Updates & Ramblings

Well life's staying pretty busy; today I have work as usual, but then instead of collapsing in a heap like I usually do on Friday afternoons, o heading to bed early, I'll be attending a cousin's 21st in Wellington. I think I'll be pretty much going from the airport to dinner so it will be pretty busy. Then on Saturday hopefully meet up with friends, out with my aunty and cousin for a bit, and then fly home again! So I suspect it will be a long weekend, but not very restful :P Should be good though.

Music classes are going well.Private lessons are scheduled fairly evenly over two days, which is more manageable than one, but not all over the place like it could be if I spread them out even more. This term I've picked up a couple new private (recorder) students, and my times at school have shifted to the same day so I can work an extra afternoon at preschool. 

I discovered a new favourite comedian recently! I can't remember exactly how I came across him; he may have done a show with Tim Hawkins? Anyway, John Crist is pretty awesome. Probably his top three videos would be Christian Mingle Inspector, GET OFFENDED: The Fake Outrage App, and Christian Girl Instagram. I can't find the name of the girl in the last one? A few people have said in the comments section that she looks really familiar, and I agree, but I can't place her. I see some resemblance to Jessica Willis. Anyone else have any idea?

We had an interesting culinary experiment yesterday. The littlest bro very thoughtfully made his sis a birthday cake -- chocolate, with pink  icing. I don't know that he was given a specific measurement for the food colouring, so he just kept pouring until he achieved a colour he was happy with. I informed everyone present afterwards that red velvet cake was the ONLY instance in which it is permissible to use a whole, or nearly a whole bottle of colouring. As it turns out, raspberry essence has a much weaker colouring and much stronger flavour than pink food colouring!

Oh and who had the brilliant idea to introduce ads to Instagram?! First the update that blew up social media because the home feed wasn't going to be chronological anymore, and now wonderful ads! Reckon I'll be spending more time over here instead. ;)

During the holidays Susannah was in Auckland for a few days with her family. Coffee, shopping, kids program (the main church building where the actual conference was had free wifi! #score), talking -- the weekend flew by but it was great to catch up in person again. Besides, it's cheaper on the phone bill :P Now, to find a way to bring Auckland and Wellington closer . . .

Also met up with a couple of other friends during the holidays, spent a (minimal) amount of time relaxing at home, crossed a few things off my to do list, helped some friends get organised for their move down south (seriously, Auckland is growing simultaneously larger and smaller! :/) . . . and suddenly term three is upon us!

Lastly, be sure to check back here tomorrow! ;)

Recently

I'm sure the summer holidays get shorter every year! At least, that's what it feels like. I guess it's more general than that though, all of life just seems to speed up as we grow older. 

My laptop adapter finally did arrive, so the technical difficulties have been overcome and I just need to find {ahem, make) the time to edit my mountains of images and then post them here. (Cheer me on guys ;) :P)

Over the past few months I have accomplished a fair bit of walking; an hour plus most days. (Xj why am I applying French pronunciation to English words now?! *insert 2015's word of the year* The above image was taken on one of said walks, on my iPhone admittedly, since I haven't been taking the camera with me.

In January the rest of the fam abandoned me (kidding) for a couple weeks and went on holiday to the Taranaki. I did have several good study days, but somehow I didn't manage to catch up on sleep like I planned lol. Ate plenty of good food though!! ;P Got in some good catch-ups with friends and finally went to a couple of services at a friends' church. It was different than I'm used to lol but I won't complain. And being in a church that didn't feel like it was trying to give Antarctica a run for it's money was a very welcome change. (I'm not telling the time I'm writing this, and yes I am sarcastic normally, but this is probably worse.)

Life took a sad turn midway through my time home alone when my nana in Wellington passed away. My family drove straight down from the Taranaki and I flew day on the Monday, in time for the Tuesday funeral. Hopefully a post in the near future will feature a number of photos from Nana's life. It was a pretty short trip for me, as we all left on Wednesday, with the others dropping me in Marton at the ATI Student Conference, and then driving back to Auckland. I spent a day and a half-ish with my awesome friend Susannah (first time seeing each other since we swapped numbers back in July last year lol), talking heaps,  drinking way too much coffee, and not sleeping a lot (paid for it when I got back :P) before I came back on Friday. (That bus driver had no de Bruin blood in him. Or the trip would have taken half the time. Just saying.)

Now that school has gone back I'm into teaching again (privately) -- and at this stage I've managed to get all my classes in just one afternoon!! *clapping emoji* This term half my students are returning from last year, and the other half are new students, learning the basics of how to hold a recorder and such. Putting students through exams is exciting, and it's amazing to reflect back over how far they've come, but it's pretty special as well to see new students grasp the basic concepts!

I finally have managed to make a start on job hunting, so to speak; I expect to have an interview pretty soon to discuss details, and then I should be picking up some part time work. I've made a second enquiry somewhere else so we'll see what comes of these two and take it from there. I'm half thinking about joining Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator too. (Anyone interested in a party?!)

And that's my update for now. If it changes it's because I changed my mind about how much I wanted to share once I had more sleep. Lol. 

Liz and Lydia Over for Dinner

Liz and Lydia are our cousins somewhere down the line. They're from Wellington and we hadn't seen them for ages, so when they came to Auckland during the school holidays (uni holidays for them) we invited them over for dinner.

: : Bryce and Maria tried really hard to pull Liz off the chair : :

: : The girls have trialed a number of instruments themselves, : :
so throughout the night most of ours made an appearance!
Here Diana plays some recorder pieces (that she hasn't learnt yet) to Lydia.

: : Somehow the bath got forgotten about : :
Maybe the overflow thingy is blocked?!
The entire floor was covered!

The Smiths Come for a Visit



Mrs. Smith plays the piano for us

 One day during the holidays (sorry I don't recall which one exactly! lol), the Smiths (our pastor's family) came over for afternoon tea.

I must say the double choc chip muffins were, as usual, a hit! Sorry, no pics, but in fact I'm probably doing you a favour - if you saw a pic of these mouth-watering, choc-filled muffins, you might salivate so heavily your keyboard would be kinda gross...:P

But anyway, to get back to what I was writing about...



I'm not sure the ukelele is supposed to be on the tramp...!

 Nobody in our family can really play piano (Danielle was taking lessons last term, but no-one is learning right now), and Mrs. Smith is Grade 9 (!), so it was really nice to hear the piano played that well, despite the fact that she played from memory because we don't have any books her level!

Monique enjoyed Keith (4 months) and the other little ones (she loves young children).

Amelia enjoys our trampoline

Diana and Amelia LOVED playing with each other. I think Amelia has probably only met people within our church so far, and it is relatively small, so I think there is like one other girl her age (who is our cousin!). Also, my siblings were talking for AGES before the Smiths even came to NZ about being friends, going to their place to play and whatever!

Despite the fact that I was sewing, I still managed to read to Aaron (4yrs). He just loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so I got to read parts of a few books to him (haha little ones aren't patient enough to listen to a whole story!), and name the characters on the covers of the books shown on the back covers; thankfully their names were written down, or I would have been stuck!!! lol



Amelia and Diana pose...



 I think Mum enjoyed sharing some of her accumulated homeschool knowledge; it's nearly 11 years since she began homeschooling me!

And mainly, everyone enjoyed socialising for a few hours!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, um, I hadn't planned to write much...consider yourself lucky!!! haha

Bee

School Again

Hey everyone,

Welcome back to school!!!

The school holidays certainly went fast!

I can't get up at 11am anymore. :-( !!

I have an orthadontist appointment at 11am tomorrow morning. I will have the bands changed, so I can choose a new colour. Leave a comment if you have any ideas.

Well I am at work and Dad wants me to go and pick some more orders, so i better go do that,

CYA,
Bee
Bzzzzz

Holidays!

Hi Everyone,

School Holidays! Emphasise the SCHOOL - SCHOOL Holidays!

On Monday we did a massive tidy up in my room. There are 2 sets of bunk beds, with 4 of us girls in it! So out come 1 bunk set- we had to take it apart completely!;2 dressers, 'stacker' drawers - from the Warehouse.

Our lounge was looking very full! Which is a nice way of saying 'messy!'

And for about the next three or four hours we tidied up (or i did anyway!) Then i vacuumed, and in came the first dresser. It was then 3pm, so while all the other children watched TV for half an hour, i sorted out my drawers.

Then the second dresser and bunk beds came in, following that were beds to re-make!


When it came time for the other children to go to bed, their was still a mess in the lounge!



Also, between 3 of us, we cleaned Monique's four mouse cages - i think i spent about 2 hours doing that!


Better go have lunch,
Bye,
Bee