Vee throws his toys as the Heath-Dyers dine el fresco by the pool

AT 5.45pm Vee sat down to a delightful dinner of tux biscuits (for active mature dogs) and the rest of the whanau headed out the door with our picinic baskets in hand. We joked as we left that Vee would deposit a few logs up the hall way (he does this as a means of protest when we go out at night, never during the day I might add). Anyway, we got home at 8.30pm and not only had he taken a dump on the floor in Mia's room, a.k.a Lolo's office, he had got into the cupboard and eaten the following - 1 packet of milo, 2 green tea bags, 1 packet of miso soup paste and a small serving of plunger coffee! No wonder he barked for 30mins when I put him to bed at 10.30pm I imagine he was on a wicked caffine buzz, he also woke early 4.47am butt cheeks clenched (I swear!) - perhaps coffee has a laxative effect?

Does this look like a dog who misses his high commander?

Monkey Moo

Isla's post for Lucy.

Dear Lucy,
This is my school, I wish you could come and play at my playground, it's really fun. My favourite thing to do is play on the monkey bars. The swimming pool is open now which is exciting because we get to swim whenever we want.
Love Isla

Thanks for the swipe card Nanny and Lolo!

I know it doesn't look hot, but it is....bring on summer! Luke is locked away down at the farm writing reports so we decided to have a girls morning in town. We had coffee and went to the dinosaur park then went for a swim. It was gorgeous, warm water and not a mankey bandaid to be seen, as you can see we had the the pools all to ourselves.....aaah it's a hard life!

Mia put's her drama classes into practice

Since we live in a semi rural setting we have a volunteer fire brigade. Luckily there are very few accidents in our neck of the woods so to keep the volunteers on their toes this 'accident' was staged. Mia and Luke were asked if they'd help out. Mia's brief was that she had to be unconscious in the back of the truck under a blanket (can just see it at the very far right of the picture). Luke was a disorientated (possibly intoxicated) driver of the truck that collided with the red van. After 30mins he had to tell them where Mia was, poor girl did such a great job of being unconscious, Luke got worried that she'd get heat stoke, I forgot to mention she was unconscious under a heavy furniture protection blanket.
We all swam in the school pool after this to cool down, hot work being a nosey spectator.

Mia's highlights from the past week.

1. Athletics was very fun and entertaining I got sixth in high jump for the girls of my age group and I got into the top ten for long jump. My favourite activity in athletics would be high jump with hurdles in a close second and sprints and long jump hold a tie with third place, but I hate and I mean hate shot putt! I only wish I could have done better in high jump. Isla came third for hurdles out of her whole age group! How exciting.

2. Trick or treating was very exciting because we all went and met up with other hawea kids at this old tree hut up the block and we all went trick or treating together around the block. Isla, Leilana (one of my friends) and me all dressed up as vampire sisters. Our faces were white and we had massive teeth one of mine was a snaggle tooth :-) and there was blood dripping from our mouths! We all made names from ourseves, mine was Alice, Leilanas was Bella and Islas was Loise. One of the houses fired candy out of a cannon! (that was powered by hairspray) that was the best part but a kid called Jesse got six crunchie bars and didn't share any of them even with the little kids who didn't get anything! I thought that was a bit ruff so I shared some of my lollies with them.

3. Last weekend I went to a girl called Sonya's birthday party it was very fun! Except for the fact that a girl called Megan ( someone who is mean to me.) and a girl called Lucy (also a girl who is mean to me.) were being very rude and horrible, hogging the biscuit and got four turns! Apart from that I had lots of fun I was the lookout on the boat and I at least got to have 1 turn on the biscuit. Sonyas cake was very cool it was a green handbag with green icing with jelly bean flowers and candy straps and candy stick handles!

4. Yesterday we went to Queenstown and Mum got me some singlet tops and and some short shorts I also bought myself an awesome new top! I might post a picture.

5. Today I brought in my lunch box from my bag (only 2 days later than I am meant to bring it in) because Mum was wondering if I had a banana that I hadn't eaten on Friday :-) alas there was only a very sad looking apple! Isla is pestering me, we are going swimming in the school pool now and Dad just broke the dishwasher the top rack fell off and all the cups broke! I think this would be a good time for Isla and me to go to the pool.
Mia.