A friend gave us a whole heap of board games, puzzles and books that her kids had outgrown.

We spent most of the weekend enjoying them all.

The kids had the Hullabaloo out on the lawn on Saturday.

That evening after dinner we went to the local pools for a swim. There were heaps of people there enjoying picnics and bbq's. What a lovely evening to be out and about.

Sunday, we spent the morning doing household stuff. Simon was out chopping and stacking firewood while the kids were out there with their hammer and nails. Danielle came in and showed me her work. She'd found some bark and mounted a piece on top. The large bit was a wave, the smaller bit was a surfboard and the nail was her daddy riding a wave.

The kids then wanted to head down to the mountain bike park for a walk, a ride and to collect a large sack of pine cones. So we all set off after lunch.

Danielle's Fairy House.

A pine tree that Danielle announced she loved and gave a cuddle to.

Danielle and I were waiting for the boys to come back from riding until we heard Nathan say over yonder "are you all right dad". Oops, Simon went over a jump wrong, his bike slipped upon landing and he slammed into a tree with his leg (fortunately only his leg!) and ended up all bruised and grazed. So we all hobbled back, me dragging the huge sack of pine cones all the way back to do a bit of first aid on him and he's spending a few days resting up since he can hardly walk.

Today Nathan had Keas and they made boats from recycled milk cartons. As soon as he got home he filled the paddling pool to test it out. Next week we'll be all meeting down at the river to float them.

Nathan told me this evening that he wanted to start working towards some of his badges for Keas. There are two that he's keen to get into. One of them is a conservation one, so we went about assigning a part of the vege garden as his responsibility and sowed some seeds. The other badge is a Helpful badge where he wants to take on some more household responsibilities. So we sad down and made up a check list for him to work towards.