Tornados and Storm Chasers

This afternoon while the Lily Bug danced in a thunderstorm, a tornado ripped through our neighbouring suburb of Hobsonville. It's odd, but as I drove home from kindy shortly before lunch, I reached a part of the road where I had a clear view towards the North Shore and saw a strange cone-shaped cloud that looked like it was spiralling out from the cloud above. I paused at the intersection longer than necessary just to watch it and see if it were a freak cloud or something more malign.

I couldn't truly tell, and so deciding the distant peals of the thunder storm (which was approaching from the opposite direction) had simply made me paranoid, I went on my way.  There were a few things I needed to do before heading home, but the cloud had unsettled me. The more I drove, the more my anxiety increased. I had wanted to make a detour to the fruit and vege shops along Hobsonville Rd because the Lily Bug was pleading a strong case for plums from the back seat, but anxiety caused me to return home instead.

Once inside, I told the Teen about the freak looking cloud (and she, zoned on Facebook, nodded vaguely in response), then paced the room waiting for the thunderstorm to hit. When big fat raindrops finally kicked in, they did so with ferocity.  The Lily Bug tore outside into the rain so she could run in it. In force of habit, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots of her playing in the rain while repeating "too wet to go out, to cold to play ball, so we sat in the house and did nothing at all" in my head with a smile, anxiety momentarily swept aside by my daughter's childhood joy at the forces of Nature. The Lily Bug's storm dance was short-lived and soon she was in a warm shower. Not long after, I heard sirens, and assumed the heavy rain had caused a car accident on Hobsonville Rd.

Later, one of the Teen's friends told her via Facebook that a tornado had struck and killed three people. The phone began ringing as friends and family checked to make sure it hadn't cleaved a path to our house. Thank goodness no, this house almost comes undone if I turn the suction up too far on our vacuum cleaner.

Only a km or two away, three lives were taken and homes were up-heaved, their inhabitants left homeless.  Warnings of further tornados coupled with ongoing emergency services sirens left me on edge and unwilling to let the kids outside despite the rain having cleared. I relaxed only when the birds and cicadas took up their songs again. Geeze, the tornado didn't even come close. Always a little prone towards dramatics, I am.

I don't know if that cloud I had seen was in fact the tornado forming, or a quirky-shaped coincidence. But I do believe in signs, and in gut feelings. And I'm glad I followed my churning stomach by not driving to the fruit and vege shops. Overly dramatic or no, it would have been so easy for me to drive a little further on to Hobsonville Point for a good pre-storm run around on the playground. It would have been so easy to have been caught up in the wind-whipped terror, had I taken that path today.

Ignore the overgrown lawn. Please. Our lawnmower broke three weeks ago, and the Lad is going to fix it... Somewhere between now and Christmas.

 

Guy Smiley did a lap around the house, but didn't like rain in his eyes.

Trick or treat, smell my feet...

I retract that previous statement I made about talking the Lily Bug out of wearing a hulk costume for Halloween.

Hulk mad!!

Hulk MAAAAD!!!

Hulk lost?

"Just point and shoot Angela. Nothing can go wrong - don't worry, I talk blurry photos all the time!" 

When teens cut their legs shaving...

Alien impregnation and omnious motherships? Just another day really.

Monday kicked off with a stomach bug that has been systematically picking off our household, one after the other, for the past three or so weeks. I've been nervously waiting for my turn but so far I'm okay. Of course, this now leaves me slightly uneasy with the suspicion that everyone else in the family has an alien baby inside them, except for me, and now rather than celebrating the fact that I'm not a green faced chunder wonder, I'm feeling a little rejected. Why am I not good enough for alien impregnation? Why can't I experience a week or two with no appetite? Gods only know I could stand to shed a few kilos, and involuntary vomiting is so much easier than sticking my own fingers down my throat!

I started today walking into the supermarket with money to spend on groceries, and an hour later I walked out with no money, and not enough groceries to adequately justify where my money disappeared to, Tuesday has proved to be a better success.

Contrary to what medical professionals may tell you, the best cure for alien impregnation (or 'stomach bug' if that's what you chose to call it) is not plenty of fluids and bed rest, but plenty of fluids, loads of sand, a good smather of sunblock, and a spot of sunshine if you can happen to find some.

The weatherman predicts more sodden grey rain from Friday, so we decided to hot foot it to the beach today and make the most of the brilliant blue sky. Not a cloud in sight, and no wind whatsoever.
Of course, as soon as we set up our little afternoon camp upon the beach, the clouds began to roll across, with a large ominous black one hovering in the background (like a cleverly-disguised Mothership, keeping an eye on its human cocoons.)

Ignoring Mothership's watchful eye, we had a great slice of afternoon. The kids enjoyed driving monster trucks through the sand and teaching their dinosaurs how to swim, being dragged through the super-low tide on a bodyboard and mowing their hands through the soft mud-like sand.

Tomorrow is Halloween. 

We're going to start the day by wagging Kindy, loading the car up with bodyboards and making the mission with some friends to the super-massive dunes near Lake Wainamu to try out dune surfing.  

In the evening, we're trick or treating. The Lily Bug wanted to dress up as Hulk (she's really not very girly at all) but I showed her a never-worn ladybug fairy dress hanging in her wardrobe, and she decided she'd wear that instead. I'm trying to subtly remind her she is in fact a girl. I think I'm slowly winning...

This week I'm linking up with Communal Global to share what our crazy cat family got up to this Tuesday!

Oh no! Timmy's down the well!

The kids had a friend over today and they spent much of it busy playing and ignoring me completely (except for when I was required to mop tears or wipe mud from feet). Initially, I had this plan to spend my day "getting stuff done". But short of having the assistance of Rumpelstiltskin, it is pointless - POINTLESS - to try and get anything done when there is not two by three little whirlwinds in the house. A play date gives children the perfect excuse to thrash the house in ways they'd never think to do on their own.

Scenario 1 - the muchkins, bored despite a house full of toys.
The Lily Bug: "Hey, should we tip out every single toy box we own, and toilet paper the walls?"
Guy Smiley: "Monster trucks!"
The Lily Bug: *tips out one box. Is bored by lack of accomplice, gives up.*

Scenario 2 - the munchkins + friend, bored despite a house full of toys.
The Lily Bug: "Hey, should we knock down the precarious leaning tower of toy boxes in the wardrobe, scatter the contents all over the bed and then bounce on them until we hear cheap plastic snap beneath our feet?"
The Friend: "Yeah! Then we can take half of them outside and dig a hole and bury them - along with as much stuff from the cutlery draw that we can carry!"
The Lily Bug: "Yeah!"
 Guy Smiley: "Yeah! MONSTER TRUCKS!"
*Cue wanton destruction*

It usually takes a few weeks to locate the last missing monster truck, and I'm still missing teaspoons.
No doubt the lawn mower will find those...

Don't get me wrong. I love it when the kids can busy themselves all day by dreaming up creative new ways to use toys as stepping stones in order to cross the great lake of lava that is the entire floor surface of the house. Even if it means I have to spend the next week approaching very short men and offering my first born if they'll help tidy up the aftermath.
And I never really meant to imply I intended to waste my day on housework. Pfft! Who wants to waste precious time doing that?

An adaption of the Laundry Tornado.

This morning - while the munchkins were watching Sunday morning kids telly - I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to finally catch up on my favourite blogs. This is what I decided as soon as I woke, because at night I'm always elbow-deep in graphic design or Wordpress customisation and I never ever ever seem to get my head away from Photoshop layers or div layers. And you know, sometimes I just want to see what Catherine's been up to.

So, with the Lily Bug snug under a blanket and glued to the Wild Thornberries and Guy Smiley busy driving his monster trucks across a line up of Hot Wheels cars, I thought I could safely blog hop for a little while (while trying to figure out what's gone wrong with a Wordpress plugin in a separate window) without interruption.

And then, I walked away for a moment to make a coffee. Dumb mistake. Guy Smiley noticed the whirling thumping hum of our computer (I think that fan is going to #!!$% itself soon) and I returned to find my seat had been taken by a little boy who was suddenly extremely fascinated by Catherine's apples. (Wow, that sounds way ruder than it was mean to.) It then took five times longer to finish reading her two latest blog entries because Mr Two Year Old keeps wanting me to scroll back up so he could count the blumin' apples. Seriously, if I was in the kitchen he'd have no interest in what I was doing at all! Typical.

By the way, Catherine's apples are not apples at all, but White Sapote. I'd never heard of White Sapote before this morning, or Earth Gems for that matter (thanks Catherine for always teaching me something new!) but I'm curious now. I wonder if these could be found at the local Farmers Market? Though, the chance of me being organised enough in the morning to make it to a Farmers Market is slightly less than the chance of waking up to find fairies have made a wee house in our garden...

But you know...You never know. ;)

In other news, we've had winter bugs run rampant through the house for the last fortnight... (I now have a mental image of little scarf-clad bugs, tearing through the house like something the Cat would pull out of his Hat. Judging by the state of our house, I'd say that was entirely possible ;))

Anyway, here's an collection of the last fortnight's antics (you know, when we weren't at home being unwell - possibly due to too much running around wet playgrounds in the winter)

Look! I even managed to get a pic of the Teen in here! Not that I took it myself, no she usually hides her face behind her hair and grumbles about how she's having a bad face day whenever I wave the camera in her direction.

We have some lovely little reserves and playgrounds in our neighbourhood, and just the other day we discovered a new bushwalk. Okay, not new, but new for us anyway. We had no idea where this track was going to lead us, and then it opened out onto our road! Sheesh. I've lived on this street 12 or so years, and never even noticed this particular slice of native bush. You know, despite the "Manutewhau Walk" sign and wooden walkway leading into it...

Did their eyes light up when they discovered the track had turned to mud!

A couple of weeks earlier, a friend showed us another nature reserve, tucked away down an Avondale side-street where I would never have thought to ever find a forest. Waterfall and all.

Seriously, people who think Auckland is all about traffic congestion, arsehole Maserati-driving JAFAs & high-density housing, just really need to get out of the house more.

That narrow concrete thingie that the kids were walking across wasn't as dangerously scary as it looked. Honest. It was only a small drop onto lots of soft nature-stuff. And there was an adult standing 6 or 7 metres away, waiting to catch a falling child with her go-go-gadget extendable arms.

 Okay, it's late evening now, and I began writing this at about 10am this morning. In between popping away to sort out children's arguments ("she pushed me" "he smacked me in the head with a car"), sorting through the last months worth of photos & trying to make some kind of half-arse dent in housework, I've completely managed to ignore the small backlog of website/design jobs and uncleared emails that I'm usually stressing and panicking over. But I have managed to spend a reasonable amount of time enjoying the laughter of Guy Smiley as he chased after Lily Bug and Friend with a hose, and rambling in my blog for the pure sake of it. And sometimes I really really need to do that more than anything. It's like brain food.

My only worry now - other than whether or not the kids current game of swan diving from chairs onto a pile of beanbags and blankets is going to at some point require medical care - is what to name today's blog entry.

Hmm...

Then in one of those Nek Minnit moments...

Try as I might to find the kids a playground where they won't - for once - find a swimming pool of mud to wallow in, they will sniff one out

And as much as I sometimes protest to begin with (citing 'nice clean clothes' and 'nice clean car' as reasons for staying, well, nice and clean for a change) I always have the camera out ready and waiting to capture all the I-want-to-remember-these-moments-forever shots.

Photos taken 13 June 2012.

I protest, but I don't mind at all really.

And the kids don't really mind when I have to peel off their clothes before allowing them in the car because silly mum has forgotten to bring a spare change of clothing. And towels. And travel soap. And a camping shower. It's all part of the adventure that is 'going to the park'.

In fact, sometimes we don't even make it to the park. Sometimes if I'm super lucky, the kids manage to get completely covered in muck along that stretch of lawn between house and car.

This isn't the set of photos I've been looking for, where the Lily Bug and Guy Smiley made a mudslide out of a tyre track on our lawn while I was still inside trying to find the car key so we could go out. Those pics are trapped on a camera memory card that won't work. Instead, these are from the Lily Bug's playdate last week.

 

Blue Sky Winter

How is the weather for everyone this morning? 

What a beautiful crisp clear and oh-so-cold winter morning here in AK!! Cloudless blue sky... Warm croissants and hot coffee for breakfast... Thank goodness our bakery had them in stock this morning! $1.50 for a super-massive sticky sweet croissant - can't think of anything better.

Gonna make the most of it before the grey gloom settles back in - no working on graphics while the monkeys turn the lounge into a military-grade obstacle course today - it's picnic at the park day!

Now I'm off to pick up the Lily Bug from her first day of 'morning kindy' (yes, she's moved to the big little kids  session at last!)  and it's off to the park we go!


Water bottle - check.
More croissants - check.
Fruit - check.


And off we go!


Hope everyone else out there is having as beautiful a day as this. :)

He's leeeeaving, on a jet plane!

So as of 9pm last night, The Lad has been on an LA-bound plane (possibly riddled with snakes) to attend E3. Which is... some gaming convention thing, idk? He won the trip after building a crashed plane display in his store to promote the release of Unchartered 3. 

Anyway... a couple of folk on Facebook land have asked for photos of the display, and as the memory card thingie with the pics is currently freezing every time I stick it in the computer (I've put it in front of the heater to see if that helps) I've drawn this nifty picture to represent his fine build. Behold...

One of his co-workers claimed on Facebook that he had seen the original, and this picture of mine looked kinda close. Poor lad. He deserves better recognition than that. Here's the original...

One Large Park, Dozens of Children, One Muddy Puddle.

... And of course, my two lil' munchkins had to be the only two to find that muddy puddle.

You can probably guess where I'm going with this...

Initially they did a fantastic job of staying clean and running about the playground, like the gazillion other children who were crawling and clambering over various platforms and climbing frames, while their parents enjoyed a sunny afternoon and a bit of ball game practice. (I have no idea what kind of ball game they were practicing. It involved a field, a ball, and people to kick that ball. That's about as much as I know of these things.)

Guy Smiley even surprised me by climbing right to the top of a curvy ladder thingie. And then by fearlessly whizzing down the Big Slide with a bit of unhelp from his lil' big sister (unhelp = the kind of help where the big sis seems like she's going to sit behind him on the slide and go down in a tandem, but then gives him a helpful shove instead.)

Of course, it wasn't long before conventional play became a bit dull for my Mucky Monsters so off across the field we went, in search of misadventure. On that last leg of the journey as we headed back towards the car, they found the puddle. Was there any chance they'd walk around it or at least tip-toe cautiously through it?

Well for a moment there, yes.

Against all of my expectations, the Lily Bug stopped before it, wrinkled her nose and exclaimed "eeew look, a muddly puddle... Eeew mud is gross, mum!"

I have no idea where she got that notion from, but I can assume she's been spending too much time under the influence of the nice clean tidy Kindy girls.

It was Guy Smilie who reminded the Lily Bug of all the fun there is to be had by splashing in mud, and by the time he'd bum-shuffled right through it and back again, she was jumping in with two feet and the world's biggest grin.

There seems to be a running theme to my blog, and that is the various ways in which my munchkins can cover themselves in goopy brown stuff. Fortunately, most of the time the goop is mud, but sometimes... Sometimes it's something much worse. *sigh*

Anyway, it's time to put an end to this 'coffee break'. Today the sky is a near-flawless blue, the Lad is on his way home from work (it is supposed to be his day off btw), and we're about to head off to Cheltenham beach and North Head tunnels for the afternoon. Awesome :D

Park! Park! Park! Park! Paaaarrrk!

After a couple of days trapped inside due to a stomach bug that swept through the household, we were so so relieved to escape the plague house outside this afternoon and spend a couple of hours at our favourite playground.

The cabin fever has been almost worse than the sickness itself. A camp out with DVDs became the theme of the weekend, however there's only so many times Ice Age 3 can be watched before "I thought you were a female!" is no longer funny. Even to the three year old who was the first to laugh, and who laughs the hardest - despite being completely unaware of what the joke is actually about.
 
So, at the first sign that the munchkins were able to keep down their food, we scarpered to Hobsonville Point Park for a bit of fresh air.

Hobsonville Point Park; with its interactive playground sculptures based on New Zealand native trees. Sculptures that are lovely to climb on in winter, and hot enough to strip the skin in the summer. (Kudos to the stupid bugger who didn't take that into consideration when designing a playground for thin-skinned children.)

Two days ago, the Lily Bug spent the entire day lying on the couch, without energy to do much more than sit up and vomit. Today she climbed right to the top of the ... climby thingie ... and into the net. Right into the net! That's a first, folks at home.

Always, always keeping an eye out for little brother. (And sometimes, sometimes a little lost when, during a game of hide and seek, mum doesn't hide where she was instructed to hide.)

It may have been too soon to take them on an outdoor adventure. Guy Smiley threw up a short while ago. I hope a relapse is not in order for tomorrow. I was thinking it might be a nice day to venture into our failed garden and begin removing the winter weeds. Or the plants we were supposed to keep. I can't tell which is what half the time. (My mother is the green fingers. I'm just the butter fingers.)

Communal Global

A cow, a chicken, and a llama walk in to a bar...

I'm not sure if I'll ever try feeding a cow from the palm of my hand again. It seemed a good idea at the time, and how could I say no when she was looking at me all sweet and doe-eyed like that?

Cute as they may be, I should have taken note of all the goobers on the end of her nose before tenaciously (though not tenaciously enough) reaching my hand towards her mouth. Who knew how slobbery those creatures are? Oh well, we live and learn I suppose...

When a friend invited us to join her on an outing to Kiwi Valley Farm Park last week, we were keen as beans. Here was the Lily Bug's opportunity to ride a pony for the very first time, and Guy Smiley's chance to meet the living embodiment of the animals in his favourite farm-themed cardboard picture dictionary.

Is it just me or does this expression say "I'm trying to stay calm but DEAR GOD SOMETHING HAS HOLD OF MY ARM!"?

 

 There's a certain light that flares in a child's eyes when confronted by something that truly amazes them.  When a mythical creature known only in books materialises before their eyes and those eyes all but pop with awe, their faces light in a way that cannot be faked, or reproduced, or ignored.

Even if you live in the furthermost corner of the furthermost land and your children have long grown accustomed to the sights and sounds of rural life, there was surely a moment when their gaze focused on a chicken or a cat or a monkey for the very first time, and a little burst of wonder lit their eyes.

Unfortunately I failed to adequately capture any kind of boggle-eyed wonder in my photos as almost every one was out of focus, or I kept missing the right moment. And eventually it dawned on me that I was so busy taking pics like a snap-happy tourist, I was forgetting to actually take part in the outing and enjoy the moment. (That happens far too often.)

But at least a few farm animals were workin' it for the camera...

 

My Other Car Is A Horse.

Snow is all the rage at the moment, although despite claims of it falling in our Auckland suburb, we were merely treated to a small bombardment of mini-hailstones that melted as soon as we tried to grasp them between numb fingers.

The Lily Bug shot outside to catch the hail, but caught more in her wildly unkempt gossamer hair than she did in her cherub palms. But for a moment it was the most exciting thing in the whole wide world ever. Like, even more exciting than blue food colouring in the bath or a super-massive bowl of dishwater bubbles to smear all over the furniture. Then she went to the freezer and chucked a few ice cubes in a cup. Same thing as hail anyway. Kinda.

As if to prove yesterday's arctic weather was all a strange dream, the sun elbowed away the clouds for a wee while this afternoon in a gallant effort to remind us Spring's not too far away. All those flowers I struggled to grow in the garden that J struggled to dig, might bloom again soon. Though, given the mess of weeds out there, there's probably a higher chance of snow in Auckland or Hell freezing over. (Which is pretty much the same thing by the way.)

Those heavy black storm clouds framed the horizon as we left Kindy today, yet somehow by the time we reached our street they had fled, tumbling right off the edge of the world. Blue sky and sunlight had taken their place. How completely unexpected. And halfway down our street, right at the fence line of their paddock, were the horses that mum so often promises (inside her head) she'll take the kids to visit some day soon. You know, some day soon when we're not in a hurry to go elsewhere. When the kids aren't half-asleep in their car seats. When it's not raining.

Today we had time on our side, the kids were wide awake and ready for new adventures, and the sun had kicked those storm clouds to the curb.

It's about time Guy Smiley gets up close and personal with the animals he's always neighing to in his picture books. And the Lily Bug was so brave, going right up to them and giving them pats, when it doesn't seem so long ago she was so very timid and clingy and nervous of everything that existed beyond our doorstep.

The horse was nibbling playfully at Indie's hair. Well, I'm assuming it was nibbling playfully. Though, 'deranged with hunger' is another possibility that now comes to mind...

Wordless Sunday: Reflections

Linking with Kendylsplace for this week's Wordless Sunday.

These photos come from a mid-July afternoon at our favourite playground. Summer days in winter are awesome.