Ginny's Kiwi Adventures: Northern Hemisphere Holiday

I have been very lazy again about posting to my blog. I have a few good excuses and lots of poor ones. I caught the true flu in May and it took a month to get over! Bad timing as I spent most of our 10-day holiday in Australia in bed instead of playing tennis. The weather was warm and sunny so it was a lovely spot to be sick. I didn't take many photos but I did snap one of our daily morning visitors on our balcony.

They are called Rainbow Lorikeets. And on the last day before we went to the airport, we stopped at a boat sale and I saw a boat that my Dad would have loved.

After our return to NZ, I headed off to take care of my grandkids in the US while my son went to a meeting. My 87 year old mother joined us for 10 days and we all had a great time. My 5 year old granddaughter played hookey from preschool for the 2 weeks and we went everywhere: Woodland Zoo, Skymania (trampolines), Funtastic Playtorium (very noisy!), the library, Discovery Park, Lake Washington, the Museum of Flight (the simulated hurricane and sitting in the cocckpit of fighter jets were a hit), swimming at the Lynnwood Pool (great spot with everything a kid could want) and we went to see the movie Finding Dory. My grandson joined us when he wasn't at summer camp.

The carousel at Woodland Zoo

View of Mt Rainier from Discovery Park

While in Seattle, my granddaughter wanted me to knit her a dress. She chose the pattern and the yarn (in her favourite two colours) herself. I made a purse to match and it was a hit.

After Seattle, I went to visit my daughter and her boyfriend in San Francisco and I also visited old friends in the Palo Alto area, where I used to live. I brought the quilt that my daughter and I had designed together and after an emergency visit to a friend's to borrow her sewing machine to add one little quilting seam I missed, taking out all the basting, and washing out all the markings in the bathtub, it was finished. It only took 2 years of the 10 year window my daughter negotiated!

My husband then arrived from NZ and we flew to Toronto where we did a road trip around Ontario for 3 days visiting old friends - so much fun! On the way home we stopped in Kingston where I went to university. We had lunch at Chez Piggy (yum) and drove around my old stomping grounds. I took a photo of the house I used to live in with 7 other girls and another of my great aunt's house where she lived alone. Guess which one is which!

After that, my kids and grandkids all arrived in Toronto and we went up to Georgian Bay for a week with my sibs and mother. We had perfect weather and the water was 73F, which is super warm for there. The kids had a ball on the lily pad (huge floating mat), a floating trampoline, and riding behind the boat on a 'biscuit'.

My grandson was quite proud of swimming all the way across the channel on his own!

After 5 1/2 weeks of gallivanting around North America, we had to say good bye and head home to winter, which is really pretty mild in Christchurch. And it's always great to get home. The weather had been warm while we were away and one of our rhododendrons was in full bloom when we got home!