Monday, January 12, 2009

Christmas Camping...

Becks, camping?  Yes I can hear you non-believers out there!  

Well, it wasn't CAMPING camping - we were in D's mum and dad's lovely caravan, and only 20 mins drive from Timmers to collect fresh ice, food supplies, and shower!  Yes, now THAT'S what I call camping!  Ha ha ha :)  

We totally gate-crashed on my friend Gina's camping holiday, camped out on private property alongside the Little Pareora River.  The water beside the campsite was very shallow, and great for the kids to play in while us parents relaxed, and there was a deeper waterhole just a few minutes walk downstream for when we wanted to get wetter.  Fantastic!  I took quite a few pics (as you do), so here's the pictorial run-down on our camping expedition....

Men cooking 'oh-oh-ooohhh' 
(said in the style of Tim the Toolman Taylor)

Can you SEE the size of that barbie?  Crikey it's a good'un!

If you look from photo above through next three photos, you get a sweeping view of our campsite from the river....

That's our caravan off in the distance


J pretty much spent 99% of his time riding a bike - if not his wee 12", then it was Cam's larger 16" bike that he spent all day on.  He had a blast.  It was great that the water wasn't too deep at the site too - he even got confident enough to get right in and lie down in the shallows.  Although the temps getting up around 30 degrees sure helped that.  It got to around 35 degrees on day - WAY TOO HOT for this kiwi.  Seriously.  Way.  Too.  Hot.

Here's Cam with J - he's Gina's boy, and such a sweetie.  J followed him around most of the time, but he didn't seem to mind too much.  They found as well as a love of bikes, they had an obsession with lego in common.  Lots to talk about!


And when it got really hot, we went down to the waterhole.  Several people (myself excluded!) jumped in off the ramp into the waterholw producing fantastic photo ops - see for yourself....

Shawn




Paige




Isabella




Paige again!



Curiously there was this kind of 'rock-shelf' on the edge of the waterhole that you could also dive in from.  Almost looked like they were walking on water!  Shawn did a magnificent dive off the rocks...



Al




And of course, once I get the camera out there's always that point in time when my son acts up for the paparazzi.  Only a mother could love this face, and even then sometimes it's a struggle!  What a performer!!!



My man (awwww)

Aleisha


A pile of dirty dusty rocks?  Sure I'd love to climb all over those with wet clothes on Mum!





He found a 'cellphone' shaped rock....Hello?  Hello? !!!



The rock shelf stars again - check out the facial expressions on the divers!







Aleisha in action...
Lovely form...
That's a big splash for a little girl!

Jake and his new best bud, Cam

My two troublemakers (just kidding boys!)
The beginning of The Great Noodle WaterFight (don't ask!)





So all in all we had a fab time, thank you so much to Gina, Shawn, Aleisha, Cam, Al, Lee, Paige and Isabella for letting us gatecrash your holiday.  We ended up staying 5 nights in total, and could've stayed longer but home was calling as the return to work was not far away.  Bugger.

On our last night (New Year's Eve), they had a wearable arts night, where we had to make costumes from rubbish bags, which we had to wear from tea time until bedtime.  Plastic is HOT to wear for that length of time I can tell you!  We took out a bunch of glo-sticks for us to wear, and there was even singstar hooked up to a generator!  Talk about all the mod cons!

Here's J and I in our creations...


And here's all of us, looking GORGEOUS!!!

Well kiddies, I'm off to bed to get my nose stuck in a book for a bit, then it's back to the office again tomorrow.  Man today dragged... must be Monday-itis me thinks!  Anyone else suffer from that?

Toodles, B x

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