Unwell

*Cough cough* oh well at least I get to spend a couple of days relaxing. It's probably good for my stiff sore body to get a bit of a break from Mum's 20 minutes every morning exercise regime. Thats a new thing she started me on in the second week of the holidays. That's when my holidays ended...

It's sad not being able to climb or play squash. Life becomes very dull when you're home from school for several days on end, even when you have all the stuff you need to do your school work sitting beside you. I can't find the inspiration to sit down and search the internet for scraps of information. Last time I got a cold I got addicted to Television but this time the urge is not really there. So, I sit around asking Mum what I should do. And When she gives me a perfectly good suggestion I shrug and tell her "Nah, something fun."

The one television show that I am addicted to is 60 minute makeover. Lots of fun to watch them race through yet still get the job done with amazing skill. It's kind of depressing that I can get attached to probably the most boring TV show around.

School, when I'm there, is pretty good. This term we are studying Naenae from the period of about 1935 to 1955. It is quite cool to be learning about my own suburb even though I think it is a ugly place except for the hills and even some of them are covered in gorse and traveled by loud noisy bikers. We have just started learning Spanish and I've missed two sessions. Oh well thats what you get for catching some lousy cold.

I have recently found an awesome blog for reading and writing lovers. It is a blog called The FABO Story. Every Monday a new chapter is added by a different one of the nine New Zealand authors. So far there is only one chapter but the story is already awesome and addictive. Here is a link for anyone who is interested: http://fabostory.blogspot.com/

Rotorua National Cup Series Event 2

Recently we went to Rotorua for the second event in the national cup series. This time I didn't compete. Instead I did homework and took photos of the family climbing. I had a lot of fun hanging out at the gym with some of the climbers from the other gyms. In his grade Josiah got first. He topped out his first qualifier, got the furthest on his second qualifier and topped out his final. Mum and Dad both did well in masters. Mum got fourth and Dad got third.

School is going well with plenty of killer homework to try and complete. Our chicken eggs arrived a couple of days ago and are now in the incubator at school. They are so adorable even though they look identical to other chicken eggs, it's probably because I know that there are little chicks growing inside them :) Our chicken coop is nearly finished. We just need to put the roof on. For humanities this term we are studying Ancient Alexandria. It is very interesting. It's really nice to be doing maths again and not just practice stuff. We are learning about statistics which is a lot of fun.

Matariki, which my school celebrates, is coming up so there is lots of stuff going on for that in Maori, and also in art where we are making things with flax. I am looking forward to singing the songs we are going to sing.

Busy Term Two

Sadly for me term two will be even busier than term one was. I guess this is partly because of it being eleven weeks not the like nine that we had last term because of camp.

Three days in and I already have a zillion things due and that's just for half the term :(.

This term for occupations (the first half of the term) we are continuing our study of chickens by buying five chickens and looking after them in a hutch that we are making ourselves from a design made by someone in the class.

On a happier topic the holidays were great! In the first week I just lounged around sleeping, eating and reading ... but in the second week the whole family went down to Christchurch for the first competition of the National Cup series. We had decided that because it was the holidays we would stay on for a few more days and do some climbing at Spittle Hill. After the comp I was feeling really tired and wasn't looking forward to doing more hard, tiring stuff, but when we got into it I became hooked. My favourite part was when I succeeded at a V2 that J and C had given up on. I even did it the same way.

The next competition that I'm going to is not a national one; it is one at HangDog for secondary school students. It is aimed more at beginners than people who climb heaps so any teens that want to go totally should. For more info please see the HangDog website:

www.hangdog.co.nz/riot.asp

Very crazy first term!

Oh my gosh. It's the end of term already and it only feels like two or three weeks. this term has been really busy with school taking up just about all of my time, homework taking up free time that isn't spent climbing. If the rest of the year goes this fast then it'll be next year before I it feels like a term is gone. the first climbing comp of the year is rapidly approaching. we are going to spend a few extra days down in Christchurch climbing at spittle hill. just a couple of weeks ago I had my 13th birthday. I can't believe I'm actually a teenager, it doesn't feel any different.

Other than school there hasn't been much going on for me. Last Saturday was my school's fair. Heaps of people turned up and it was mayhem trying to actually do anything. We sold so much stuff.

Yay only three more days of school before the holidays are here!

School Camp

I have just got back from school camp.

It was heaps of fun with lots of crazy stuff that made it that bit more enjoyable.

My favourite part of the whole camp was the day we spent working at Nui Wai farm because we got to ride horses.

The bouldering was pretty fun too especially when we went in the cave in the hill and saw a dead bat (creepy and disgusting).

More Photos From Golden Bay

Our Summer Holiday in Golden Bay

For the first two weeks of January me and my family were in golden bay climbing at paynes ford. On the third day climbing I got my goal for the holiday, a 21 called Lost Soul. Over the rest of the holiday I got two other 21s and three 20s.

Josiah had a great holiday getting lots of hard climbs including three 25s, a 27, and a 28.

Towards the end of our trip me and Mum went on a tramp from Totaranui to Wainui staying at Wharawharangi Hut overnight. On our tramp we met lots of really nice people.

One of great improvements over last year was that I got to stay in my own tent instead of having to share with the rest of the family. Another was that we got to have much nicer food.

on our last day climbing we took some friends of ours who were staying in Golden Bay and gave them an introduction to climbing.

The weather this summer wasn't as good as last time so we didn't get to swim in the river as much and it rained quite a bit making climbing harder.

On the first day of our tramp me and Mum got rather wet because it rained on us quite a bit on and off.

The Photos from top to bottom run :
Me abseiling off my first climb of the year, a big spider about the length of my thumb, Josiah hanging in the hole on 1080 and the letter G, Me on Lost Soul, Josiah Warming up on a 22.