At last! Tilly starts school

Waving us goodbye on Monday morning

After at least a year of pining and longing,

Tilly has a birthday

The long-awaited day has arrived and Tilly is now 5!  'Four is a boring number' she declared this time last year.  Fortunately, she has persevered and can put her annus horribilis behind her.  Fist day at school tomorrow - to say she is excited is an understatement.  Here are a few shots from earlier today.

Chocolate spread for breakfast can really set you up for the day, says Tilly

We all find our ski legs

Panorama from Coronet Peak, looking back towards The Remarkables.  By 'eck, it were a bit gorgeous

We think Queenstown's all right

Not a bad view... Looking back across Lake Wakatipu on the descent to the airport

So we've come to Queenstown for a week, and we have found Winter!  

Table manners and some nice photos...

Harriet is normally fairly angelic when it comes to sleeping through, but on Saturday and Sunday nights even the usual failsafe of the NZ politics podcast droning in the background didn't have its usual effect of boring her back to sleep when she woke up in the wee small hours.  She has been a bit snotty over the last few weeks and not eating that much, and we wondered if she was actually waking up because she was hungry.

The taste sensation that's sweeping the nation

We have been conducting an on-going campaign against mice over recent months - and up until this afternoon I thought they were winning. Here's a message I didn't expect to find propped against the toaster last week.  

Tilly has a lot to say for herself

Recently, Tilly has had an explosion of creativity.  From being fairly uninterested in drawing a few months ago, she has gone to producing a new masterpiece every other day.  And it's not only drawing - she also does a lot of writing too and sounds out most of the words by herself.  Here are some of the best bits from her growing portfolio.

My space rocket.  'Iron Man has gone to the moon in his rocket and found an alien'