My Spin on Things

I got back from Germany positively bouncing to play more ping pong. Oak and I had been spinning the idea of a DIY ping pong table around in our heads for ages, and decided to finally get the ball rolling.

Our first attempt was a bit of a letdown, because we were skunked as to where to find a cheap substitute for a table, and the local hardware store delivered a backhand blow by closing just as we arrived. But we still managed to get a good enough grip on things to make a racket with our game just before dinner.

The next weekend we rallied our forces, and spent all Saturday morning on the project. The service at the hardware store was much better that day, and they even gave us advice forehand-eling our purchase on the way to the car. By the time we had carried, measured, sawed, taped and assembled the table Oak and I were pretty smashed, but very pleased with the stroke of genius that led to our final product. Hopefully I've put a good spin on this story, because I expect a volley of praise and compliments! :D

Wanganui River

Possibly our most fun trip of the summer was this week-long expedition down the Whanganui River. It was a combined effort with with our friends the Sutherland's and Jack Boon, both of whom we know through adventure racing. 145km of river, it combined some of the coolest river gorge scenery I've ever seen with some pretty intense rapids to make for an awesome adventure.

         

Highlights for me were...

Having all of our food work out, because I was had been in charge of all the menus, grocery shopping etc.

A unexplored mud cave and the ensuing mud battle,

Spending one night on a Maori "marai" and recieving a "powhiri" or traditional welcoming ceremony,

 

And especially all the cliff jumping! It was on this trip that the Sutherland boys taught us the essential kiwi skill of "popping a fat manu", which is basically type of bomb that produces a very satisfying huge splash.

My Last Christmas?!

I was having a great Christmas season this year, until somebody reminded me that it would probably be my last one at home!!! After that I made sure to have an extra great Christmas season:

Danny, Oak and I improvising to Christmas songs :D

 

We did our best to make it seem like a normal Christmas by baking sweet breads and covering our windows in snowflakes, but thats not so say we didn't enjoy the warm weather too!

  

And then suddenly it came much too soon, Christmas morning! (please note that at this point I was still the tallest in our family :P)

Important Decisions

 

Welcome to the boys' room. As you may be able to tell, it's an awesome place sitting on top of the rest of the house, with windows in three of the four walls. Not only does it have the best views, it also has easy access to the roof, and nothing fancy that we have to worry about breaking when we mess around.

Recently my mom gave me this genius idea! (As well as the financial backing to accomplish my plan.) A graphics shop in town prints A3 size pictures for about $5 each. So she told me to pick out a "few" favorites to hang in our room...

Lets just say that picking favorites is not something I'm good at, especially when we've got so many epic pictures!

 

I ended up with 29 pictures and felt unable to cut any of them! Upon telling this to mom, she came over to help me weed out some of the pictures. But after seeing all of them she gave up as well and we just decided to print them all :D

I've decided to include all the pictures in question in this post, even though I think I've used most of them before. If any of you have opinions about favorites or ones that I should have cut I'd be interested in your comments! :)