Cory and Mya's Pics

Mya Gym

Bananas

Cory Gym

Cable Bay

Teeter-Cycle

Planting Flax

We joined the community day at Tahunanui beach to plant some sand binding plants like flax. They hold the dunes together and keep the habitat intact for things like the scareb beetle and no-longer-very common but still poisonous katipo spider.

Parachuting

Scott makes it to the Centre of NZ

Push the Mountain

Star Wars Party

This was Mya's first party without Cory. Hitting the Death Star with a stick seemed to help her get into the swing of things. There was also an asteroid field, lots of little Princess Leahs and one Hans Solo (frozen).

Matariki

To celebrate Maori new year and winter solstice we attended the festivities at the Riverside Communtiy. Matariki, the seven-star constellation known as Pleiades in other parts of the world, marks the beginning of the celebrations. Our day began with Tanya telling us the legend of Rahi. The super short version: Rahi built a kite to find his beautiful wife who was stolen by the evil wizard. He is protected by the life force of the rock behind him while the evil taniwha (evil creature) prowls around creating a moat around him. The spirit of Rahi's father saves the day by creating an ice bridge to escape over the moat. Rahi continued his journey to a volcano. He blocks all the fissures and the trapped steam forces a huge eruption expelling his wife into his arms. Some say the fairies who had been under the evil wizard's spell became the stars in the constellation of Matariki. But I haven't even mentioned the Moa egg, the eagle and the cleverness of Ti Ara (Rahi's wife) in using the silverfern: long version here: http://www.maori.org.nz/papapanui/archives/ofviewthread.php?TOPIC_ID=102

Kite Flyers

Kite flyers representing Rahi open the game...

Ki-o-Rahi

Ki-o-Rahi is a ball game enacting the Rahi legend. Once the children improvised the playing field, the taniwha (supernatural creatures, in this case scary) tried to hit the protective rock with the ball. The defenders defended and tried to take the ball to the seven stars without going into the evil moat of the taniwha.

Snack Break

Sadly there are not photos for the end of evening. 7 aerial silk dancers performed the formation of the Matariki constellation and all eyes were mesmerized while they hung from the "sky".

Kayaking

Kirin was happy to go out with me for more than an hour collecting things along the way. His little sister was happy to hop in after lunch so she could yell "GO FASTER!!" and Miss Mya is happy to scoop the opportunity to be with Dad.