Fall snow!

Lastnight we went to bed with clear skies and twinkling stars, hearing all kinds of warnings about a winter storm that was on the way.  This storm was to cause snowfall down to sea level.  This news is pretty rare for Dunedin.  It is common for it to snow in the hills surrounding Dunedin, but very uncommon for the flat areas closer to the sea (where we live) to get snow.  Plus, growing up in North Carolina you learn that sometimes weather men just don't get it right!

This morning we were on a bad start.  We slept through the alarm, and all I hear is Simon say "Oh crap" as he jumps out of bed to head to the shower.  When it was my turn i completely forgot about the snow forecast until I heard something on the window that didn't sound like rain.  So, i opened the bathroom window and.... HOLY WOW!  EVERYTHING WAS COVERED IN THE WHITE STUFF!

I ran out the bathroom to our bedroom yelling Simon, Bodie, look!  Nearly breaking my neck getting to the window to rip open the curtains and Simon saying "Becca, what are you doing, I'm getting dressed!"  Look, it's snowing, I say!  And Bodie says "Wow, it's snowing!  That means it's Christmas and Santa is coming"! 

We got up and found out that daycare was on a delay, then it was shut.  The snow came in bursts all day.  It'd get sunny and then you'd see a big dark cloud roll in and snow would pour down!  It was so beautiful and so exciting!  I stayed home with Bodie (my work was shut) and Simon made his way into work around 10am once the buses started running on the flats.

Bodie and I went out to play in the snow.  Then GiGi and Jedi came around with their 4WD and we took off to the hills of Dunedin.  Wow!  Now, there was some snow!  We stopped in a field and tried to slide down the hill on a plastic bag.  We had snowball fights and made snow angels and a snowman!  It was loads of fun and really beautiful!  All roads were closed leaving Dunedin, so there was a line of stock trucks and what not along the main drag in Dunedin city (that was odd to see).

I love living with seasons again!

 

View this morning when we woke up!

 

 

Because we saw the 'dark storm clouds' we went out in our PJs thinking the storm clouds were going to bring rain!  I was wrong!  Snowed all day long!

 

 

 

Snowball fight with GiGi!

 

Bodie next to a snowman we made!

 

 

Rainy Chipmunk Shootin'

In typical New Zealand fashion, the rain sets in on a Friday evening and doesn't stop until.... well, I don't know, it's still coming down. I think it's fasinating how much colder 5C (41F) can feel on a rainy evening vs a clear evening. Anyways, So like all parents with an active child, when a rainy weekend is coming up you go into panic mode on Friday night trying to come up with fun indoor activities that will drain the batteries of the energizer bunny! Saturday we had playball (see previous blog) and poor Simon had a cold and wet game of soccer. Bodie and I got wet ourselves, but at the local indoor swimming pool. Maybe I should blog about that one week. For now i will just say that the Moana Pools have todder pool hours where them and an adult get in for $3.50! Very good value! After a morning of playball and an afternoon of swimming we ended up with a zonked out kid in the car when we were going to eat dinner (of course). Luckly dinner was coming to our house (thanks Gi Gi and Jedi) and so Bodie just slept on the couch. Woke up 45 min later to eat a crab stick, get a bath and he was back to sleep for bed! Phew, one day down.

Saturday evening was a repeat of Friday night, or maybe a bit worse. What the heck is left to do indoors? The sun rose on Sunday morning, somewhere behind clouds and pelting rain. And i woke up racking my brain. What on earth are we going to do with Bodie today?! Then, Simon came up with a great idea! Chipmunks! hoot! I got out of bed with some spring in my step, made some pancakes, skyped my parents and then got in the car to head to Chipmunks.

What is Chipmunks? Chipmunks is an huge indoor playground (www.chipmunks.co.nz). It's a chain that they have all over NZ. Back in Auckland my coffee group used to meet up at Chipmunks on rainy days. Even though it is a chain, they are all different. The one in Dunedin, i have to say, is pretty cool! We got in there and within 30 seconds (i'm not exaggerating) I lost my child. haha. I think it took me around 15 minutes to track him down to show him our table. This particular chipmunks has the staple big inflatable slide and big contraption to climb up with tunnels and slides and ball pits. But it also has one of the biggest and most elaborate bouncy castles i have ever seen. And the REALLY COOL thing was this air nerf ball shooting room. It is so cool! You run around collecting these little nerf balls in a bag, meanwhile balls are going everywhere! Then you run up the stairs and find a gun and put the ball in and push a button and PHOOOO it shoots out. If any of you remember American Gladiators, they had a person at an air gun shooting at people? Well, pretty much just like that! It won't let you aim down (therefore those on the ground collecting the balls cannot get shot at directly). It's designed to shoot at the guns on the opposite side. You are behind the plastic with a cut out shape. If you are good (which Bodie turned out to be) you can aim and get the ball through the gaps and actually hit the person. But normally it just bounces off the glass and scares the snot out of you! I am unsure how long I played in there but it was so much fun! Although since i was one of two adults in there I got ganged up on and all the kids were shooting at me. Loads and loads of fun though!

A bit steep of a price on the weekends ($7) and unlike the one in Auckland, entry didn't come with a free coffee. :-( Never the less, a good way burn energy and kill 3 hours of a rainy Sunday!

 

 

 

Look up at the very top! 

You can't really read it, but the rules on the purple sign cracked me up b/c the first rule was No Climbing!  Wonder how Bodie got up there?!

 

Playball!

I found out about a cool toddler sport and movement program called Playball (www.playball.co.nz).  Since it's coming up on winter, we decided to enroll Bodie for a term, as it'd be a good way to get us out of the house and let Bodie run around (without us freezing our tails off at a playground).  I don't think any of us knew what to expect.  We took Bodie to soccer4tots when he was younger, but this was interactive with the parents.  I had assumed that this is what playball would be like.  I was wrong!

We got there and Coach Liam somehow managed to wrangle eight 3-4 year olds to sit on some mats and switch on there ears (that was so freakin' adorable).  He then played games to the traffic light colors.  One time they would jump to green, hop on one foot to yellow.  The other they would run real fast to green and walk (hahahaha) to yellow.  They got out hocky sticks and had to navigate a tennis ball through 'landmines'.  It was so cool to see the concentration that some kids had!  There was one kid who did this 3 times and the concentration was unbelievable!  Bodie on the other hand did it once, put his stick up and asked 'what's next'.  They threw tennis balls and tried to knock down the tower.  They took food to a grasshopper, whilst jumping through hoops.  There were some times we laughed so hard! There were races (were everyone was NOT a winner) and only ONE trophy is given each week for those who particpate in every activity, try their hardest and listen.

It was really cool.  And it was entertaining.  And the cool thing was that we didn't have to participate, we got to spectate!  For me, I enjoyed watching my kid listen to direction, I loved watching him try so hard to walk (when all he wanted to do was run), and listening to him pipe up and answer questions and volunteer to do things.  I just really loved his confidence.  Considering i think he was the only new kid and the others seemed to of been doing this together for a while.  He did really well.  And he was definately the scariest ghost!

So, all you peops in New Zealand, lookup playball.  It's awesome!

PS, YES Bodie is wearing his moms vintage Whipporwhil soccer jersey!  One i wore when I was his age!