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Although Bunky doesn't turn one for another nine days, we decided to have a few early birthday drinks (and cake) for him today in Auckland. The little piglet managed to scoff cake, part of a sausage roll, some rice cracker, more cake (with cream) and he washed that all down with some delicious leaves from the back yard. Here are a few from the day - once again without the benefit of any Photoshop magic...
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As much as I miss using Photoshop, I couldn't resist uploading a few photos from our last few weeks of touring. We hit both Wellington and Hawkes Bay (both very briefly) and we're now back in Auckland, dreading our return to Hong Kong on Monday night. Eeeek. iPhoto has seemed to have done a pretty decent job of tweaking the RAW images and exporting them to jpeg - I may have another go when back in Hong Kong, but for the time being... here you go:
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Taken from the Koru Lounge at Auckland Airport, waiting for our Wellington flight
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A (fairly rotten quality) photo of George being stalked by his grandmother
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A dog named "Dog"
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George in a pool with (one of) his Godfather(s) and Lucy
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Enjoying a swing push from his mate Ella
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Uncle Godfather Ross
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Dinnertime with Lucy
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Jump time with Ella
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Watching an outdoor movie at the Blackbarn Vineyard Amphitheatre
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Lucy braving the sprinkler
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Ella taking on the sprinkler
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Just a quick post - the computer is in the same room as Bunky's cot, so I'm just uploading a few photos before his majesty takes over the room for his morning snooze... These are of little G enjoying some time in the swimming pool given to him by Aunty Jane and Uncle Eliot, and a few from yesterday when Aunty Momo spent the afternoon with him:
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A few completely random photos from my phone: .
I took this in near darkness - it's Ben and Poppy on the back of our couch. Surely this can't be comfortable for poor little squashed Pop?
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I couldn't resist - this is from one of the toilets of the Cathay Pacific plane we flew on over the weekend. Is "choke" really the word they were looking for?
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This is from this morning - it looks posed, but I promise it wasn't. I just wanted Rachel to hold still, and for some reason they both ended up looking out the window. It doesn't take much to get George's attention (birds, ships, pieces of toast and random dust particles are all rather exciting to him), but I'm not entirely sure what Rachel was looking at...
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On Sunday night we got back from a fantastic long weekend in Singapore - Bunky was pretty good on the flight over (although we had a few tense moments due to a delay in feeding him), but he was pretty sweet for the rest of the flight. Ditto on the way back - a bit scratchy to start with, but after dinner and a nice long nap (during which his Mummy watched a few trashy episodes of "Gossip Girl"), he was in great form at the end of the flight and during the landing. Bedtime was seriously late thanks to some slow baggage handling (he didn't get to bed until around 10pm) but that of course didn't stop his lordship from his usual wakeup shenanigans at 6:45am (a deep and meaningful discussion of world politics with his bedmate Flat Ted). I took a pile of photos and have posted few below - I would have liked to have taken a bit more time sorting and editing them, but I have already started receiving not-so-subtle messages regarding the absence of photos of George over the last four days.
The photos probably require no explanation - they are mostly of Paddy, Bella or George. I also took a few at the outdoor market where Kirstie occasionally sells clothes. We went there on Saturday morning, and naturally Rachel couldn't leave without buying his majesty a few little bits and pieces (including what she now calls his "Yoga Pants").
Thanks to the Challis clan for being such fantastic hosts, yet again.
Oh - and before I go... Happy Birthday to Uncle Sam in London! Hope you have a great birthday and we trust that Aunty Katy will spoil you rotten.
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Seriously - I'm not sure what to photograph when George isn't here. So I played with some old ones (sorry Amanda, sorry Chipper):
George with his security detail and George with Grandma Shanti [EDIT - I already posted that photo of Grandma, but it's nice and big this time):
There was a gorgeous sunset on my last night in Auckland, and I've just stumbled across this photo in my library. It's not a particularly well taken shot, but the colour is gorgeous and I'm a bit of a silhouette fan. So here you go:
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Also, I'm in the process of tweaking this layout so that I can get rid of that column over on the left. It's pretty pointless and I can upload much bigger and nicer looking photos if I can have the whole page instead of this little column. I'll do this over the next few days, so apologies if it all looks a bit mucky.
spacespacesapce More busy days for George - on Saturday he went out to Lydia and Brad's farm in South Auckland and had a lovely lunch out there with Lydia, Brad, Bump (due May), Bridget, Marcus and little Isabel. Just a few photos from there:
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And then a few photos with George's Aunty Jane and Aunty Chipper:
spacespacespace A few more photos from G's day out. Daddy is missing his editing software (and his cats) quite a lot, but only a few more days until he is reunited with Photoshoppy Goodness. In a late change to the itinerary, Rachel and George are staying on in NZ for another week to chill out, while Daddy brings home the proverbial bacon...
George with Aunty Amanda:
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Hanging with Uncle Eugene in the afternoon (when Mummy and Daddy accidentally stumbled upon him in downtown Auckland and tagged along for a few wines):
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And one last photo from the Stanley Bay ferry:
Haven't got time to edit or organise photos, but here are a few I grabbed from the camera of little George with various new friends around New Zealand - firstly with Grandma Shanti (one on the couch and one just before bathtime), George and Aunty Jane-O, George and Aunty Kate, George and Uncle Aaron and finally a few of George with Honorary Grandma Joy:
spacespacespace George met his mates Thomas and Angus this morning, and in the afternoon hung out with Claudia, James and their respective parents. Daddy went nuts with the camera, and despite not having his editing software here in New Zealand, there are some very sweet ones of the day.
Firstly, Thomas and Angus tearing up the back yard:
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And then some of Teams Pearce, Hayes and Georgeous at Chez Hayes:
Holiday is passing all too quickly, but I've managed to take billions of photos in any event... The flight was fine, and we sat next to a lovely Kiwi girl Jenny and her 4 month old Isabel on the way here. George was impeccably behaved on the flight, and with the exception of a pants explosion before the flight, and a minor flipout after we landed, he was an angel. We went to his Aunty Momo's wedding on Saturday, and again he was impeccably behaved. Slept through the good bits, smiled through the photos, and passed out during dinner. A few photos from the week and from the wedding. More to come later in the week:
Internet access in NZ is suckysucky, and so the updates for the next three weeks until Easter will either be sporadic (at best) or via my mobile phone. But I will be taking plenty of photos of him, and I'll upload what I can whenever I can. Rachel packed his stuff today, and I think it's cute that a 4.5kg kid has a 12kg bag of stuff. I also think that the days of sprinting to try and get to the front of customs and immigration are long gone, and I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that we'll be needing a luggage trolley for the next, oh... 15 years? Not to worry - tomorrow will be a wicked learning experience. Our taxi arrives at 4:30pm and our flight leaves at 7:15pm. Plenty of time to chill out and settle the wee man - and we get to take the stroller right up to the door of the plane (it magically meets us when the plane doors open, too).
I'll leave you with some photos of post-breakfast playtime this morning:
Bathtime appears to suck in the eyes of little George. Any peace and tranquility that may have been present pre-bath is abruptly ended and once dunked into the tub-o-death, the screaming begins. Stage 1 is the yelling - which is usually the first dunk, the tummy wash and the start of Daddy washing his hair.
Stage 2 is the bottom chin quivering while the yelling continues, and you really know that he wants to harm you by then. This is usually the end of the tummy clean and the flip over for the back clean.
Stage 3 (the final phase) is when the chin quivering magnifies and the little high pitched squeaks of resignation start. Unfortunately for poor George, this is also the Stage that Rachel and I find most hilarious, and his squeaks and grunts are highly amusing to us. Not so much to him.
Stage 4 is the good bit - he loves getting placed in his little towel and wrapped up. The Earth returns to normal at this stage and life on Planet George is once again bearable. He also looks ridiculously cute wrapped up in his towel. The photos I got today were a bit crappy, but I'll post them anyway. Two of bathtime with Mummy (featuring guest hair washer, Grandma) and one of him just chilling out on Rachel's lap after "dinner". I may have cropped the bathtime ones to hide the fact that he gets bathed directly over the toilet (so we can pull the plug in the bath out and the water drains away down the loo - handy!)
spacespacespace I took a few photos of the little guy this morning, but they're sitting on my camera at home. Will upload those tonight, but thought you'd like this photo we snapped of George last night - it's the face he used when we were chatting to his Aunty Momo in Auckland, NZ. It's a face a lot of us use when chatting to Aunty Momo...
Spacespacespace Because my goddaughter thinks I am:
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This was taken when I was at a conference in Singapore, and managed to find the Challis Circus for lunch (taken on a Pentax K1000 with Kodak ISO400 film, if you're curious)
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as lovely as another few weeks in the hotel would have been, i'm quite glad that we got out of bangkok when we did. a week later and we might have been stuck in the airport - protesters have blocked the roads to the airport, causing all flights to be cancelled. ouch.
back after a blissful weekend of eating, sleeping and doing nothing. apart from thai taxi drivers all thinking that they are driving formula 1 cars, it was a fantastic relaxing time. and possibly the last time we fly as just the two of us for a long, long time - eek. as i think i mentioned a few days ago, the peninsula upgraded us to a great big awesome suite and left us a birthday cake (chocolate - delicious) - certainly got us off to a great start. to be honest, we didn't do a lot that's worth talking about - sat by the pool, swam a bit, i hit the gym a few times (and then promptly reversed my good work in a hotel restaurant), and we picked up a bit of new cutlery that rachel was coveting.
here are a few photos - one from our balcony, one from the restaurant, one taken by me standing on the bed and one of me... um, jumping on the bed:
