Ooo I love summer fruits – berries and berries galore!

Picnics! We found a secret garden with a playground and we've been going there quite often. We'll bring a picnic with our matching Nood picnic set and mat and Sophie can run around as much as she wants. Most times Levi's pretty contented in his car seat and enjoying the breeze. There's hardly anyone around too!

Just being outdoors……….

Last week was the graduation. Although we were not on the school staff this time round, we made pretty good friends with some of the students. It was pretty hard saying goodbye to them. Some of the staff that have become our good friends are also leaving for good. So, we spent most of our weekend having them over at our place and cooking for them.

We'll miss you dear friends. Till we meet again.

We spent the day at the local A&P show today. It was fun, fun, & fun.

Sophie had a couple of firsts – first cotton candy, first ride in a tea cup and on her own (she used to refuse to go on rides), first time seeing miniature horses, first time seeing someone spinning wool, first alpaca wool sweater…

I enjoyed looking at the antique farming machines and I saw a couple of antique cars driving past. Sometimes I still can't get used to the idea that I'm living in the countryside where farming is the main business. I saw little girls dressing up in their gear and getting ribbons for horse riding. I've only seen those on TV thus far! I even saw a girl pulling along her prize winning sheep with a couple of ribbons round it. So cute!

P/s Btw, A&P stands for Agricultural and Pastoral

Lemme just say it again, NZ is BEAUTIFUL.

We just spent the weekend with my in laws in Rotorua. It's only about an hour and a half away from Matamata. However, the landscape is totally different. It's filled with lush green trees even though spring only just started, many geothermal areas and smells of sulphur.

We went one day at Wai-O-Tapu to see the mud pools, craters, lakes and geysers. You need to pay to get in there but it's nicely built up for tourists and easy to push a stroller. Very safe too. Unfortunately it was pouring so we had to brave through the rain to do the walk. Thank God we brought the Mountain Buggy. Sophie was quite happy to sit in there completely protected by the raincover and even fell asleep towards the end of the walk. James carried Levi in the sling and wore a poncho.

Left: Lady Knox Geyser shoots up to 20m high!

Right: Devil's Cave, a sulphur hot pool

The next day we went to Redwood Forest to do the shortest walk. It was supposed to be a half hour walk, turned out to be an hour for us. Sophie started to whine halfway and had to take breaks along the way but still she made it to the end. It was also drizzling and the heavy rains before made the ground really muddy. I think it'll be great to try the walk again on a sunny day. The trees were so beautiful. It's a very doable walk for kids too.

This was Levi's first trip away from home. We stayed at a hotel. They didn't have a cot so James folded up the duvet covers and made a little "mattress" on the floor for him. It's pretty easy traveling with a newborn since they still sleep most of the time. I think he only had a melt down once prob because he had enough stimulation and was tired of being in the car seat.