It's Been a While...

Sorry, readers. :(
Here's a bit of a review of what I've been doing during my absence.

Bushwalk in Hunua with the homeschooled teens
Back row: Suz, Ruth, Marieke, Toby, Andrew
Front row: Bee, Essie, Becks, Ben, Dad, Jarrod

Bee, Ruth, Es

Our Bible Study celebrated its third birthday this year. The six of us went with two of our mums to Mission Bay for lunch, then to Kiwi-Yo and Savemart Onehunga. It turned out to be one of our not-so-photographic days, so I only have a few photos like the one above.

: : Celebrated Essie's 16th : :

: : Dad turned 50 : :

: : Celebrated Danielle's 10th birthday : :

: : Tried some cake design : :
This is a Mocha Layer Cake

: : Trip to the Martha Mine in Waihi : :
Tyres in top left photo are worth $20,000 each!!
Bottom right photo: I found a helmet tree!!! :P :P

Dad, Mum, and Laura went to Wellington for a couple of days
 so my dad's family could celebrate his birthday with him

: : Played with Monique's donut maker : :

How cute is this? Maria's three by the way. . .

: : My bro turned 14 :O :O  : :

: : Made this scarf for a charity : :           

: : Stayed with my cousins in Stratford when Dad and I went down for his cousin's funeral : :

: : Maria had Laura on her lap, but she'd slipped off by the time I got the camera : :

My Sweet 16th :)

I wanted a memorable celebration for my sixteenth this year, and initially I thought something 'big'. Time slipped away on me though (and I couldn't really think of anything...), so we didn't actually finish organising this until the day before it all took place! 

In the end, the Sonnevelds came to our place around 12:30, and we piled into our people-mover {which I cleaned the night before - go me! :P} to pick up Middy and Becks before heading out to the Hunua Falls/Ranges.

Because we didn't end up having enough time for a long walk, we just went to the falls and then up to the lookout. Afterwards we got the food out of the car and headed for one of the picnic tables. Despite being somewhat gloomy, the weather held up throughout the afternoon, allowing us to enjoy ourselves without getting drenched!

Middy had previously committed to something else later in the afternoon, so dropped her home, then went to Manna Christian Bookstore while we waited for Anne Roos to be ready (she flew back to Auckland that afternoon), at which point we met her at Tenpin Manukau.

Two games later a tired lot of us came back to my place for the rest of the evening. 

While we had been all over town, my mum and siblings had been busy getting the house ready for us to arrive. They made beef casserole for dinner, along with dessert and cake (which we didn't end up icing or eating...oops!). They also pulled out our second dining table and set it up in the lounge for us {since you can't exactly fit five extra people around one!}. 

After dinner and dessert we claimed the lounge suite to watch Saving Sarah Cain. The food leftover from afternoon tea was completely forgotten but near the end we remembered the drinks ;)

By then end of the movie it was 10-ish and time for home and bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was actually from another day;
it's the mud cake I made and decorated myself.
Yep, tough stuff making my own birthday cake! lol

Gifts from my family

Gifts from friends
See, 16 really is sweet!!!! :P :P

 

Athletics Prizegiving

The most recent athletics season ran from late October 2011 to late March 2012. Prizegiving was held at Clayton Park School on Saturday, May 19th.

Although Laura was born before the end of the season, this was the first time the club had seen her, so she was very popular, to say the least! lol

I helped out again this year, getting the athletes from a certain age group in line, removing from the pile certificates for those athletes not in attendance, walking around the outside of the hall and bringing the group in again through the back entrance next to the stage. When either Terry or Albert was ready (they were presenting the awards), I handed the pile of certificates to him, and went to get the next pile and start the process again! I was pleased we only had a slight drizzle occasionally, otherwise I could have been quite wet!



Essie and I

 Finally it came to my turn. "Bianca Jago: First in . . . {everything}, overall aggregate, total track, total field." [Yeah, I was the only person in my age group! haha] Honestly though, I'm not sure how one is supposed to carry that many trophies at once! :D


I think Diana and I brought home three trophies each . . . we're building quite a collection now!

After all the age groups had their certificates, the other trophies were awarded, i.e. Sportsperson of the year and others.

  

Once the award ceremony was completely finished, we could all go out the front for sausages, drinks, and ice blocks. It started getting cold and dark, so a few of us came inside to hang out, and were given a chocolate bar each...yummy!

Hanging out afterwards (sorry, I don't have a good pic)
Clockwise: Jarrod, Diana, Suzanne, Esther, Ruth, Monique, me

Essie's 15th Birthday

 

The awesome pressie I gave Es.
I was trying for a vintage look, and no, the fact that we didn't
 have much gift wrap didn't have anything to do with it!!! :P
I think next time I'll make sure I have plain  black-and-white
 paper for the flower, and maybe use tea  to
give the paper a brownish-yellow colour.

 After the airport on Tuesday, Mum took someone for a doctor's visit, Monique and Jarrod had a violin lesson, at some stage we had lunch, and then we rushed off to my orthodontist appointment. After that (I think) we picked up some packaging for Dad, and finally, we headed out to the Sonnevelds'. I was going for Essie's birthday that evening, and my mum and siblings had been invited for afternoon tea (which, by the way, was VERY exciting for my little siblings!).

When we arrived, I helped Es out with the massive amount of baking she was doing for that night; by the time we were done with that, the rest of my family was leaving, and Suzanne, Esther, and I were going to play a game. Just as we were starting to play, Es thought she'd better work out when we'd need to start dinner in order to have it ready on time.

Ever-exciting chocolate!!!

As it happened, we ended up leaving the game and making dinner! Neither of us were familiar with marinating meat, so were unaware that the process should have been started hours earlier! We ended up calling on Suzanne to use her cooking skills (she's done classes at MIT) to help us.
 

Ruthie posing...

Finally we were just about finished preparing the food, and the expected arrival of two more friends was fast approaching. Es, Ruth (who'd just arrived home from a run) and I started taking various items for the evening out to the flat (above their double garage). I wouldn't have been overly surprised if someone had told me there was laughing gas in the air right about then! 'Hyper' would have described us quite well when Becks and Middy arrived!

Hungry? lol this was our dessert

We finished transferring everything we could think of from the house to the flat, and started cooking the meat. Soon we sat down, and our hunger was evidenced by our somewhat sudden silence.

Dinner was soon finished, and we made quick work of the dishes before preparing our desserts, and sitting down with them to watch The Ultimate Gift, one of Esther's birthday presents.

watching a movie

I think we all enjoyed the movie, despite its many sad  moments. At some point we paused it to get Fanta and lollies (we decided to forget the muffins, yummy as they looked!). I forget why, but for some reason some of us had to go back to the house - wow was it COLD outside!! A few days before it had still seemed like summer, now it was FROSTY!

on the way home =)



Once the movie finished, we restored the flat to its former state, and piled into the car for the trip home. Spirits were high during the drive, and before long we were returned to our own homes, thus ending our awesome evening! (Of course, I get to relive it, at least to some extent, while I write this! =))



Dinner with the Sonnevelds



Monique (11), Ruth (16), Bee (15), Essie (14)
The pavlova we made -yummy!

The Sonnevelds invited us to go to their place for dinner after our visit to the Botanical Gardens. Of course, we weren't about say no! haha After the Botanical Gardens, we came home to get the washing off the line, feed the animals, and all that. Then we went to the Sonnevelds'... Ruth and Es were cooking, and Monique and I joined them (many hands make light work! Well actually, I think it's more the talking, but anyway...).

So...for dinner we had potato wedges, samosas and spring rolls, peas and corn, carrots, and coleslaw.

Pavlova!!!

Everyone ate well at dinner, so it was a unanimous vote to wait with dessert!  That gave us time to do the dishes and finish preparing dessert...

For dessert we made pavlova (or actually, I think Es made it, we just helped put the topping on), and fruit salad (yep we made that too).

 After dessert, Mum and Mrs. Sonneveld did the dishes, and we four girls went upstairs with the guitars...actually we'd planned to play Bible Trivia (as we'd had fun playing it the day before!), but we actually didn't get that far!

Mum announced all to soon that it was time to leave!

Botanical Gardens Visit



Diana (6), Bryce (4), Amy (8), and Joanna (5)



On Good Friday, while my Dad and Mr. Sonneveld were away on a father/son camp with Jarrod and Samuel, we invited the rest of the Sonnevelds to go for a walk at the Botanical Gardens with us. I'm not sure when I last went, but I know it was a LONG time ago!



yeah..Ruth and Es pushed the stroller..
thanks btw =)



It was a beautiful (and fairly warm) day, we had an awesome time hanging out...and taking pics...oh and afternoon tea is always good too...!! lol



Nice pic Essie, you could just about be a photographer!



Essie and me...



Another one of Essie's awesome pics!




Diana and Joanna




Essie and Me




Ruth and Me




Ruth, Essie, and me...oops I think the sun was too bright!




Essie, me, Ruth & Laura out the front of the visitor centre



Sorry, just HAD to post this!!!




And this...=D





Fun Run 2012

Every athletics season our club holds a 'fun run' as a fund raiser. The athletes run as many laps as they can around the track in one hour. And well yeah, I kinda didn't do it this season!! But hey, I got heaps of photos instead :P Enjoy!


Grouping up around the start line




Middy, Mrs. Rakete, and Mrs. Bennet marking people.
The athletes get a mark each time the cross the start/finish line;
at the end of the night, the marks are counted to determine the
number of laps the athletes have run.




Katie (8) and Amy (7)




Bryce (4)




Joanna (4)




oops..she saw me! Danielle (5)




ok, so maybe instead of asking her to pose,
I should take a photo when she isn't looking?!?hehe
cute tho, right? lol




Joel and Essie




Mackenzie (4) and Matti run the sausage sizzle

  After we arrived home for our awesome night at athletics, our neighbour Melissa dropped these in:


 Yes, they were delicious!!!