Happy New Year!

 Last year we were up at Snell's Beach for New Years, watching movies alone.  This year we were invited to hang out with our Friends.  I say Friends with a capital F....as in the TV Show.... 6 close friends who get along great and always have lots of fun together!  The Dempsey's hosted, and with their family we made a fine sized New Years group of 10 adults and 9 children.  The kids had lots of fun in the pool while we chilled in the sun before sharing a BBQ potluck meal together.  A real kiwi way to spend a New Years eh?

There was no way my kiddies were staying up until midnight, that would require far too much effort on my part for starters.  We tucked the girls into bed at 8pm and hoped for the best.  HAHAHAHA.  With that many people in the house it was wishful thinking, and it was after 10.30pm before they finally fell asleep.  Luke fared better, but took a few false starts to settle too. 

Finally, the little ones were in bed and the big kids happily set up with Avengers on the big screen in the garage.  It didn't take us long to get into a rowdy and fun game of Cranium - girls vs boys!  Quotes of the night would have to be a frustrated male yelling out "Can someone please give me a blue" (giggle), followed not long after by "get her dad's thing out!" by a well meaning female.  In a moment of pictionary brilliance, somebody  couldn't believe they were beaten when "I hardly got the lead to the pencil".  And we were all sober too!  Boys won by one card.  

We followed up with a game of celebrities - OAC style.  For those who don't know this hilarious version, it is quite simple and a great group game.  Everyone gets a few strips of paper, and writes the names of 3 well known celebrities (one per strip).  These get folded in half and popped in a bowl all together.  .  You have to get through as many pieces of paper as you can before an egg timer finishes, with your team having to figure you out before you can move on to the next paper.  We played boys vs girls again - when the timer goes off, the next team takes over until there are no more names in the bowl...then you change rounds and it gets tougher (although easier, because you already know the names in the bowl now and can guess easier!). 

My Michael Jackson pose

Jonah Lomu? Tickle me Elmo? Hmm...

Round 1: you can say or do anything except use the person's name. Lots of fun to get clues for the next 

rounds.

Round 2: You can say THREE words, and act out the name (watch out: 'um' and 'ah' count!).

Round 3: You can act silently only - no talking

Round 4: your team shut their eyes as you strike a pose as a statue, then you tell them to open eyes and they guess who you are....hold that pose until they get it right!

After a game of spoons to finish of the night, we all hugged each other as we saw 2013 in with a lot of fun.  

After a big sleep in for our kids (9am), we loaded the car with snacks, sunscreen and spades and headed out to Waimarama Beach for a picnic lunch with our church family.  Nobody could believe that I had lived in Hastings for 9 years now and STILL had never been out to this popular beach.  The thing is, we just really aren't that beachy.  The sand gets everywhere, the water is always too cold and the clean up when we get home all tired is horrid.  And its a long trip out unless you stay for a few hours, which we find hard with toddlers.  We normally do all our 'beach time' at once, with a week at dad's Bach up north each summer!

However, the kids are growing up a bit, and THEY LOVE the beach.  So we try to give them as much beach time as we can cope with in the summer.  It is always more fun with more people, and we had a great day out today - I even got in the water twice!  The big kids dug a massive hole, all the way to sea level (we were quite far up the beach so impressive) and the little ones had lots of fun playing in the inch of sandy water at the bottom.  Luke coped very well without his sleep (he was out within 2 minutes of leaving the beach!) and the girls loved playing in the surf shallows.  What a great way to start 2013, with our 'other' family.