Spring

As I drive around the streets these days I am amazed by a myriad of colour, greens and browns, reds and oranges, yellows and pinks.  Spring it would seem has definitely sprung!

My neighbours all have a range of beautiful tulips growing in their gardens.  Mine has one lonely tulip flower which has chosen to rear it's pretty head, a memory of a long forgotten garden.

The trees are covered in blossoms and new bright green leaves, blowing in the gentle breeze today.  As I sit here in the sun in my front porch, I can see a wonderful red tree across the street, no idea what type it is but I do appreciate the colour.

Large enclosed and covered areas have been set aside in the supermarket carparks where plants are on sale.  This actually seems very strange to me to take up a large portion of the carpark for this, but I guess as they don't sell plants for the rest of the year, this is the only option.

I have always loved the spring.  Spring and autumn are my favourite times of the year.  However, in Wellington, the spring is always accompanied by wind which I hate.  Here there is much less wind and we are able to spend many more hours outside.

We have been taking advantage of this beautiful weather, walking lots and going on field trips to various places for school lessons - last week we went to a greenhouse and the lake.  Art by the lake is very inspiring even though the student among us (Jesse) was the least inspired.  I tried my hand at water colour painting - that one won't be going on the website, but it was fun and very peaceful.

Yesterday, we played scrabble on the deck until Jesse spilled his drink all over the board and I had to de-stickify it and all the pieces.  

Home schooling is going extremely well.  Jesse has taken to it with great enthusiasm and knows that if he gets his lessons done quickly there are more exciting things to do.  Yesterday by the time I got out of the shower he had done his math and penmanship already.  He was very proud of that.

I've found that there is heaps of information on the web for cool stuff to do with your kids.  If anyone is interested, this website is great.  Started using it for cursive writing as Jesse has been struggling a bit with the switch from printing.

This morning we did our weekly trek to the supermarket, armed with a calculator, Jesse accompanied me.  Today we had a big discussion about cereal.  I had him work out which cereal was better value for money.  Of course it was not the one he wanted.  We have been watching Jamie's Food Revolution, don't know if it's screening in NZ but it's certainly worth the watch.  So I got Jesse to read the ingredients on the Reese Peanutbutter cereal that he wanted and when he couldn't pronounce them I said, "what would Jamie say about that".  He agreed that if the ingredients don't look like real food and you can't understand what's in it then you shouldn't buy it - thanks Jamie.  On that note, if you get the chance you should sign Jamie's petition for his food revolution.  It's so good to teach our children about real food and the availability of so much more processed food here in Canada makes it even more important.  New Zealanders are lucky to still be able to buy fresh food at good prices.  You really do appreciate how fantastic NZ is when you are not there.

Well, on that note, I'm off to do some more teaching.  Hope everyone is well and having a fantastic time.

‍