Food adventures

Christmas is a month away, so Tighe and I tried a new recipe, and made Christmas Bark, but the children want to rename it Hail Bark.
Easy as... just crush up some pepperment candy canes,  melt some yummy chocolate melts,  spread it out evenly, and sprinkle the crushed candycane over the top.  The bonus, Erik doesn't like peppermint, so all the more for us (but we do need to hide it from Gina, or it will not last the weekend).

The whole world in his hand...

After all the hail, and the clean up afterwards, Tighe discovered this little critter in the courtyard. 

Views from within

The courtyard connects the West Wing to the Main House.  Around the edge of the courtyard are the Wash house,(Showers, Toilet, Sauna), 3 bedrooms, the lounge, the master bedroom, and the exit to the garden and Man cave.

Looking from master bedroom towards the West Wing (3 bedrooms)

Looking towards the Washhouse from Quinns bedroom

Inside the Wash House

View from Washhouse towards Quinn's room

Inside the Wash House - The Sauna

 

The long and short of it

The gumboots on the left are Anneke's, the ones on the right are Erik's.  Guess who fits the ones in the middle?  Hint: it's not Quinn...

Quinn's Mini City

Quinn created a mini city using Yu-gi-oh cards, Dr Seuss cards, wooden blocks and toy vehicles.He made it in our lounge.  Within the city there were bridges, towers, hotels, pyramid, schools, factories, power plants, forests, roads, an airport and a harbour.
Sunshine then came along and attacked it, knocked over the Empire State building, demolished the forest with her tail, smooched along the rest of the buildings, and lay on the road, which made it out of place, much to Quinn's annoyance.

Quinn and mini city

The forest

Bridge, road and cars

Stream, dam and road

Empire State Building and Power Plant

Mini city

Mini city overview

Hail Storm in November - Freaky weather

This afternoon, just after 4.30pm a hailstorm struck.  The hail fell for 90 minutes, destroying the vegetable garden, blocking gutters, and creating mayhem on the roads in the area.

Hail filling gutter and orange marrow garden

The same window 20 minutes later

Looking down into the driveway

The orange marrows with their plant houses

There is still more hail to come

Looking down the driveway

The hail stone tablecloth

 With all the hail, the gutters overflowed, and the water wicked back into the house, causing leaks.

Pots and towels containing the drips

Initially Quinn and Tighe started to clean up the hail that bounced into the courtyard, but it was a losing battle against the hail.

Pita Bread - football bread

Pita breads are easy to make.  Normal 4 1/2 cups flour bread dough, roll into 16 balls.  Turn oven onto hottest setting, 250 C,  once oven hot, roll out 4 dough balls until 5mm thick.   Place them on a tray in the middle of the oven - watch them puff up like footballs (4mins).  Take out, and roll another 4.  Leave to cool, fill with yummy stuff, and enjoy.

George

 

The tadpole has become George the Frog.  He likes to sunbathe at the edge of the pond, and on lily pads. The children love watching him, and of course, trying to hold him and stroke him.  

Bill, the other tadpole, has yet to grow "arms".

George sunbathing

Urchins coaxing George

Fireworks in Taupo

It was that time of year again, when we celebate terrorists who try to blow up governments... Guy Fawkes.  Unfortunately, the only public fireworks display at Rotorua was at the Speedway, and so Erik discovered that there was one in Taupo.  After gardening, off we set, the wind was freezing, but the children enjoyed playing in the playground for ages.  Dinner at the "Heritage of India"  fantastic food, really delightful, and then off to Owen Delaney park to watch the bands playing, and then of course, the fireworks.  Parking was free, total cost for 2 Adults and 2 Children, $14. 
Oscar and Anneke danced to the music.  When Erik and I got too cold, even though we were wrapped up in blankets, we got up and danced too, everyone did, to keep warm.

Anneke Dancing

Finally the fireworks, at least 15 minutes of glorious colour and music.  Comet styled fireworks, and new ones that split into 3, and then they split into three again.  Fabulous.  Will do this again, but will remember to pack the beanies, scarves and gloves.  Taupo is COLD!

Oscar Dancing

No dig garden

As I am allergic to work, the no dig garden is perfect for me.  Put some cardboard down, spread the compost out on top.  Plant the seeds, put down mulch.  Perfect.  No digging and more importantly, no weeding!
The orange marrows need to go in.  I planted 24 last year, and Erik was concerned at the time,  that it wasn't enough, so this year, we are putting in a larger run of them.  If the slugs and snails don't get them, perhaps we will get 50 plants.  Ran out of plant houses, so need to go to the recycling centre and get some plastic bottles.

  

Plant houses and mulch down

Picked up a Tamarillo, tomatoes, aubergines, spring onions and rock melons from the garden center.  We just need to work out where to plant them now.

Halloween

Ghosts, eyeballs, dead man fingers, dried bats ears, slime, dismembered hand in vampire wee - everything a child needs for Halloween.  We had some extra ghouls - Phillip and Marcus, Tom and Lewis, so 6 boys in total terrorising the neighbour hood trick'n'treating.  All the orange balloons got monster faces drawn on them, some were vampires.

Dead mans fingers and vampire wee

Dead man fingers and mango candy

Ghosts

Creating balloon Jack o lanterns