Weekend Wrap 17 - 18 May 2008

Jarvis and I went for a drive on Saturday morning to a local camping shop. I promised Jarvis that if he was good in the shop, we'd visit the toy shop over the road for a look afterwards. He was and we did. When it was time to leave, I was looking around for a nice cheap exit toy (take note Adrienne) and found a whoopee cushion for $2 - bargain. For the rest of the day we had to pretend that we didn't see Jarvis inflating the whoopee cushion and putting it under our bums as we sat down. He had the best time and the house rang loud with the sound of his gutter laugh.

On Friday night Adrienne's conference ended with a fancy dress party, that was themed as Studio 54. I have a very vague recollection of seeing Adrienne come into the bedroom in the early hours in a white pvc body suit and long white hair. I was that tired that I just dismissed the image and went back to sleep. On the Saturday night Jarvis found the wig and pranced around the house in it, pretending to be a wee girl.

A couple of hours later I extracted the wig from Jarvis and changed his attire to something more suitable, that of a Crusaders beanie and shirt. I have to say that I think he liked being in drag more than wearing his/mine Crusaders gear, however I think the team should have worn drag for the game, as they played pretty average rugby for the top of the table team.

I left the house very early on Sunday morning, as I had to be at Hyde Park for the 7.30am start of the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon. I ran with my running buddy Rebbecca, but split at about 5k, as Rebbecca is a much faster runner than me. However, it didn't take long before I hooked up with some fellow Sydney Striders, who I knew ran at my pace. We were all hoping to come in just under 01:50, which we did, crossing the line at 01:47 (gun time - official net time to be published will be about 60-seconds quicker) It was so uplifting to see Adrienne, Jarvis and Felix cheering me on as I approached the finish line, that I managed to up my stamina and finish with a really strong sprint. I really love it when Adrienne and the boys come to see me race. I feel so proud and chuffed to have them there. Seeing them, is the biggest high of the event.

After my race, Adrienne took the boys away so that I could have a long bath and sleep to recover. Adrienne took them to Toys R Us and spent what looks like a small fortune of toys! Felix scored a ride on Speak and Spell car/walk behind thing and Jarvis scored a space set. While at Toys R Us, judging by the photographs, Jarvis did a splendid job of hiding among a pile of soft toy horses. Can you spot him?

It was lovely to see the whanau pull up after their trip out and while Adrienne and Felix had a wee nap, Jarvis and I played in the front yard with his new toys. We also did plenty of climbing on the swing set, that gets lots and lots of use these days. With a bit of a climbing thing going on with Jarvis, he thought he'd move onto the tree, but stopped just in time before disaster broke. Jarvis was just about to step onto the fence for a better purchase, when I noticed that the wee stick he was about to step on, was in fact a Stick Insect. As with most bugs in Australia, it was a big bugger, but from what I've just read on the Internet, this was just a little one compared to how big they can actually get. But yeah, it was a lovely moment for me to tell Jarvis what I knew about the wee insects. We talked about camouflage, being kind to animals and how it's best to leave it in it's natural environment, rather than taking it inside to scare his younger Brother with!

So now the weekend is coming to a close, which is a a shame, as I so love being with ALL my family/whanau, that I wish it could be the weekend everyday of the week. Now wouldn't that be nice ;o)

House Dad.