first stitches

 we almost made it 5 years without anyone getting stitches – which is almost a miracle when you consider what the girls do on a daily basis. yesterday (feb 20th), after a full day we were arriving home around 5pm. I was planning on texting Bill to see if he wanted me to drive to the hospital to pick him up (remember his car was totaled – ugh!). we pulled into our house and I unlocked the windows and started to roll them up when I look back and see that charlie had STUCK HIS HEAD OUT THE WINDOW! it was too late – the window had already connected with his cheek and was on the way down – he turned to look at me and I instantly saw that he would need stitches. it was a bit cut, but the way it split open just asked for a stitch. I grabbed some baby wipes and put it on the cut, tried to calm him down, then snapped a shot to send to Bill to see what he thought. I had Charlie hold down on the cut while I went and grabbed a few things from the house before driving to the hospital. I was able to get ahold of Bill and send him the picture and he said it looked like it would do better with a couple of stitches.

my solution to keep quiet in the car. Cars 2 on the DVD player, sucker and paper toweling with a bit of my medical tape.

by the time we got to the hospital he was smiling.

Bill had to round up supplies and it took awhile. 3 hungry, restless kids in a hospital room isn’t a pretty thing. Bill put some numbing cream on the cut at first and let it sit for awhile.

Bill finishing his dictations while waiting for the cream to work. I love that charlie wanted to be right up with him.

bill was trying to put some lidocaine in the cut so he could start suturing, but it was a VERY SLOW and DRAMATIC process. I am IMPATIENT when it comes to this stuff (ok – most things) and I was struggling with the girls in the room. So after a hour and a half of watching Charlie *almost* let Bill move forward, then take 10 steps back, I had to leave. Bill is SO patient and good with situations like this. I was just adding to the drama.

the girls and I went to the car for the remainder of the time. finally at 8 pm they emerged! happy and all. I guess TMNT videos did the trick! Charlie doesn’t realize how lucky we are to have a Dad who is talented enough to just fix him up – a trip to the ER would be a much different situation! Thanks Weyam!

we fed the kid a late supper and even after eating what would normally be a filling supper they started eating bananas faster than Bill could cut them. I had to snap a picture of the pile of bananas – they consumed 4!

let’s hope the next stitches are a few years away.

SUP & Mt Eden

Wednesday was our last day with Grant and Suz. Bill was at work and the kids all had Montessori in the morning so we decided to go SUP (stand up paddleboarding) together. The weather didn’t want to cooperate – it was windy and overcast – but once we got out there we had a lot of fun.

when it is choppy and windy it is a lot harder to make progress quickly. I came in a few minutes early and grabbed my camera to stop these shots of Grant and Suzanne.

Suz getting herself to the launch.

after the girls napped and we picked up charlie from school we drove to Mt Eden for our last adventure. The girls loved their rides up the hill.

charlie was great – despite being tired from school.

my nearly 5 year old boy!

what a joy it was to have suzanne and grant here. I am going to desperately miss having my seestor (and grant!) around. it was so much fun to be together. sisters are the best! thanks for making the trek to NZ – I am sure you are thoroughly enjoying your relaxing, QUIET 4 days in Sydney before heading home. love you!

Langs Beach

We received a call from our neighbor late Monday night letting us know that they had gotten home and found Bill’s car all smashed up. Lovely…apparently an elderly woman fell asleep or something and crashed into his car while it was parked. Here is the text picture. Knowing that we had to deal with more car stuff we opted for a quick morning at the bach and then a stop at Langs Beach.

our spot in the shade.

it was hazy sort of day.

suz and I were happy to have more reading time while the boys played with the kids in the ocean.

Grant going with the wave.

ellie.

claire.

what a fun holiday we had with Suz & Grant.

C’s reward

A few months ago we noticed Charlie had started biting his nails. We tried different techniques to encourage him to stop biting them. Bill decided to start cutting his nails almost daily down to the nubbin so there was nothing to chew and it helped a TON! We had told him if there was white growth showing on all of his nails we could celebrate with him by letting him have a cupcake.

Hopefully this trend will continue! We love you charlie!

Day 3, Northland tour

We woke up Monday morning and Bill rattled off some things he had planned for us to do for the day. All I heard was “we will do lunch at a mexican café that gets great reviews on trip advisor”. He could honestly have said we were driving 10 hours for lunch and I would have said YES. I miss my mexican food like a mad lady. Anyway – back to our morning. We had breakast on the deck and the seagulls cleaned up our mess when we got up – helpful.

Our first stop was a cave to see some glowworms. It is a smaller, less commercial cave than the one we visited before and it was awesome.

sadly you can’t take pictures in the caves, but the glowworms were GLOWING! crazy – huh?

in all honesty, they were uber bright and we were really close to them. the kids did great throughout the tour too.

el Café – be still my heart. I can taste the iced chai that Bill said was supposed to be good – it was unbelievable. The burritos, nachos, everything was tasty – not quick with one dude manning the kitchen – but worth the wait.

we were right near the Treaty of Waitangi grounds so Bill ran in and took some pictures. lame, but honestly we were stuffed from the mexican and the kids were whiny and we knew a beach/outdoor activity would be better for all.

we drove to the West side of the island to Hokianga Harbour with plans to catch a boat that takes people to the dunes to go sand boarding. BUT, when we showed up the dude decided to quit early that day and wasn’t running his operation. so we changed plans.

we turned off at this beach sign for Waimamaku Coastal Track and am I glad we did. This beach was amazing. We walked along this large stream that feeds into the ocean to get to the beach.

the stream was really powerful so we had to be careful with the kids.

suz and grant were awesome to have along. more badger handlers.

if allowed – the kids would have played with this dead fish all day.

we love these rock pools.

the beauty! blue blue skys, sand and ocean as far as the eye can see!

looking from the beach back up the stream that we just walked.

suz and I wanted to take a selfie. of course we didn’t expect the wind to whip us right as I was snapping the picture. just keeping it real.

much better!

grant and charlie playing in the wicked current of the stream. it was intense!

I was carrying the TNMT (teenage mutant ninja turtle) board for so long I was busting out some sweet moves. we were on a surfing beach and all.

my own hot tub.

my sweet claire.

on our walk out there were 4 sketchy cars that drove past us out to the beach. it had the feel of the wild wild west.

such a beautiful spot!

Our last stop before going back to the bach was to see the largest Kauri Tree in NZ.

“the lord of the forest” – it is MASSIVE! these pictures do not do it justice. the trunk girth is almost 14 meters!

ellie skinned her knee. ouch!

3 green and speckled frogs… (a kiwi song – or at least we sing it here). Ellie. Charlie. Claire.

this is my response when bill mentioned driving to see more Kauri trees. I was hungry and my response was “niche, niche - seen one, seen them all”. probably not true – but I saw a shirt recently that said “I am not responsible for anything I said while I was hungry”. I need one of those.

we wrapped up our day with a drive back to our bach. Suz and I got in some great reading time with all the driving. I think I finished 3 books over the course of 4 days.