So, what have we been keeping busy with?
During weekdays, I’m at work at Navman – I usually go in an hour early to use the gym, and Wednesdays I use the extra hour to have a lunch date with Cindy. Fridays a group of us go to the nearby food court for lunch, and later at 4 p.m. on Fridays is “beer o’clock”, where we have beer or wine to wind-down the work week with. Very civilized!
Max has been taking some placement exams before the start of the next term at Westlake Boys. He hadn’t had Physics yet, since in the States the sciences are separate in High School, and he had done Biology and Chemistry. But down here, they’ve had combined sciences up through what would be sophomore year. So Max studied Physics on his own for a couple weeks, then went on to do fine on his placement test! Then he followed that with passing the qualifying exam to be on the Cambridge track in the new term (the equivalent of Honors classes back at Bainbridge High School). He’s also been reading some of the recommended English readings (Shakespeare, Huckleberry Finn, 1984, etc.). And for fun, he has written an impressive Magical Appendix for use in Dungeons & Dragons adventures!
Cindy has been busy working on some miniature projects (see her blog for more on that), and doing a fantastic job with Christmas decorating with “bits and bobs”, since our household belongings are stuck somewhere between here and Spain until well after New Years (but that’s another story…). And she and I have had a great time hitting garage sales on the weekends to come up with some furnishings in the meantime.
The other week was a busy week, and illustrates a bit of what I’m doing with my evenings and weekends: Monday was catching up on email and paperwork; Tuesday was three hours of Laser Force with Max (playing different games – Space Marines, Capture the Flag, Dungeons & Dragons – I was soaked with sweat after the first 20 minutes!); Wednesday Max and I joined a sailboat race as volunteer crew (from Milford to Rangitoto to Takapuna and back aboard Bruce’s boat ‘Tamborine’); Thursday was more email and banking stuff; Friday was pizza and watching ‘Contact‘; Saturday was garage sale-ing, doing a coastal walk from St. Heliers, napping, reading, and another Laser Force session; Sunday was hanging out at the beach while Max went sailing (with the Milford Cruising Club’s Juniors Sailing program to try it out), going out to lunch, weekly grocery shopping, reading, and an evening walk with Cindy… And then we start again!