Tag Archives: Birthday

Dunedin and Invercargill

The three day Dunedin fair was very windy and cold, then hot, then cold, then hot…..very moody weather! We struggled a bit with the shows and the weather, but managed to perform four out of the six shows. On the Sunday night it was Summer’s punk themed birthday party, so we all dressed up in our most rebellious clothing and ate lolly cake, and cheese fondue! I was a bit tired so I retired early, and watched some Michael McIntyre with Mum, he is probably my favorite comedian!

My girls….
and Axel….
and Manu….
and Jaz!🤣

The Catlins, a stunning coastal stretch of native forest and rugged beaches, and our latest adventure!

Our first stop after Dunedin was at Earthlore Wildlife Gardens where we met Gordon and Janine Thompson. Gordon is otherwise known as Inspector Insector, the investigator for insects! Gordon and Janine are the founders of Earthlore they brought the land back in 2007 they have been cultivating an incredible buzzing garden of bugs, birds and native bush ever since.

While we where exploring the garden Dad offered to hold a very large nursery spider. Dad has always had light arachnophobia no matter how much he tries to deny it, so when this long legged hairy arachnid was placed on his hand and started crawling up his arm, he squealed at such a high pitch all the dogs in the area must have gone deaf, and quickly shook it off his arm!🤣

Dolomedes minor - Wikipedia
The nursery spider😫

After Earthlore we drove to Papatowai NZMCA campground, and met up with my Aunt and Uncle, Sheryl and Pete. As we only see them once a year so it was nice catching up with them:). We went for some long walks along the beautiful beach and caught up on some schoolwork.

Invercargill was our next fair, and with it came the rain that is always hovering above that wonderfully gray and cold town. Honestly almost every single time we go there it grey, rainy or cold! I’m sure Invercargill is a nice town when its sunny and warm, but sadly I have yet to be proved wrong, it seems to be continuously dreary and bleak.

I spent all of Friday making Halloween themed party food for the boy’s 8th birthday on Saturday/Halloween. I made witch’s broom sticks out of pretzel sticks & Reese’s peanut butter cups, and witch’s hats out of Oreos, icing and Hershey’s kisses, soooooooooooooo good!!! I also made fairy wands, used cotton buds, meringue ghosts and mulled grape juice!

Saturday was a wash out, it rained all day, no shows for us. Luckily at around 5pm the rain slowly eased up then stopped all together, giving way to sunshine and big wind’s. Everyone dressed up in their Halloween costumes and ate all the spooky snacks.

The boys and their prezzies!
Me with the cake, after getting hit in the eye with a nerf bullet from Dad!😅
Happy Birthday Dallas and Jaz!!!
Cutting the cake.

We left the grounds on Sunday night and drove to Kingston. On Monday it was Dads Birthday! We got up and had our drinks in the sunshine beside lake Wakatipu, the Mum and Dad went for a run up the hill beside us, while the boys and I watched the rest of Harry Potter four; the goblet of fire. I’ve already finished the Harry Potter series but I enjoy watching them again with Dallas and Jaz.

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!! we love you soooooooo much, where would we be without you!❤❤❤❤
A birthday selfie!

That was my post for Dunedin & Invercargill, I hope you enjoyed it!

Love Dylan Daisy❤

Winter in Motueka

After an awesome 7 month season on the road we spent a couple of weeks slowing down and getting back into school. We kissed goodbye to our 2018 shows by tossing the remains of our end of season flowers into the resurgence and remembering. We were already planing new shows for the coming season.

Then it was time to plan my birthday party. We hired the hall at riverside for a sleep over and silent disco. My whole class was invited. It was fabulously full of crazy games and yummy food!

 We quickly got into a settled routine of school, making up new Magic and Circus shows and training for them. Weekends were more training , bike rides and trips to the beach etc. Mum and Dad were busy preparing for the next season. Dad fixed my room which had been leaking, our rooms were re-floored, the inside of the truck painted and lots of other maintenance done.

A week in Golden bay during school holidays.

 

My class on talking statues night. I was Kathrine Hepburn.

Singing Mama Mia with my B.S.F (Best sister forever) Jasmine.

We moved into our friend Chrissy,s house for a couple of months which was fun as I got to share a room with my B.S.F Jasmine. Dallas and Jaz joined me at Steiner school for the 3rd term and loved it. This would be my last year at Steiner school. Our school play was fabulous as was our ski trip.

My class play “The ice throne” Big thanks to my wonderful teacher Margot!

Skiing at Rainbow with Zuva and Magot. I love skiing!

After a few months in one place we were all excited to get back on the road again. Mum and Dad had everything ready just in time. We had yet to do a full dress rehearsal of our Circus show but time was up.  Season 5 of the Extravaganza here we come!

 

Invercargill

The Gypsy bakers have baked yet another delicious delicacy to sell on Saturday! Lemon cupcakes filled with lemon curd(as you can see I love lemons).

Last year in Invercargill we had two 30 degree days, sooo hot and sunny! But unfortunately this year the weekend was cold and overcast. I just hoped it wouldn’t rain on the boys birthday party on Saturday night, yet as Murphys law abides it did rain but only slightly.

The boys had a pirate themed party so the entire fair dressed up as Halloween pirates. That night we played lots of rowdy party games and ate junk food. Then it was cake time and the boys eyes nearly popped out of their heads when they saw what I had created!

I am so proud of them. After the party the silent disco started. My favorite! I danced with my head phones on until midnight. So much fun!!

Monday morning saw us tired but happy heading for Queenstown. We stopped in Winton to search for Minnie Deans grave. Minnie Dean is the only woman to have ever been hung in New Zealand. Her crime was infanticide. Times were tough and Minnie Dean started taking in unwanted children for money. Eventually she was caught, in her back yard were found three tiny bodies. Gruesome!

 

That night we arrived late and even more tired at 12 mile delta just past Queenstown. After schooling on Tuesday morning the social times began. Our first destination was the pole studio and Raha of course! Raha is Mum’s bestie. We trained and played then tumbled out for dinner at the Bombay palace.

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!” Today is Wednesday and it is the boys proper birthday. Presents, pancakes and a gorgeous 4 hour walk around Mt Creighton loop track (A.K.A Sam summers hut track). We find nature grounds us after every frenzied fun filled weekend.

 

\Now its trick or treat time! Oh yeah, have I said the boys birthday is on Halloween? Awesome! Guess what their birthday theme will be for the rest of their lives?

 

Dallas and Jaz looking pretty uneasy.

We invited ourselves to go trick or treating with my friend Mia. I was nervous about meeting all of her friends, but it turns out I knew all of them anyway. Lake Hayes is prone to migrant trick or treaters from all over Queenstown. The spooky decorations let the hordes of sugar crazed trick or treaters know which houses had lollies. My brothers got so scared at one particularly spooky house that they ran down the path scattering their lollies in the process! From then on they were super timid about knocking. I meanwhile was off in the neighborhood gathering a massive haul of sweets, my Mum’s worst nightmare!

Candy here we come!

Thursday greeted us with school-work. “Yay.” In the afternoon Raha took the boys and I for their birthday treat, The Odessy sensory maze. Odessy is not really a maze, it’s a series of rooms filled with a-maze-ing things you can touch, hear, smell, see and overall enjoy. My favorite room was filled with balloons far over my head. Even if a person was right in front of you , you wouldn’t be able to see them and the very loud rustling of the balloons masked any small sounds. Perfect for hide and seek!

That night we sneaked onto the grounds at warren park. We put up our awning ready for 100km/hr winds and torrential rain.

What an awesome fun-filled week! Bring on the weekend! (just not the rain or the wind!) Bye!

Papamoa / Sundaise

Oi !Oi! Oi! Punk party! Riley had a punk party to celebrate his ninth birthday. It was Awesome! Punk is is a vicious vulgar society of people who are anarchists.

On the Monday after Papamoa we climbed Mt Maunganui. The veiws from the top are so beautiful. The horizon stretched out before us. On one side is the great wide ocean and on the other the sprawling city of Tauranga.

Top of Mt Manganui

This week we were off to the Sundaise music festival with the whole Extravaganva. Hipsy called up on Monday saying we have to get onto the grounds early because of the forcast for torrential rain. So we went in on Tuesday. It was a quiet rainy week helping set up for the weekends festival. On Friday as the people started arriving the heavens opened and it started to rain hard.That night we went to sleep never expecting what was to come…

It was midnight when Mum and Dad woke us up saying that the river had broken its banks and we have to get to safety! By that time the river was already rushing past our truck. We hopped aboard the adults backs as they took us to Ange and Thornys truck which was safe… for a while. All the other kids went there too, we were all white faced and wide eyes shivering from the shock of it all. Then we evacuated to a hay barn on the other side of the river. So many families were squished into that one barn it was unbelievable, while outside it was raining hard.

We stayed there for about three hours, then the river retreated back into its banks. We were able to go home. When we looked at the clock it was 3am! We had a big toast feed then went to sleep at last.

In the morning we woke up, opened the curtains and looked shell-shocked out the windows at the floods devastation. That was so so so scary.  I have never been in a disaster before.

 

 

 

The Auckland region

We spent three weeks in the Auckland region it was very hot , busy and tiring!

Did you know that a third of the country live in Auckland? That would be 1.5 million, a lot of people huh?

We spent three days at Shelly beach on the Kaipara harbor, where the Great white sharks go to breed. So Mum was a bit nervous swimming.

 

We went fishing off the wharf with our Christmas fishing rods and caught 6 Kawai. Tasty!

Next we moved off to Matakana. We set up at the stables where there were lots of beautiful horses and a great playground!

It was the first weekend that was hot enough to enjoy our new Christmas swimming pool. Also Koco had her birthday party.

Following Matakana we went to Te Ari which is where the festival called Shipwrecked is held. Some other Gypsies went there too. The center piece off the site is a large timber boat hull upturned to make a shelter and sound shell for the piano positioned beneath it.

We also went swimming in the warm man made lake. It was really quite relaxing after our busy weekend.

Next it was off to Orewa where we were interviewed for the Rodney times, they did a good article on us which we hoped would promote the Extravaganza.

Gulf Harbor was that weeks hangout with a stingray to pat and snapper and king-fish to feed.

On Tuesday we caught the ferry to Auckland city where we drove to Kelly Taltons underwater world by shark bus. Later we took a bus to K road and walked down Queen street. We ate in restaurants all day, it was awesome!

Auckland saw the Extravaganza at Blockhouse bay. We set up at Craigavon park which is a lovely dog park with an awesome playground. We did three days of Extravaganza and had a lot of fun dressing up and playing. I had a bad situation with an adult who was not cool at all.       You know, not all adults deserve respect, they don’t just automatically get it just because we are kids. They need to earn it. Some Adults don’t deserve respect.

New Plymouth

New Plymouth was a five day fair, three twilight’s and two full days. On our first day there I was part of a radio interview on the student radio station.

On the last day (Sunday night) the festival of light started with a burst of luminous beauty. We went boating on a lit up row boat.

That weekend Ella held her blue birthday party, literally everything was blue!

After that we drove all the way to Whitianga on the Coromandel where we had a mini Christmas with our relatives(Mums side).It was lovely.

 

Nelson

Did you know that the Nelson area was settled by Maori 700 years ago? In 1841 Nelson was established by English colonists. It is the second oldest city in New Zealand and the oldest in the south island. Nelsons population is 46,437. Nelson is well known for its thriving arts and crafts scene.

Oh what weather, one minute bucketing down cats and dogs and the next throwing down from the heavens armfuls of sun-rays which fly around the sky as if they own the place. It poured with rain right in the middle of our last show, scattering the crowd. By the time we got back to the truck the cheeky sun-rays were leaping around the sky again!

My darling friend Jasmine had her ninth birthday with us at the Extravaganza in Nelson.

Two years ago we left Queenstown and headed for Motueka where we spent a lovely summer in Marahau. We then moved over the hill to Motueka where I went to the Steiner school before joining the Extravaganza.

Staying at Kina beach whilst in the area felt like coming home.

Ange my fire poi mentor lights me up. Thanks Ange!

Loving my first spin!

Oh I almost forgot, I did my first ever fire show with real fire poi. It felt amazing.

Invercargill

Invercargill is one of the southern most cities in the world(southern most Mcdonalds, starbucks and burger king) hence Mick Jagger called it the asshole of the world.

Butt (heh, heh) in reality its fantastic! Queens Park is amazing. We set up in Queens Park on Friday. As it was raining many of the Gypsy’s got stuck in the boggy ground. It rains at some time on about 60% of the days of the year in Invercargill. We were lucky not to get stuck.

On Saturday night the boys had their forth birthday party. Their actual birthday was on Halloween the following Monday.

On Saturday the whole entire Extravaganza dressed up in pirate costume just for them!

Cutting the cake Auntie Sheryl made for the boys. It was so nice to see Auntie Sheryll and Uncle Pete.

Making lots of paper darts at the party.

Launching the darts from the top deck of the Mel’s and Jonas’s mother ship.

On Sunday morning we went and picked up Mums new Chihuahua Pixie who is the size of Mums hand!

Pixie. Sooo cute!