Hanmer Springs and a round up of other pictures.

This is a bit of a mish mash of a post. I am still struggling to figure out how to put the pictures in. This is from a short day trip to Ashworth Beach on our way back from Hanmer Springs. It is near Amberly about 40 minutes north of Christchurch. It is a volcanic beach with huge sand dunes. The kids collected sand dollars and shells and rolled themselves silly.

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These are from a trip we took this past weekend for my birthday to the hot springs about two hours northwest of Christchurch called Hanmer Springs. It was a lovely spot. There were a variety of natural and heated pools there. My favorite was the natural sulfur spring coming in at a whopping 40 stinking-like-rotten-egg degrees celsius. It was fabulous. It was a little breezey once you were out of the water, but in the pools -- ah...heaven. We stayed at the YHA youth hostel (starting the kids out early so they are comfortable traveling when they are in their twenties on the hostel circuit). It was great with kids and there were plenty of families in the lounge for them to hang with. Unfortunately it rained the next day, so we didn't get to take advantage of the great treks in the area. We will definitely come again though. It is so close and the pools are worth it.

These pictures are from the Book Parade. The kids had a term end Book Parade where they came to school dressed as their favorite character out of a picture book. Of course, in characteristic Nemeroff style, they only told me about it the day before, so we had to scramble. Sam came up with the ideas of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree and Caps For Sale by Esphyer Slobodkina. Ethan was upset because no one had ever heard of their books. (I was a bit surprised the Kiwis had not heard of Shel Silverstein). But I thought they looked great!