puff and huff

Another week done, and Dad’s finished his latest degree! He spent some time with the kids: here’s Huff working on her backstroke.

Here’s Puff taking a break between laps.

Dad was away for a couple of nights during the week. On Saturday, we went out for family breakfast at a friend’s cafe.

Sunday morning, Dad and Puff went for a walk before church. Then in the afternoon, Dad and Huff went for a movie. The soft drinks at the movies are big.

It was a lot of fun to be back in the cinema together.

Mum made a post-uni ice cream cake for us all to share.

And now we’re back to the last little bit of school for the year!

A pretty ordinary week; our oven, which has been playing up (varying between being an oven and a cupboard intermittently) for a while, has reached the point where it needed replacement, and so we actually went into a store to have a look at ovens in the middle of the Black Friday sales.

Other highlights: a thanksgiving dinner with our thanksgiving friends, heading to a leaders training day for the upcoming summer camp, Dad working on his final uni assignment, and procrastinating by helping Huff write her prefect speech, and various conversations with Puff about computing, maths, and other fascinating topics.

Puff and Dad headed back for in-person church for the second week in a row, while everyone looks warily about what will happen with the latest “omicron” variant.

Dad is looking forward to submitting the final assignment and getting back to being more present for the kids.

Back from his final uni residential, Dad was keen to spend some extra time with the kids. We went out for family dinner on Wednesday night, but didn’t seem to take any photos, so had to enjoy Enmore’s food (and gelato) without further documentation.

On the weekend though, Dad went to visit a friend’s new cafe, and take Puff on a beach walk.

Sunday morning before church, Huff and Dad went to get some pastries, but the weather wasn’t really cooperating.

We still managed a short walk down to the beach.

Huff is also running for school prefect in the coming weeks, and so posed for a photo to embrace her inner crustacean.

See you next week!

Dad is away at uni at the moment, missing Mum and the kids quite a bit. So limited updates this week.

Another ordinary week. Lots of driving with the kids, which means spending more time in conversation with them. A walk before church with Puff led to a long conversation about some of the computer programming projects he’s been working on, and some unexpected rain (the forecast said 10% chance).

We even paused to help a lady lift a kayak off the roof of her car: a rare treat in these COVID times to be able to help a stranger.

We also had lunch with Uncle J and Aunty C, which was long overdue. Puff had the chance to play chess with his uncle.

Huff chose instead to try on Mum’s sunglasses. 

Life seems to be returning to a regular pattern, with more events outside the confines of the house, which has been enjoyable. The kids are adjusting faster than their parents!

Another week, and the school run is back to being a routine. Driving is regular. We are starting to become used to spending time with others. We even managed a catch-up with friends on the weekend, which was long overdue.

Puff continues to be regular in his bible reading. Dad and Puff even played chess this evening (Dad was not the winner).

Dad has been doing the drop-off in the mornings for Puff, and in the afternoons picking up Huff.

It makes for some focused time with each of them, which helps us all stay connected, especially when Dad is busy with other things like studying.

(A day late due to Dad’s work schedule)

And just like that, the long lockdown was over; not with a bang, but with a whimper. We had some pizza for dinner (well, kids had pizza, Mum and Dad had Thai food), and then we had our last weekend before school returned.

Puff had a lot of homework to get through, so Dad took Huff out for some father-daughter time instead. We returned to the scene of the chickens-in-trees, and saw chickens, but alas not in trees. We did see some peacocks though.

We saw the cousins!

Sunday morning (Huff was disappointed we were too late out of bed to go to the beach) we went to look at the beach.

And then it was time to head back to school.

And then a quick family photo and we raced into the car.

And then as quickly as it had started, the school day was over, and we all headed back home.

We’re in the final week of learning from home; Sydney is starting to open up a bit more, and we can even start to have people visit at home.

And yet the week looks much the same. More learning from home. More zooms.

One break in the pattern was Mum’s birthday; the kids made amazing hand-made cards for Mum, who enjoyed spending time with people.

Huff enjoyed being allowed to use a wine glass to drink soda water.

And the kids enjoyed some great food.

And a quick shout-out from Dad to Mum. Thanks for all you do to help the kids make sense of the world around them, knowing without question how much they’re loved.

Oh, and Huff lost another tooth. And Puff has further upgrades to his braces. That’s about it for this week.

Another week of learning from home. SWAG has moved to online, so Puff had to make a marble run and then make a video of it, he’s had his second vaccination and so with Freedom day yesterday, he was able to go from this hairstyle:

To something much more promising – photo next week.

We also played Settlers of Catan as a family. Huff was keen to be the bank again, but we encouraged her to play the game and so she changed out of her “bank” clothes and back into regular clothes for the game. Eventually she seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Puff enjoyed it more, as he won the game!

Another week gone; we’re now slowly thinking about what leaving the house might look like, along with what returning to school will look like in under two weeks’ time.  

And like that, another school holidays is over. With every passing school holidays it feels like we’re closer to that weird end-date, when the kids are on the other side of their entire childhood, and start to take their next steps into the world.

In the meantime, we have Huff continuing to experiment with colouring her hair (next time she would like to do her whole head).

Mum and the kids went for a picnic with friends, during which they encountered the heaviest rain we had seen in months.

Dad took Puff for another walk in the park. The highpoint for Puff continues to be the variety of birds we see on the way around.

Dad spent some time with Huff working on a kiwi crate, which was a fun task for both of them.

And Huff and Puff played their first ever game of croquet at another picnic.

And with that, the holidays were over. Puff was back at the kitchen table for early maths (now starting the year 12 subject).

And Huff was back at the table getting her classwork done ahead of the daily 10am zoom.

And so we continue on to the home stretch at the end of the year.