Less than a month to go!

Monday 17th - Sunday 23rd July 2017

Monday
Today we had a play date at the Dale's house after picking Cillian up from kindy, the main reason we did this is because all Cillian talked about last week was when he could see Benny again! (They were in Wanaka last week!) it was super weird being there without Fabi! Everyone had heaps of fun and, once the rain died down a bit, the boys (and Tori!) had heaps of fun splashing in muddy puddles... but they were soaked by the time hey came in! Cillian had borrowed some wellies and I swear they were full to the brim with water!

Tuesday
Back to the library again today, and this time we made hot air balloons! The sun was shining today thank goodness so Darragh and I took his bike down to Caroline bay and played on the playground for a wee bit before picking Cillian up and then going to feed the ducks at the scenic reserve and exploring a part we haven't been to before!

Wednesday
Today I went to do a few jobs for Mary in town and I happened across some people giving away cadburys chocolate! Just had to the spin the wheel and you got a big bar of whatever chocolate it landed on... and I got caramilk, one of my favourites! This afternoon Darragh and I picked up Cillian and then Mackenzie and then drove to Pleasant point to have a play date with Sasha and Max! We also went to Temuka playground and had a lovely time in the sun playing! I'd also made a lasagne for tea, well two - one normal and one eggplant for Mary as she's on a no carb diet!

Thursday
After picking up Cillian today, we joined Sabrina, Mara and their kids at Chipmunks. Julia was going to come too, but poor Fletcher had hurt his ankle and can't walk on it! Cillian was getting pretty wheezy again so we had to nip back and get his inhaler but he carried on playing after that! This evening we went in the spa pool which was lovely! I keep forgetting it's there! (Although wasn't so relaxing with a 5 and a half year old and a nearly 4 year old!). Cillian fell asleep on the sofa half an hour before bed time... the poor boy still isn't well and I think Mary will take him to the doctors tomorrow!

Friday
Cillian seemed worse this morning, so we watched a movie and then played for a bit, he kinda jumped between playing and lying on the sofa feeling sorry for himself. Mary took him to the doctors at 11 and ended up having to take him to hospital as his asthma is so bad! Poor boy! So I looked after Darragh and minded the motel while Mary took Cillian to A&E. Sabrina brought Sasha and Max over to play for an hour or so, so that kept Darragh happy and distracted for a bit! Then we made white chocolate and Oreo fudge as well as a raisin loaf. Afterwards, we decided to have a movie afternoon so we watched Hotel for Dogs, Madagascar and Shrek 2. Cillian got back around 4ish and he seemed a lot better than this morning thank goodness! This evening, Mara was going to come over   for one last movie night! (Both Mara and Sabrina are leaving next week and then after that I will be the next to go which is pretty scary!) but Timaru is in a State of emergency due to the storm and heaps of roads are closed due to flooding so we decided to call it off!

Saturday
The plan was to meet Karla, Ben and Tori's new au Pair, and show her around today. However, due to the storm, she didn't arrive until after 3 so we postponed until tomorrow! So I ended up spending most of the day reading the shining and then making Cillian and Darragh another blanket fort in the toy room as we tidied up the one we made yesterday! Sabrina picked me up after dinner, much to Cillian's dismay! He started crying and saying how much he missed me before I'd even left bless him! Sabrina and I had a great evening in with heaps of snacks, reminiscing over our time as au pairs and Hannah Montana the movie!

Sunday
We had a pretty lazy morning before heading up to tekapo, aiming to get to Fairlie to get a famous pie for lunch... they did not disappoint! The plan was to go skiing on Mt. Dobson today, but there was too much snow so it was all shut sadly! Instead, we decided on Tekapo to go ice skating and tubing, and we picked up Karla, Ben and Tori's new au Pair, on the way up. We had heaps of fun... even though I am so bad at ice skating! I definitely preferred the tubing, although it felt like I was going to go flying off the edge a few times! On the way home Mary messaged me to say that she has been with Cillian at hospital since 4am and they were staying overnight! Poor boy :(

Winter Holidays

Monday 10th - Sunday 16th July 2017

Monday
First day of the holidays today!! Cillian is still going to kindy as usual ao I can have some one to one time with Darragh. This morning we met Sabrina, Max and Sasha at the swimming pool which was great fun! As the boys were getting on brilliantly, we decided to spend the day together so, after lunch, they came over our house to play and we also went down to Caroline bay for a bit. The day flew by as we were super busy all day!

Tuesday
Cillian had kindy again this morning, so it was just Darragh and I. I decided to make some play dough, just to have something different to keep the boys occupied! Afterwards, wewent to the library for storytime, the same thin as the last holidays except this holidays the theme is terrific transport! He was ecstatic to see hat heaps of the kids from his class at school were there too so he had an awesome time! We made aeroplanes out of pegs and lolly sticks, I made a batman one for Cillian so he doesn't miss out as much! This afternoon, Mary took Darragh and a few of his friends to the cinema to see Despicable Me 3, so I had a break for a couple of hours before picking up Cillian. We popped in to see Samantha on the way home and then just chilled out afterwards playin with their toys as I was making dinner!

Wednesday
Cillian wasn't feeling well again this morning, so we kept him at home and got him a doctors appointment. Luckily he doesn't have another infection, it's mainly just his asthma playing up! I did a few jobs for Many in the morning, and after lunch we went to visit James, Charlotte and Mara, and later on Julia brought Fletcher and Alex too! It was heaps of fun, but I was very aware that Cillian wasn't too well so we didn't stay as long as I would've liked to! But we had a delicious afternoon tea - Mara had made white chocolate and Oreo fudge as well as banana and chocolate muffins! Yum! Cillian and charlotte had a lovely time dressing up as bumblebees together! They were pretty sad to leave so we arranged another play date for Friday - is just as exciting for me as it is for them!

Thursday

Luckily Cillian seemed heaps better today, so he had another morning at kindy. Darragh and I went to the library again and today we made submarines!  Cillian was super excited this afternoon because his best friend Max was coming for a play date! They had the best time playing ninjas (even I had to wear a ninja head band!), trains, cars and making forts... a perfect afternoon for three boys!

Friday
This morning I managed to burn my arm making a milo... put my arm over the kettle while it was boiling oops! Today we went out to Geraldine to visit their grandparents as their cousins, Ruby and Nate, were straying their for a bit. They all had heaps of fun, and all four of them played really well making up treasure hunts and playing hide and seek - it reminded me of the times me and my cousins would all be at our grandparents and just have the best time! This evening we watched The Circle, which started out really good - kind of like something you would watch on black mirror - but I felt the ending could have been stronger, if just kinda ended without showing a real ending!

Saturday
I finished reading Of Mice and Men today - I'm starting to read through a heap of books that are currently on the syllabus for GCSE and A-Level English as a preparation for September 2018 when I start my teaching degree hopefully! Chris and Sandra had come round today, bringing Mackenzie and Samuel for a play date with the boys and Mary asked me if I could babysit and mind the motel  this evening so they could go out. It was all going well until Chris and Wade came back drunk, and Chris tried to climb over the stair gate resulting in it getting ripped off the wall and somehow he had managed to cut his head! I had flashbacks to China! After getting him cleaned up and popping a few steri strips and a plaster on, Mary had banned them from coming out with them so they stayed home! Mara came round and we watched a few movies with snacks - but we stayed in my room this time!

Sunday
After yesterday's drama I just stayed in and read today..: well I tried to but Darragh was in an annoying mood and kept jumping on me, poking me and being silly (shock!) so I didnt get much reading done!

The start of the goodbyes

Monday 3rd - Sunday 9th July 2017

(I'm gonna try and remember to update this every day so I'm not scraping my memory about what happened over the past week on Sunday!)

Monday
We had an awesome day today! Cillian and I went to a few different parks before picking Darragh up - mainly so we can get a good parking space! We got to the school at 2:15 and most of the good parking spaces had been taking already which seems totally ridiculous to me! But it worked out well as there's a wee park close by that Cillian loves so we went there for a bit, and he fell over right in the mud typically! I made him a daisy chain crown as he wanted to be 'king of the castle' but it kept breaking much to his dismay! We had our usual Monday trip to the library and got a few new books, the boys were particularly excited about 'everybody poops'! Typical boys! We also did a volcano experiment which went really well... until I shook it and (despite me asking him to stand back a significant amount of times) Darragh put is face right next to the bottle and the volcano erupted into his face! Luckily he was totally fine, I rinsed his eyes out a few times which made him more agitated than the actual 'lava', most of it went on his forehead luckily! But if anyone actually reads this and has tips on how to get a 5 year old to listen to you that would be great!

Tuesday
We had a pretty chilled out day today, the boys are really into colouring and drawing at the moment so we spent a while doing that, we also went for a long walk down the bay and ended up at the playground for a bit which is always fun!

Wednesday
We had heaps of fun today! Most of the Au Pairs met at chipmunks with a Cushla for a kind of goodbye session as most of the au pairs are leaving this month. We also took the scooters down to Caroline bay after picking Darragh up from school to blow off some steam.

Thursday
The busy week (and waking up in the night!) definitely got to Cillian today as totes emosh didnt cover it!!! But we still managed to have fun in between the breakdowns, we made weetbix biscuits which turned out quite nice surprisingly! Better than the ones I made at nursery anyway! Then we went to the scenic reserve with Darragh and spent half an hour running around and playing on the equipment which was ace.

Friday
Gave Cillian a proper man bun today which looked very cute! Darragh had a treat day at school as it was the last day of term, and went to school in his pyjamas which he was very excited about! Cillian rocked out at mainly music today, it was adorable to watch! Mara came today which was nice, so there were loads of au pairs and we all went to the play ground after (well apart from Fabi, Ben and Tori as Ben has a cold and wasn't feeling great!) and we spent heaps of time there! The family we're going away for the weekend, so I finished at 4 for a change which was nice on a Friday! I went to the pub in Geraldine with Fabi, Fie, Sabrina, Julia, Mara and Emily as Fabi and Fie are leaving after the weekend!

Saturday

Had a lovely lie in this morning without the elephants in the room above me! Haha the house is weird without them here though! I didn't do much, other than read, until Sabrina picked me up and we went to grab alcohol before crashing at Fabi's watching catfish for a bit. Mary he very kindly let us use a unit for pre drinks and to crash in so we headed there and ordered dominos. It was a good night... until we found it that Fabi had gone to hospital with alcohol poisoning! Luckily she's totally fine now though!! 

Sunday

This morning consisted of cleaning the unit, getting maccys and sadly saying the last goodbye to fair and Fabienne! It's going to be weird without them, especially when their host families' new au pairs get here! Other than that I just crashed out binge watching grey's anatomy! 

Last Week of June

Monday 26th June - Sunday 2nd July 2017

Had another chilled week this week, went to the library on Monday and have been making the most of the lack of rain and going out and about after picking Darragh up from school. On Wednesday we went to four different play parks in a row much to the boys' delight! We also went to the scenic reserve, despite it being super muddy, to feed the ducks... Cillian was super paranoid that a fuck would 'bite' him, he kept freaking out when they got too close! Was pretty cute!

I've also still been helping Cillian with his sounds, he's always so keen to learn, and I don't think it will be long before he knows them all! I've been contemplating introducing more than one a week, but I don't want to confuse him so we'll see how it goes. That being said, he's still got over a year before he starts school, as they start when they turn five in new Zealand, and if he keeps this up after I leave he'll be a right brainbox! Won't be surprised if he's reading before school!

We've been doing a lot with the musical instruments still, and this week we used some random tubs and tins to make a drum kit for Cillian - a lot of fun and nowhere near as noisy as real drums so it was a win win in my books!

I babysat the boys Saturday lunch time, as it was Mary and Wade's wedding anniversary. We went to maxdonalds as a treat and I swear I've never spent that long there before! The boys had a great time playing in the play area and made heaps of friends which was super cute! I finished the novel shashenka when I got back, I didn't think I'd enjoy it that much as I don't know much about Russian politics but honestly it's one of the best books I've read in a while! The lions won the test this week thank goodness! It's definitely gonna mean that the last test will be a lot more interesting! I decided to have a chill day on Sunday, as I'm still not feeling 100% - I can't shake the headaches and the cough! I've been watching he handmaids tale as I loved he book  and a few people have recommended it to me - and so far I'm really enjoying it!

I can't believe I've got less than two months left in New Zealand now, the past four months have gone  ridiculously quickly so I'm just enjoying the time I've got left!

Winter is Here!

Monday 19th - Sunday 25th June 2017

This week I decided to do a theme of dinosaurs and dragons so that we could do some more focused activities. We went to the library and found lots of dinosaur and dragon books to read, made dinosaur collages and drawings, went on dinosaurs hunts amongst other things! It was pretty fun!

Cillian has also become very attached to a couple of teddies, both named 'chewie' (as in chewbacca) and they have started to come everywhere with us! If they come in the car he insists they wear seat belts which is super cute!

I also had a go at face painting and it turned out actually recognisable for a change! It was a Spider-Man mask thing and Cillian was super impressed (thank goodness)!

Football  was cancelled this week because it was raining... which seems like a pretty shoddy cause! I can remember playing sports regardless of the weather! But apparently here, as it doesn't rain all that much, the fields get sodden easily

Most of the other au pairs had gone away for the week/ weekend so I didn't do much during the day on Saturday, I felt rough though... got a stinking cold! Didn't stop me going out Saturday night though, a shame the lions lost the rugby but there's always the second test! Was a good night out, and I actually remember it this time so always a bonus!!! Had to get a maccas the day after though, always craving burgers when I'm hanging!