Little Creatures

Did this one before. But I like it.

From 9 months ago.

Back To Lake Rotoma

The boys.

Thomas loving it.

 Rob was the taxi driver...and loving it

 Jay building castles

 Telling Pop about his 'spoon'.

Mate, its a bloody spade....I think....

 Tommy. He was brave enough to jump off the ski way out in the really deep water.

 A super quick snap of a Swallow passing at great speed.

 Four up. Yes four.

 At the camp. Chomping on all the good food aunty Sarah fed us all with.

 Grace shows how the girls can do it too.

 Afterwards. A nice cold ice block.

The Outback

Sometimes the 'outback' areas are not as tidy as this.

To me this is classic kiwi. Really shows the vintage and history of a town.

Jay

Angels & Demons

 Two monkey tails!

Hands up those who have not done this as kids.

These Norfolk pine what's their names have provided lots of fun for kids of all ages. Especially those who grew up on the coast.

So I showed J my monkey tail (wow pop) then he promptly out ranked me to the hinterland of monkey dom...

Lake Rotoma. On The Sea Doo

Rob. Waving to Jay.

 Grace on the back after a high speed thrill ride

 Pleased she survived the thrill. She said, "that was awesome, I would do that again..."

 Hoons, Rob and John

 Pure grunt. more power than my Audi A4 2016

 Dick....

Remember Christmas?

The Three Of Us

Rob, Sarah and baby. Not long now.

Grace

A happy birthday smile..

Scary Monster

 Just got these great shots from my sister who is farming with her family in the Waikato.

Their neighbour and a mate got this big boy with dogs and (this is the bit that gets me) one of the guys held the boars back legs while the other brave bugger stuck it!

I thought thats what guns are for.

Sorry if its a big gruesome.

Rain Rain

 Cabin fever drove us to go up to McLaren Falls and check out the river.

It was brown, rough and spectacular. Oh and it was still raining!

 The spillway from the lake which was as full as it gets.

J sticking his beak in....

 We ventured into the wet bush.

Bowtie and Tiara

Keno chuffed with his effort and Heath just smiling....

This, at our friends 25th wedding anniversary.

Challenge

These shots are taken 10 years apart.

Left is the original and the one on the right was taken today with my phone.

I was challenged by 'Phil' to do this from exactly the same angle.

Sorry Phil not quite what we imagined.

But.....

Grace. Birthday Dinner

Some iPhone shots.

The happy birthday song! We all love that....AND the hat that comes with it.

Lots of her 'fans' were there to help celebrate the big day.

Great spot for a party like that.

The Flying Burrito Bros Grey Street Tauranga.

 G looking my way for a quick snap. But all I could see was that big cake

And this is an iPhone App interpretation.

OMG!

Grace 11 Today and Still Crazy

She loves the outdoors and doing challenging stuff.

Here she is defying gravity with the power of her mind (takes after her dad).

Mk1 Zephyr Six 1952

This old pic turned up recently.

I was amazed. This was my old car and our old house back in the 60"s.

I had a love hate relationship with this car. Mostly the latter.

I ended up modifying the engine, exhaust system and changed the column shift to floor shift.

I learnt a lot about engines, vacuum wipers, broken axels, dim head lights (that I boosted with a relay), rust, leaking oil gaskets and leaking frost plugs. Then there were the bigger issues of valves burning out, big ends needing attention and the list goes on.

As you can see this is the exact place I had to work on this bloody thing and others that followed.

Nothing undercover and a shitty old car port with a dirt floor.

Looking back, just such a great experience. No money, no tools but give it a go....

see the link below.

Info

Home Bake

I love this time of year when Rob gets out the big pot and starts her day long quest to make our home made tomato sauce.

This is really nice stuff. Zero added sugar, very little salt with spices that include black pepper, cayenne pepper, cloves and wait for it....curry powder.

Most years we just scrape through with supplies if I don't get too carried away.

Of course it all can go pear shaped when I help to bottle it off.

Like we lost the bum out of one of the jars and it went everywhere just as I was heading off for a beer...

 Boiling stage

This is before its all milled up to a sauce

 First ones off the line