What can you do with a pool, trampoline & slide

Have a lot of fun!!!!!!

2008 comes to an end

Poppy & Azalea & Betsy perform a great farewell dance for their teacher Miss Monica



A sad day as Miss Monica leaves Woodford School

Our wonderful guards

Well 2008 is fast coming to an end and life has been busy with "endings" We've had work parties, school parties, security guard parties and the normal busyness that is associated with all of these things. Its been a full on year for us, not least of all because Carl has spent 20 weeks living and working in PNG.

We have been very blessed with good people around us that make life that little bit easier.

We've had the same 6 guards for nearly 18 months now so they are very much part of the family and do lots around the property to keep it in good order. I sleep well at night knowing they are looking after things for us.

Cathy has been an absolute angel and has done a wonderful job filling in the parenting gaps when Carl is away. She does school pick ups many days, looks after Tobias on his days off as well as keeping the house spotless. We wouldnt survive without her.

We've also had great friends who have helped and supported me when I have had a school pick up emergency, or just needed some adult conversation on a Friday night!!

Tomorrow me and the kids head off to Brisbane and then NZ for 5 weeks with Carl joining us in 10 days. It is a much needed break for me...and 2009 looks to be as busy as 2008 with lots of exciting work challenges ahead for me. My contract goes to Juen 2009 with strong possibilities of extensions beyond that. Looks like Solomons might be home for a bit longer yet.

The IRD Christmas Party Recipe

Me and some of my wonderful workmates




Three of these girls were living in Palmerston North until recently. Their Dad's - who are managers I work with - were studying at Massey and they went to Central Normal school right opposite where our house was.




Inland Revenue is renown for good Christmas Parties. We have recently enjoyed another successful event. So what's the recipe for an IRD Christmas Bash?

- One beautiful sunny day & a glorious beach
- 12 very hard working female staff who do all the cooking and food preparation
- Even more not so hard working men who drink all the beer
- Not enough soft drinks and always too much beer
- A pig....who wished they werent the guest of honour
- A great number of "01's" (wives) and children who enjoy a day out
- A smattering of "02's" (who the O1's may or may not know about) to keep everyone
talking
- Any number of staff who have been terminated over the years for a variety of offences including theft, corruption, arson......all is forgiven for the Christmas party.
- A speech from the Commissioner ... and a speech from the ex Comissioner who has recently narrowly escaped corruption charges!!

What can I say...another great IRD party. I wouldnt miss them for the world!!

A Kiwi Kid

Poppy donned a cute Maori outfit for her classes cultural item at assembly

A Weekend of Parties

Well, Millie has at last had her 5th birthday party (3 months late). She had an island party with a group of friends.

Poppy turns 8 tomorrow and had a sleep over with a few of her friends.

5 chocolate cake mixes, 7 icing colours and lots of little girls later I am glad birthday parties are over for the year!!!!

Zipolo Habu

We have just come back from a lovely long weekend in Western Province at a little resort called Zipolo Habu.

As you can see from the pictures it is a goregous spot in the middle of ten's of small uninhabited islands.

The sea just teemed with fish - it was incredible sitting on the deck watching schools of tiny silvery fish leaping from the sea is what looked like choreographed moves - but probably was a mad panic escape from a bigger fish, sting-rays doing acrobatic belly flops through the air, and sharks swimming right into shore and up and down the shoreline. The photo below of the shark I took standing up to my knees in the sea as it glided by a foot away.

One day we got dropped at a deserted island for the day snorkling, swimming and a picnic lunch. Carl thought the opportunityto go "a la naturale" was too good to miss much to the hilarity of the kids!!!!

Zipolo Habu

Life seems to be chugging on very quickly towards Christmas. We have booked some tickets back to New Zealand at Christmas which we are all looking forward to. Carl has one more tour to PNG before year end though so still a fare amount of work to get through both on the home and work fronts before we can kick back for a bit.

Attached a couple of recent photos - Millie performing as the "cat and the fiddle' in her school assembly item and then dancing with her classmates and then Poppy hanging out in a tree at the airport with her friends Betsy and Marian while we wait for Dad to get off the plane.

We're heading out to the Western Province next week for 4 days - will take an hour flight and 20 minute boat ride to get to small Island called Lola Island in the middle of a large Lagoon area. Is meant to be beautiful so will fill you in when we get back. Havent told the kids so they will just get out of bed one morning, told not to put on their school uniforms but get ready to go on a plane!!! Should be a cool surprise.

Island Day

Keeping three kids entertained during school holidays with Mum at work and Dad away has been a bit of a mission. We've tried a variety of tricks from trips to the beach, swimming at the local hotel, crafts, not to mention the fun they have had in Carl's hut with the neighbourhood kids.

Today we had "Island Day" an idea the girls conjured up in bed the night before!!!
They made grass (plastic really) skirts with Cathy and my help, danced to Island Music, made a fabulous fruit salad with mangoes, pineapple, watermelon and banana, and set up all our bedrooms like a tropical resort with towels and flowers on our beds. There were also flowers scavenged from the neighbourhood and placed in vases all around the house.

They had heaps of fun!! Only 2 days of school holidays to go!!


Now unfortunately not everything in the tropics smells as nice as a ripe mango or frangapani's!!! At work we have competing bad smells making life painful. After months of rats eating holes in our office walls and scavenging from the rubbish bins poison got put out......now we have the delightful smell of dead rotting rats. Add that to the fact that we again have no water in the building for toilets and you can imagine that fragrant frangapani's are but a distant memory!!!

Of the delights and contrasts of the Solomon Islands

Chasing Water Buffalo with Mike!!

Carl has had a busy time in PNG flying 25hrs this last week.
This has included flying one of their regular clients the PM Sir Michael Somare around his constituency for Independence Day Celebrations.

Carl treated him to some low level water buffalo chasing which Somare loved and kept urging Carl to do more!!!

Carl sure is seeing lots of great spots that are off the beaten track.

Sports Carnival

This week the school was full of activity with Sports Carnival being held over a number of days (the school goes from kindy through high school). Luckily all 3 kids were competing on the same day so I took the morning off to cheer them on.

Was the normal type of Olympic affair - bit of drama, few tears, interspersed with the occasional medal and PB's.

As a hang over from Colonial time marching is pretty big here so that launched the sporting activities.

As for the events:
Tobias got taken out by a wayward lane change from another athlete who luckily got disqualifed. Tobias therefore came home with the gold for 3 year olds over 25m.

Millie headed into the 50meters a little fast and found she had no legs to get to the finish line without help from her coach (mum). She did a great obstacle course though winning her race by a long way.

Poppy gave some solid performances in the 50m, 200m, obstacle course and balls sports probably doing PB's I'm sure and accumulating lots of points for Poha.

Our house POHA won the junior sports carnival and came 2nd overall for the total school!!

Poppy's Learning Journey

Today was Poppy's turn to do her learning journey which included showing me some of her classroom work so well as what she does at the computer lab. She is a bit of an expert on Powerpoint now and showed me a few tricks I didn't know!!! She'll be giving Carl lessons soon I suspect!!

Betsy you are our Solo Idol!!!!!!

Betsy and her very proud Dad Jimmy

I just had to put a couple of pictures of our wonderful little friend Betsy who came third in the Junior Category of the Solo Idol Contest. She was fabulous and I'm sure you will agree she looks adorable in her Solomon Flag outfit.

I have to say I am pretty glad the competition is over for the year. I have attended every heat and the grand final was a marathon of an event that went for 5 hours (yes 5 long, very hot, painful hrs)..and that didnt count the 1/2 hr queue just to get in. There were 28 singing items, 1/2 a dozen dance groups and alot of elimination banter in between!!! Was all worth it though to support Betsy and her family. The crowd is incredible - entertainment enough in itself as everyone cheers for every high note and dance move and gets hysterical over any funny items!!
We were very enthusiatic supporters with our banner and lots of screams but were outdone by Betsy's Dad Jimmy who danced and yelled waving his banner the entire time Betsy sung..was a great spectacle.

Jimmy tells me they will be back next year chasing first prize...and I suppose we will be there too!!

Learning Journeys

This term instead of parent teacher interviews we have a process called Learning Journeys where the kids take responsiblity for sharing their term's learning with parents.
Even Kindy kids have to take their parents on a "learning journey"

Carl shared Tobias and Millie's "journey's" this week and its Poppy's turn next week. The teachers had it well organised and even Tobias at 3 knew what he was meant to do when showing Dad how good he was at puzzles, making patterns, counting and explaining their term's theme of "how things have changed since Mum and Dad were kids".

Millie's theme this term was "Insects can help and harm us." Was a great topic - they visited bee hives and the malaria reaseach centre - until she got stung a number of times by a hornet last week and from her kindy learning was absolutely convinced she was on the road to death!! They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Aunty Kylie Comes to Stay!!!!!

This week it has been fun having Kylie to stay. Carl has been the official tour guide while I have been at work and Kylie has been kept busy by the many exciting Honiara activities - snorkling , swimming, kayaking, riding in the back of utes, and retail therapy. Yes it is hard to believe but amongst other things Kylie has managed to buy 3 pairs of shoes in Honiara!!! Phipps girls have always been good bargin hunters though!!!!!!

Strutting our Stuff at Assembly

Tobias aka Haka Boy

Number 1 Bee




Twas a big day at school assembly for us. Tobias and Millie 's classes both did items...Tobias had to dress in his country's traditional costume and Millie was "number 1 Bee" no less. Their all singing/dancing numbers were followed by Poppy getting a merit certificate for spelling. To cap a great show off our good friends Betsy and Marian sang in preparation for their big showing at Solo Idol tomorrow night!!!