect place for children to splash and play, until the tide came up about halfway. We found a lovely pine grove to eat our picnic in. The thick layer of pine needles on the ground made a lovely soft floor to sit on, and we were shaded from the bright sun. After lunch, we went and sat on the beach again for a couple of hours while the boys played in the water and then buried each other. It was a great day! On our way home, we picked cherries, but I never got any pictures of that.

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie running into the waves.

Looking north; the area with all the kelp is where we spent the most time. You can faintly see the Kaikoura Peninsula sticking out from that point of land.

Looking south.

As long as she wasn’t looking at the water, Little Miss was very happy. She loved playing in, and tasting, the gravel.

Our picnic grove. Our nephew who is spending a few months in New Zealand was with us for the day.

Mr. Inventor brought his boat along—half of a barrel! He sort of surfed with it.

The boys had fun being buried by Daddy. This is Mr. Diligence, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Sweetie.

Little Miss helped bury Mr. Diligence, too.

Mr. Sweetie wasn’t feeling the best that day. He stayed buried in the warm gravel for a long time.

Esther was teasing Little Miss! The scared chuckling noises were pretty funny, as was the way she tried to climb higher on you.

Mr. Sweetie decided he wanted to stay buried until the waves came up to him. We watched as the tide crept higher and higher…

Mr. Inventor wanted to be buried sitting up. Daddy wore himself out burying so many sons in one day!

The waves have finally come up far enough that Mr. Sweetie got wet. He jumped up and ran to safety.

Check out Mr. Inventor’s expression!

Sunday School Picnic

March 19, 2014 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

The Saturday after we moved, the first Saturday since the beginning of December that we were free to do what we wanted to instead of working on the house, we were invited to a Sunday School picnic with a church in Waikari that we attended one time before. One of their families lives way up in the hills over Hawarden, almost to the mountains, and the picnic was there. After enjoying the meal and fellowship all afternoon, we drove to the end of the road before coming home. The views were spectacular!

Hurunui Mouth

March 18, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One evening, when Gayle got home from work very early, we told the boys that we would take a picnic to the Hurunui River Mouth if they would get chores done quickly. Of course, they did, and we had a lovely evening there.