Here are the rest of December’s photos! For some reason, we end up with a lot of pictures of Princess. One would think she’s a popular pet?
My animal-lover was delighted to find this hedgehog in the garden one afternoon. We told her she had to put it back out there, so the little girls found it a lot of slugs and watched delightedly as it slurped them down.
Jenga blocks rarely get used for the game….
We enjoyed watching the birds on the flax blossoms, as usual in the spring.
Our summer holiday project this year was to replace the lower part of the garage wall in the carport. It was pretty rotten. They ripped off the old weatherboards and dug out a trench for a footer, after propping up the roof. When they were digging, they broke into a cave we didn’t know about, which, at some time in the past, had been formed under the floor of the garage! We don’t know for sure what the purpose was, but based on some paraphernalia found in the attic of the garage when we moved here we have some suspicions. It is filled in now.
The carport was quite a mess for awhile. It was a good thing we didn’t have much rain for that time! I hang laundry in there when it rains.
The flower garden before it turned into a jungle!
This was one of our favorite visitors to the flax–a tui!
Another hatch of chicks. We’ve had very good percentages with the last two hatches–so fun!
One evening, we went to the Domain for a cookout with Elijah’s LandSAR group. One woman brought these balls on strings, and taught Maria how to swing them rhythmically. It’s a Maori game.
We’ve done a number of puzzles with Grandma; this was the first.
The girls created this one afternoon on their bedroom floor with thumbtacks!
We end up with a lot of photos of the birds, too. They are also popular pets.
Half-grown chicks–I think this was the batch in the incubator in the earlier picture.
One Saturday just before Christmas, the boys went on an overnight kayak trip on the Ahaura River. They started in the Haupiri, which flows into the Ahaura, and ended at Jim’s Hut. James met them there with their food and camping gear (he couldn’t go on the water because of a badly-cut hand), and they all spent the night. They had planned to kayak the rest of the way to Ahaura on Sunday morning, but decided instead to load up and come out for church, which decision I was quite happy with. Mr. Imagination found this beetle at the hut.
The river just below Jim’s Hut.
