Happy New Year, everybody!
I sent out text messages last night; got one back this morning with a grizzle about being woken up at midnight. Whoops. I put mine on mute before I went to bed.
We finished 2008 with a second round of Christmas dinner. We had a big family gathering at my parents on Christmas day; afterwards Mum and I decided we could cope with just a little more potato salad and another round of trifle. So, greedily, we arranged to have another crack at it for New Years Eve. I even made my Very First sponge cake for the trifle, flinging together a 3-minute-sponge from the Edmonds Cook Book. Good one, Rosie. Gold star.
And we started 2009 with a trip to the Auckland Museum. The girls had a ball, especially opening and closing the drawers-o’-critters in the Stevenson Discovery centre.
Me… I was fine with the drawers (moth, moth, beetle, moth, scoria, moth, algae, butterflies, giant cicada) then HOLY CRAP THERE’S A WHOLE PARROT IN HERE.
*mutters* stoopid pinned insects were meant to desensitise me to the dead stuff in drawers when they turn up actual MAMMALS.
Yeah I know, parrots aren’t mammals… the bottom drawer had a helpful comparative display of stoats, weasels and ferrets.
We moved along from the small dead stuff to the really big stuff and visited Sue the T-Rex, where I learned my mental image of a Tyrannosaurus’ posture was stuck in the 1970s.
After a stroll down Centennial Street and back through the Origins Gallery, the girls were getting tired, so we headed out and under a tree for a picnic lunch, and a bit of a climb.
A good start to the year.
