Spit balls and Insanity

Hey, it's me. I feel like I haven't blogged a flat out blog post in forever! I guess this one will be a little bit of a catch up and then I still have all the pics from the week Nana was here to share.

Here are the highlights of the past 6 or 7 days....

Spit Balls- Driving to rugby practice last week Merenia said; "You know there is one thing that you should never ever get because it's really bad"
Me: "What's that?"
Merenia: "Spit Balls!"
Me: "What?"
Merenia: Spit Balls, Yeah they are really mean and they bite and fight and all that."
Me: "Ahhhh Pitbulls!"

Wash before you Wear: I unpacked Kieran's new Pyjama's and pulled the stickers and stuff off them as I was telling Kieran that I'd need to give them a wash before he wore them.
"I know" he said "It says that".
Me (looking): "Where does it say that?"
Kieran: "On that sticker in your hand"
Me: "mmmm..."

Insanity: Insanity is.... getting as far as The Warehouse at New Lynn and suggesting that we can the planned Zoo trip for four and get Jake and Ashlyn over for a sleepover so we can take them as well. And then actually doing that!

Exploding Monkeys (or Siamangs if you want a ticklecality): At the zoo I learned that if the Siamang Monkeys who make noise by blowing up the skin in their mouths/throats will actually explode if they do it too big.... I learnt a whole LOT of other "When I went to the zoo..." and "When I had my zoo sleepover..." and other I-know-it-all type stuff... from a certain Miss A at the zoo as well. Between that and the Pokemon spotting game that was going on.... hmmmffff! I also learnt that it's a long way from Sea Lion Shores where ALL the kids are eating lunch (unrestrained) on the lawn to the Zoo Train with the lovely Frances (a lost 6 year old).

Oh there's so much more than this.... but I started this yesterday and it is now already tomorrow so I'm just going to hit publish and tell you the rest of the stories tomorrow.... night!

♥

Guest Post: Not such a Debacle

The news reported Saturday's Blues game at North Harbour as a 'debacle' because one of the neighbouring suburbs had a power cut that took out half of the Stadium... it lasted 35 minutes and some people left because of it... I say "HELLO????? get over yourselves!"... power cuts are a fact of life and if you have to be leaving a game because you can't sit on your bum and watch cheer leaders for 30 minutes or you have to go because your kids are 'cold and tired' 5 minutes into the game then perhaps this wasn't the place for you in the first place... most people would have a sense of humour about these things... the clearing up of the Tony Veitch situation means the media is once again scraping at the bottom of the barrel and making mountains and debacles out a molehills and fallen tree branches!!

That all said I didn't go to the game- Les was home from his course for the weekend and so he took the kids and as it was Merenia's first live match she's doing the reporting....

On the last Saturday of the holidays my dad took me and my brother to the Reds vs Blues game cause he just came home from his courses in Woodbourne he did it cause he was going back to Woodbourne on Sunday for another two weeks...

Anyway at the game I saw the Skycity cheer team do four routines one before the game two in the power cut and one at the end of the game.

At half time the score was 5-17 to the Reds.
At half time dad went to get a hot and chips to shear we also got a string and a packet of chips to share. At the end of the game it was 31-24 to the Reds.

My favorite score of the game was by Isaia Toeava because he got tackled then he got himself out of it and ran for like ten seconds then Bam!!! on the ground he went not because he got tackled because he scored my favourite try of the day My favourite players were Anthony Tuitavake, Isaia Toeava, Keven Mealamu, John Afoa, Jerome Kaino, Rudi Wulf, and Joe Rokocoko.

It was the coolest day of my life I can't wait till next time.

While we were on the subject of Rugby, this weekend's Virtual Rugby Picks were shocking... although according to my Virtual Rugby email Merenia still did something right..."Your mates seem to know what they're doing - Stevielake picked up 0 points this week" Um WHAT THE???

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Are you over Aircraft yet?

One last one for the road... I brought this Helicopter for Will last week at a variety store. It runs along the ground with it's rotors going around...

It's cool but not this cool....

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Air Show: The best till last

Two words....

Jet Noise!

The end.

Les your photos ROCK- I love you babe. xoxoxo

♥

Air Show: Flat Scanley's Point of view

This little guy is so quiet, polite and tidy I sometimes forget he is here- he's just the best house guest... but he did make his presence known at the Air Show.

Here's Flat Scanley's week of the Air Show....

Hi all,

After spending some time with Will and Gypsy waiting to pick up the kids from school I had seen so many interesting things that I was growing very excited to go and spend some time with Les at work. You see I was wondering what was in here;

And I was really looking forward to seeing one of these up close!

Gypsy and Will dropped me off to the 6 Squadron Hangar which is where Les works with the Sea Sprite Helicopters. Check out what was parked outside...

Les is a Sergeant and he works in a trade called Safety and Surface that means he can do LOTS of interesting stuff! Do you know he knows how to Pack parachutes, cargo chutes and drag chutes. And he has spray painted a whole Helicopter! He can fix and pack Life rafts and he knows how to look after Left preservers. And he knows how to sew all sorts of stuff for the people and the aircraft in the Royal New Zealand Airforce.

Because he is a sergeant he also has to do some other not so exciting stuff as well. So we started with checking emails.

And then we took some important calls.

After that is was 'Joe time' or morning tea so we went and got a coffee, I had a Hot Chocolate.

Then we got down to the real business...

Les looks after all the safety gear for the Sea sprite Helicopters and their pilots... if they get into trouble then it's the stuff that Les takes car of that will help get them out of trouble.

Yep this helmet is working fine!

The Sea Sprite Helicopters go out to sea on the Navy boats and take off from there. The Navy boats can go away for 6 months at a time so Les needs to make sure all the safety gear is ship shape for that. He has one helper, Corporal 'Tab'.

This week the hangar was also playing host to some aircraft that were visiting Whenuapai Base for the Air Show. Including this little plane an Air Trainer which is used to train the new pilots and also for the Red Checkers Aerobatics Team. Did you know... one of the Red Checkers Pilots comes from the USA and he's in the New Zealand Air Force Cool Huh??

But this plane blongs to another Pilot. What do you think Uncle Scott??

After my day with Les I felt like I was well briefed and ready for the Airshow day....

Like they say in the RNZAF... "Bring IT ON!"

I wanted to look the part but they didn't have any flying overalls in my size. See what I mean...

As well as planes they had cars and other stuff at the Air Show. Like this Vintage Ambulance.

And this Fire Engine.

And this thing, which I think is a Airplane tug. The Air Force Motor Mechanics put it up on a BIG jack!

As well as aircraft there were HEAPS and HEAPS of people at the Air Show... It seemed like half of Auckland were there!

And a little bit of the USA as well!

These guys were part of the Globemaster crew.

Before I knew it the Air Show was over and it was time to go home and I can tell you I knew just how Will was feeling!

Love Flat Scanley!
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Air Show: The others

You know we have crap aircraft but they are so darn well maintained... do you know how damn proud I am of our Airforce?!

Did I mention how good the view from our posi was...

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Air Show: Iroquoi

Ok so these aren't the best photos but it's a cool sequence...

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Air Show: My Other Favourite

Ok I'm a Jet Girl at heart... but I really think this rocks.....

C-17 Globemaster III

Wikipedia says; The C-17 Globemaster III is used for rapid strategic airlift of troops and cargo to main operating bases or forward bases anywhere in the world. It has the ability to rapidly deploy a combat unit to a potential battle area and sustain it with on-going supplies. The C-17 is also capable of performing tactical airlift, medical evacuation and airdrop missions.

It kinds of looks like a a big rumbling beast but it's so much more than that and the sound it makes is way cool.

The coolest thing is just how slow it can go... like seriously slow you could run alongside it. And because of that it can land on an extremely short piece of runway.

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