We arrived in Queenstown exhausted and sick after a busy fun season. We started off with 6 weeks of house-sitting.

I curled up like a cat on the couch and enjoyed an enormous flat screen T.V with Netflix.

I was excited to start school again after a year of homeschooling. But the kids did not really welcome me with open arms. The girls were horrible and the boys, well lets just say they were just boys. I was disappointed. The silver lining was my teacher Miss Adele. She was lovely.

While house-sitting we had our first flurry of snow, enough to make a snowman and hide the enormous dog poos of Charlie the chocolate Lab we were dog-sitting.

It was time to get cracking literally on our next seasons circus show. I learned how to crack a whip. Our friend Shannon stayed with us for a few days. He is a Circus pro and helped us with our acro-balance. Soon after that we came up with our new magic show (a fun creative process)and began practice.

I had a fun birthday party with my Queenstown friends. I went to regular aerial hoop classes, dance classes and musical theater classes. I was working pretty hard.

We moved into our little old house in Authers point. It is about twice the size of our house truck, really cozy and warm with a big kitchen(great for baking) and lots of good memories.

One of the highlights of winter was the Luma light festival in Queenstown gardens. There were many beautiful light displays from different artists. Some were interactive. My favorite was a giant mirror ball hung high among tall pine trees with multi colored spotlights shining on it.

While Dad was working at Dart river jet in Glenorchy for a few weeks we all went on a beautiful jet boat ride. I got to drive the 700 horsepower twin V8 jet boat and do some spins. That was fun.

That is some of what we got up to over the winter but overall we found winter to be long, cold and a little boring…that is until we went to Bali!

Reddish orange, purpley pink. The cloud dotted skies are ablaze with colour as the sun awakes over Hawkes Bay.

Six thirty am and I am sitting in my sleeping bag watching the sun rise from Sunrise hut in the Ruahine ranges.. Last night i did not get much sleep because I was sick.

This week we have Caslym (pronounced Salem) with us. She is one of our Gypsy kids. She is very entertaining and fun!

After our 3 hour tramp up to Sunrise Hut we were all quite tired so we went back to Granddads house where our truck had parked while we were tramping. We even got to have a bath!

On Wednesday we enjoyed a soak at Ocean spa hot pools once again. They have one lovely warm pool, two spa pools, one cold kids pool, one cold pool and a lap pool, plus this is all beachfront. I think i am starting to sound a bit like an advertisement! Afterwards Caslym and I went to cheer-leading class with Bay-City Cheer. We did lots of teamwork and activities.

Later on Wednesday we had to get on the grounds early due to the fact that heavy rains and gales were forecast.

On Thursday we had a mellow day of school work and baking. It was a busy busy four day Extravaganza interspersed with a Grease movie night and an Easter egg hunt.

My friend Maya came to visit us at the Extravaganza. Maya is the daughter of Mums childhood friend Kirsten. We went on a mini train ride together. It was fun until I stepped on a horrible prickle!

As we tried to leave on Tuesday morning we found we were stuck as we had feared but we managed to get out in the end.

Next weekend Palmerston North.

Rats! Rats! Rats! Dad shot three of them out of the truck window and killed one with a hammer! Needless to say the rats at Port Ohope were terrible. We stayed there for the week after Mt Maunganui.

It was a lovely week of play , school work and rocket making.

On Monday we went to the classic flyers museum at Tauranga airport with Colin and Maria, it was incredible! My favorite exhibit was the Catalina flying boat.

On Thursday night at midnight I went into Mums bed with severe abdominal pain fearing I had appendicitis. I was rushed off to hospital. After being checked over by kind doctors I was sent home completely  painless!?

Ohope beach is one of New Zealands most loved beaches. The Extravaganza sets up right next to the beautiful beach at an amazing playground with a big flying fox!