Tent Construction

This morning the kids both wanted to build tents. Mummy said she would only build one for them to share. Rachel decided she would make her own. Below is her effort. Not bad for a 2 1/2 year old.

Rachel is looking at these photos telling me that her bear is sleeping in the tent so I need to be quiet.

Andrew was willing to wait for mummy to be able to put his tent. We used our new bar stools and some dinning room chairs to hold up the blanket.

Daddy is making coffee in the background. The reason the bench looks messy is that I was in the middle of cleaning out the cup and glasses cupboard.

Our trip up the Gondola

Today it is Canterbury show day so Stephen had the day off. It was such a lovely day that we had to go do something. We have an annual pass for the Tram and Gondola. We hadn't used the Gondola so we decided to do that today. The Gondola takes you up to the top of the Port Hills. Rachel thought the motor at the bottom was too noisy. Fortunately once we got in and the doors closed you couldn't hear the noise.

At the top you have pretty impressive views to north, south and west. We went for a little walk (Rachel would probably say it was a long walk for her little legs). Then we went through the time tunnel experience ride inside. Rachel didn't like that either. We had our lunch (sandwiches) before coming back down.

Andrew thinks it was a fun ride and wants to go again.

Here is Andrew on one of the walking tracks.

Rachel and Mummy on the way back down. Rachel enjoyed it when it wasn't noisy.

The collage below is a just a few of the scenic photos we took. In one photo you can see where part of castle rock has come down with the recent earthquakes.

We will go again sometime.

Andrew's earthquake machine

This morning Andrew decided that he was going to make a machine to stop the earthquakes. I would love to have a machine that stopped earthquakes so thought I'd encourage him. This was after a discussion about the cracks in our walls. After much thought and discussion (he discounted the idea of using a motor) he said it would be really long and you would need a whole in the roof to get it up to the sky.

I asked him how this would stop the earthquakes. He then said it doesn't stop the earthquakes it stops us from getting cracks as it sends the shaking into the neighbours.

Anyone for tea

I came into the lounge to see what Rachel was up to this morning and she has set up a little tea party for her and "Baby"(her special dolly at present). This is one of her favourite activities at present. The footrest makes a great table. The pink chair was mine when I was child. When Rachel saw I was getting the camera she had to check her appearance in the reflection of the TV. Rachel is now teaching Dolly a song from music that involves counting. She isn't quite getting the numbers in the correct order but it is delightful to watch.

Andrew's earthquake story

This morning Andrew started to tell me a story about his earthquake experience. I wrote it down at the time. This afternoon we made a book up with his story. It is delightful so I really want to share it. Sorry, it hasn't photographed that well so I have caption the photos with the words plus some explanation of the photos. All the words are Andrew's. The ideas for all the pictures are his but I helped by drawing most of the pictures. As you can see I am not an artist.

Page 1 "Lots of shaking." The picture is of the little plates on the earth shaking.
page 2 "lots of getting under doorways." Mummy, Daddy, Rachel and Andrew are under a doorway in the picture.

Page 3 "Lots of noise. The picture is of the hallway "because the noise came down it".
Page 4 "I couldn't sleep with the noise." The picture is of Andrew asleep in his bed with Daddy sleeping on the top bunk.

Page 5" Our house got minor cracks."
Page 6" the house across the road lost a chimney."

Page 7 "It was dark because there was no power"

Page 8 "The supermarket didn't have flour." The picture is of a three layer cake on a plate. There is a muffin on the top.

Page 9 "This is the drum (that measures the earthquake)." Above is my attempt to draw a seismograph.