Sunday, October 23, 2011

It's been a pretty good week and a very busy week.  School has been pretty much the same this week although I did have Monday off - well, sort of - it was a 'pupil free day' which means that I had to go to work, but there were no kids there (if only that could happen more often ).  It was supposed to be an interview day and I had three scheduled and hoped that two more would happen (I had sent home two letters asking them to come in for an interview on that day).  As it turns out, I had one interview - sheesh.  Anyway, I just wanted to let the parents know that their children were struggling a bit and tell them what they could do to help their child so that they would be able to learn what they needed to, to get ready for grade one.

Dad spent Monday working outside on the lawn and other outside stuff.  Tuesday, he spent the afternoon helping our friends from church to move to a temporary home (the ones who I told you about last week whose rented house/property was wrecked by that storm last week).  Thursday was SES - they spent the time there counting supplies as the 'boss' is going to meet soon with the powers-that-be on the council to report on the readiness of the SES for activation during the storm season which will be upon HB in December/January.

We had a really lovely day yesterday - we decided to celebrate our anniversary  then.  We started off by having a lovely chat with Colin, Caleb, Benjamin and James (Terri-Ann was at a church women's conference).  We love talking with 'our boys' and they are 'true' boys. :-)  We talked with them for a few minutes and then they wanted to get moving again.  While we talked to James and Benjamin, Colin and Caleb ran back and forth behind them laughing and having a great time. :-) 

After that, Dad made our usual Saturday breakfast: poached eggs, toast, baked beans, tomatoes, and for a little treat, a little piece of bacon.  We then got in the car to enjoy the beautiful weather of the day.  We were driving down to the esplanade (where the beach is) when we passed the botanical gardens and decided to back up and go for a walk in there.  It was a lovely place to walk with lots of trees and paths and a big pond in the middle with ducks swimming on it.  We also happened upon a wedding and watched from afar as a bagpiper piped in the bride.  We also 'happened' upon a teacher from the school I was at last year and found out that there's a possibility of a one-day-a-week job going in grade two next year - I will go into the school this week and talk with the vice principal about it.

After our walk through the gardens, we drove down to the esplanade and walked along Urangan Pier which is 800 metres long.  There were quite a few people fishing off the pier and we actually saw one guy holding a fish which had to be about two feet long.  After our walk on the pier, we went to a lovely cafe by the water (the harbour) and sat at a table overlooking the harbour  and all the boats - it was a really nice place to sit.  The food was just okay this time - I went there with my friend once and had a really yummy meal.  Dad had a club sandwich with fries and I had a steak sandwich with wedges.  The wedges were very yummy, but the rest of the food was pretty ordinary, so we were a bit disappointed.  We went  to the Cheesecake Shop after our meal to buy ourselves a pavlova (thanks Nana! :-)  There weren't any small ones left, so we HAD to make do with a large one. :-)  We had a piece when we got home yesterday and then another piece at night and have had one piece today after lunch and will have the other piece tonight before bed - what a yummy way to end our relaxing day.