Carolina Kiwis: Lazy Days

Sunday

Sherry is grudgingly getting adjusted to life on crutches. Mark has been trying to get the blog caught up, as we're over a month behind. We were too busy doing stuff in November to keep up with the near-daily entries. Alas, when he tried to upload pictures from our trip to Northland from his camera to the laptop, the computer locked up and he lost half of them. Aigghh! Most of Thursday night was spent trying to retrieve them off the corrupted SD card. He finally resorted to buying photo recovery software, and it worked, only losing a dozen or so pics out of a few hundred. Whew!

Friday, Sherry took Ro to the library (thank God for semi-scary nature videos) and classmate Gareth's birthday party. Sherry kept the car that day so they could get around, so Mark took the bus home from work. He stopped off in Tauranga's City Centre to do some shopping on the way home, and while waiting at the bus station spotted one of the ED "regulars" acting in his usual bizarre state, walking up and down the street, muttering and cursing to himself.

Since our apartment is in the heart of the action on Pilot Bay, The Anchorage was inundated this weekend with triathletes in town for the Port of Tauranga Half Ironman. There were so many people using our elevator that it overheated and broke! Sherry was not pleased.

http://www.halfironman.co.nz/main.cfm

A security guard and her dog watching the bikes and the sunset

Triaftermath

Fortunately, Mark only saw a few triathletes in the ED at work yesterday. It would have been a lot worse if the weather was just a few degrees warmer. Sherry and Ro spent most of the day at the pool. She couldn't get in the water, but plenty of kids came and went throughout the day to keep Ro entertained. With her leg finally comfortable as she reclined in the sun poolside, Sherry half-heartedly tried to convince Ro to leave his fun and games to watch the finish of the race down on the street, but no dice. When all the triathletes showed up to soak their aches away in the spa tubs, Sherry found herself drowning in pitiful glances and having to explain the story of her injury over and over. She has since distilled it down to: "sports." 'Nuff said.

Tough way to get some R&R

Since today was Mark's only day off in a long stretch of shifts, he took Ro to the park and let Sherry relax. Entertaining Ronan on summer holiday is tough enough for her normally, let alone hobbled. As soon as they were out the door, Sherry fell asleep on the couch. Meanwhile, Mark and Ro tossed the Frisbee around Coronation Park, making a game of trying to clear difficult obstacles (e.g. the pond, huge bushes). The disc actually made for an excellent tadpole-catching device, but Ro preferred to use his hands.

Learning to throw a Frisbee

The inevitable result

Catching tadpoles with some Maori girls

Barnaby came over to his dad's place around tea-time, and he and Ro spent the remainder of the evening joined at the hip, with Paulette's daughter Caitlyn (3) in tow. Mark and Craig took the boys fishing at the Pilot Bay pier after dinner. Craig supplied the fishing tackle, while Mark supplied the Speight's. The whole process of assembling your gear, baiting your hook, and casting into the bay captivated the boys...for about five minutes. The Maori teens leaping off the pylons into the water were too much of an exciting distraction.