Danielle's Birthday || Ice Skating

Danielle organised to go ice skating with some of her friends and our family for her birthday this year. In fact, she sent the invitations before we knew what exactly she was planning!

: :Rachel | Happy skater : :

: : Monique : :
Do you like her dress?

: : Friends : :
Left to right: Monique, Danielle, Esther, Diana, Rachel, Lucy, and Abby 

: : And another group photo :) : :

: : Yes, I was there too : :
Why won't photos of me skating turn out well though?!

: : Rachel & Danielle : :

: : Gifts : :

: : Cake : :

Becka's 18th Birthday

Becka did a double-celebration for her 18th birthday (also in June) this year - ice skating one Saturday afternoon for everyone, and a mothers & daughters dinner at Masala on a Tuesday roughly a two weeks later.

Ice skating; left to right: Esther, Marieke, me, Becka, Suzanne
Jarrod, Toby, Rueben S., Ruth
Jordan, Middy, Rueben R.
Mum, Bryce, Abigail
Maria, Danielle, Monique, Dad & Diana, Natalie & a friend

We actually had more people come ice skating but some had already left when we took this photo...
Except for the blisters afterwards, it was awesome!! haha :P

A photo I talk of myself before we went to
Masala, and yes, I've photoshopped it...

I don't have much to say about Masala (Indian restaurant in Papakura) either I'm afraid, except that the food was great and we really enjoyed talking and being together. Oh yeah and we got some cool pics ;)
Afterwards we went to McDonald's for dessert :)

: : Me with Becks : :

: : Suz and I : :

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! =))



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





Bible Study Breakup

Written 24th and 26th December

Monday, December 22nd saw me baking banana cakes, writing a shopping list, and rushing around the supermarket when Mum finally took me! When she dropped me home, I made a pasta salad, and iced one of the cakes almost as fast as I could. Then I got myself ready, and was picked up by the Sonnevelds at about 3:15, and went to their house.

My friends and I cut and prepared a LOT of food(!), and had a go at making punch…although no one seemed to have much of an idea of how to make it! We survived the ordeal with only one bottle of soft drink spilt (don’t worry Joanna! (4years)), and a few blood splotches on the floor because Joanna had cut her foot (I think without realising?)

Once we had all the food ready, we took it down to the flat, er, garage (it doesn’t look like a garage though…!).

We turned on the plate thingie (what’s it called?) for the gourmet dinner, and were slightly surprised at how fast it heated up! So we quickly lit the candles, and put some food into the trays to cook. For those of us who like to do things as fast as possible, the food cooked a little too slowly, but we did really enjoy it!

Middy has an ipod, so we played music for a while, and someone also came up with the idea of us singing! As tradition has it, I had a mind blank and couldn’t think of any songs I knew and could sing (although, in fact, I love music and singing along to it, so there probably is at least a few songs that I know well enough to have been able to sing them!), but it was fun watching, photographing, and videoing the others! I took all the photos on my camera, and all the videos on a friend’s camera, but unfortunately they deleted all the videos. =(

Middy, Ruth, Essie

Amid the singing (and laughing!) we did find time to eat! A lot too...haha We ate TONS of dinner, then decided to go for a bit of a walk before dessert. We walked through a paddock (inhabited by sheep...why on earth didn’t I put something on my feet???!) to a rope swing, that swung over a decent sized drop! We soon walked back for dessert.

We lit the candle and poured the chocolate into the bowl for the fondue, and while we waited for it to melt, we roasted, and completely burned, some marshmellows (yum!) . Anyway, it did melt, and we dug in..it was delicious! My friends then went a little crazy (I think they{er, we!} may have had too much sugar?!?!):

Middy, Ruth, Essie

Essie



Middy



Burning marshmellows....*grin*



And a group pic just before we left...



Mrs Sonneveld did eventually manage to get us all into the car to drop us home! (Thank you!)
And thus ended our awesome night! =D

Bee

Inspire 2011 - Part 1

Ok so I havn't posted in AGES (sorry everyone..), and Inspire was ..let's see...in February..! So I'm not sure how much I'll be able to remember, but I'll have a crack at it anyway...


So on Friday 16th Feb, Anne Roos picked me up (Thanks!) and we went to the Sonnevelds,' where we had pizza before six of us girls (Anne Roos, Suzanne, Ruth, Esther, Emma Fussel and I) left for Ngaruawahia ,where we were all attending Inspire Girls Camp for the first time.
About 5 we stopped at McD's for dinner, before continuing on to the camp where we registered, found and set up our room, and said hi to the many people we knew.

Finally it was time to head to the main hall for the welcome, games, and a talk from Alana Dixon (recently married) about dating, courtship, and doing relationships God's way. Alana has a great sense-of-humour, and I'd be surprised if there was anyone who hadn't laughed by the end of her talk!

Then we watched a movie called Saving Sarah Cain before going to bed...where we talked/txt (*grin*) for ages...!

Sorry this post is kinda short, but the next one is really long to make up for it =)

Saturday, 5 February

Hi again,

On Saturday 5th Feb, Mum and Dad had a Growing Kids God's Way course, run by my friends' parents, at Papakura Baptist Church from 2 - 4pm. That was the second week of a 17 week course.
And since there is approximately 25 children/babies, and only 3-5 people (4 teens and a pre-teen)   running the children's program, my friend Anne Roos and I went along to help out as well.
Well the idea was to be at the church at 1:30  so we could see what we were supposed to be doing with the children, but..yeah..anyway..that kinda didn't work out! I think we got there just before 2.
We were downstairs and used 3 main rooms, which we refer to as the 'big room' and the 'little rooms.'
Soooo... we started by getting all the children to sit down in the big room, and ticked a book to show who was there. Then Esther told them all what was happening, and split them into 2 teams, before taking one team into each of the smaller rooms.
Once in the smaller rooms, and seated around a table, we helped them make the following craft:

In case you were wondering, the words are

the fruits of the Spirit, which is what they

were learning about that week

Then took them back to the big room to say the previous week's memory verse, learn the new verse - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control", and listen to a story (which I had to read....).
After which we split into the smaller rooms again, to colour in a picture and have afternoon tea.
Next we put them all back in one group, and upstairs to play games in the gym until 4.


After that we were all exhausted(!), so just sat around talking until it was time to leave.

Until next time,
Bee

Goth...

Go back a little bit to March, the 17th to be exact.. after a homeschool picnic, I went to Miriama's house, as did the Sonnevelds...and this goth popped in with her friend to say 'hi'....

Well, yes actually, you're right.. it's my friend Esther and I, with a lot of make-up on...!

Anyway will get on to the next post now..
Bee

Pyramid with friends

Hey!

On the 13th of January (as is obvious by the date on the pic!!), some homeschool friends of ours came over for lunch. Afterwards another friend came over too. Here is a photo of a pyramid we made.

Top - Danielle

Middle - Monique, Esther Sonneveld

Bottom - Me, Miriama Rakete, Ruth Sonneveld

CYA!

Bee

Manurewa Ribbon Day

Hi Again,

On Saturday 12th December, our athletics club held their ribbon day.

It started at 10am. When we got there it was fairly cold, and looked like it would rain. Not to be put off, we started the program.

No, the girls in the 'Urban' tops are not part of the club, Ginni, the one in the green top lives in Whangarei, and had just come down for the day, so she came with Esther(orange), and Ruth(blue), to the ribbon day so she could see Miriama(in club uniform).

And no, i can't remember exactly what events we did.

I did the 100m.

Then discus, and after that Ruth, Esther and Ginni had to go.

Then we had lunch. While i was over near the club rooms it got really windy, and umbrella's went inside out, and 'flew' down the field. Then the rain came, pouring. We and some friends had set up under a gazebo - but roof only type thing, and that started blowing away, Mum and a few others who were sitting under it tried to crouch down while holding the edges of it and keep the rain off everything, and stop it from blowing away.

When the rain stopped, we went over, and everything was drenched. The adults tidied stuff into the cars, while the rest of us carried on with the program.

Hurdles had to be put off until the ground was dry.

Hey Presto, the sun came out - and because Mum, hadn't bothered to bring the sunscreen because it looked like rain, I got sunburnt, and my shoulders blistered. OUCH!!

Anyway, we had all the usual events, then a 4 x 100m relay, including a 'parents' team. Everyone got a lollipop upon completion.

Not long after, a whole lut of grumps [ =) ](us) went home to sit on the computer, etc.

Oh, and umm, the computer did get a little squashed, but it still works. LOL =)

CYA,

Bee
PS: More photo's coming!!!