Little Ginger Kiwi Land!

OK, so maybe it's officially called New Zealand, but my 3 weeks there were dominated by a certain little ginger whom I adore.

The first week was fairly domestic. Alexis was still at daycare for the first few days to let me recover from jet lag. I did go and help pick her up and was treated to a demonstration of how good she is at jumping and climbing and dangling.

She absolutely loves going to daycare at "the rimu room" (there are different rooms for different age groups). She has a bunch of friends there and gets on well with all the staff too.

Alexis, Sheepie and I also spent some quality time watching Paw Patrol while lying on the living room floor, and playing hide and seek. Uncle Moo taught Alexis a few new places to hide when playing hide and seek, like under the cushions on the sofa, and under her bed. She did however take things to the next level as she wriggled behind some of the boxes under her bed and I would not have found her if she hadn't kept on shouting "I'm here". We have a little way to go on her hide and seek skills, but most of the basics are there (apart from being quiet).

There were also several trips to the outdoor swimming pool just down the road, Alexis loves the water, jumping in, splashing and being towed around on big floaty things. She also seems to quite like the Galapagos Turtle Rucksack I got for her, even if it's not the most ergonomically designed bit of hiking kit.

As a special treat, Uncle Moo took Alexis to Chipmunks play space while mum and dad went to the cinema to see Aquaman. Whether the treat was for mum and dad, Alexis, or Uncle Moo, I'm not entirely certain, but it seems to have been enjoyed by everyone.

Another memory from Facebook:

"After a nice dinner out with Simon, Stephanie and Alexis, Uncle Moo was taking Alexis home and put her to bed. It turns out that while Uncle Moo is ok to jump off the Sky Tower in Auckland, hike the Inca Trail, and kiss a llama, he is not comfortable walking along Gerldine high street with a 2 year old girl on his shoulders screaming "I want my mummy and daddy"."

For week 2 we all went off on a traditional Kiwi summer holiday to Wanaka. Wanaka is a lovely little town on a lake that is a 'Queenstown' type holiday destination for Kiwis (rather than foreigners).

We played in and around the lake, ate ice cream, and generally had a nice relaxed time.

 

Learning bad habits from her dad, this is Alexis 'hiding' behind a rugby ball while we played hide and seek in the park.  There were also new playparks for Alexis to explore, which she did with gusto!

Lavender farm visit

We had dinner out a few times there, but I think Alexis's favorite was NOODLES!!!!!

What a face!

As well as a nice relaxed time, we also did various more strenuous activities, several involving the lake. There was some jumping in (that water is not particularly warm and they were jumping from quite a height compared to at the swimming pool! Well done Alexis!).

We went out in kayaks. Alexis helped with the paddling too and was very good at it.

Simon and I also did some grown up play time and had a go at flyboarding. This is where you take the output of a jet ski and pipe it to the bottom of a snowboard, then balance on it and fly! It was awesome fun and far less difficult than I thought it would be.

On top of this we had a fun day trip down to Queenstown where we went up the hill in a gondola and had fantastic fun on the luge. The only thing Alexis would say while going down was "Faster Daddy, faster!".

"Strap yourself to a beautiful stranger" they said.  OK I replied. So I went off and did a skydive. When I was first in New Zealand 8 or so years ago I had planned to skydive, but the weather was not good enough. This time it was, and it was a thrilling experience. For the full album of the skydive, see here. It was not cheap, and getting the full photographic package (which included an extra cameraman skydiver to record the jump) almost doubled the cost, but hell, I was only really planning on doing this once! Totally worth it in the long run.

My instructor, the cameraman and I got on really well. I worked out that they most often are jumping with Chinese tourists who don't speak good english, so my joking around and making of rude comments (I do that even more than usual when I'm nervous, like before I'm about to jump out of a plane) went down well with them.

After we were back from Wanaka, it was another 'quiet' week at home where Simon and I dismantled his old garage.

I had a fantastic 3 weeks with Simon, Steph and Alexis, and going back through this has fantastically brought all the memories back to the surface again.


That said, it also reminded me of my saddest time there.  On our trip to Wanaka, for 2 of the days, Alexis would have absolutely nothing to do with me. I wasn't allowed to help her get her shoes on. I wasn't allowed to carry her on walks. She wouldn't go to the play park with me. I couldn't work out what I had done to upset her, and I was finding the constant rejection to be really quite heartbreaking and depressing.

I chatted about it with Simon and he explained that he and Steph get it too every now and then. For no apparent reason she will, for several days, only want Mummy to help with teeth brushing and getting dressed. Another time it will be only Daddy. Luckily it only lasted for 2 days and then we were back having fun again, but I suppose the persistence of the rejection for no reason I could fathom really upset me.  Blooming 2 year olds! :)