gratatude project two

This is week two, and this week I'm grateful for living in a town close to Auckland, a few days ago we went to butterfly creek, where we had a great time, I even got to go on this extreme climbing frame at a place next door to butterfly creek called "Rocket Ropes", I needed to wear a harness with a clip-on zip line trolley and two safety clips, the course was both fun and freaky. With us living about two hours away from Auckland, it means we can get there early in the morning and have almost a whole day doing fun stuff, plus there is also the fact that it saves petrol. Back in Palmerston North, however, we left early in the morning but got to Auckland after dark, there are definitely some advantages to living in Hamilton. I am so going back again when I'm older!

gratatude project

This week I'm grateful for being a reviewer, doing reviews is a great way to get cool stuff for free, in exchange for putting across your personal opinion on the product. Lots of books in my collection came from me doing reviews on them, I got to watch some cool new DVDs in exchange for a review, and now there's even an awesome 3D puzzle coming! This is also a way to practise my English skills, I started reviewing stuff since I was seven years old, and my reviews back then were basically one paragraph, but now that I'm 11, they have improved big time, people on Facebook have actually said that my reviews are very mature coming from someone my age, I am willing to keep this up until the day Kiwireviews closes down for good. Here is a photo showing some of the books I've reviewed in the past:

first time cooking eggs

Today has been a blast! I made my first batch of eggs-on-toast, and they tasted delicious! Yes, the first egg I cracked and dropped into the pan spread out and didn't stay in one place, but Dad said that if I dropped the egg close to the surface of the water than it wouldn't spread out like the first one did. Unfortunately I left the toast too long and it became cold, so it was a bit harder to cut the butter-knife through the toast than if it was still warm; Oh well, I guess that's just one more thing I can improve next time I make eggs-on-toast. I think that besides the little mistakes, this batch turned out pretty well, Here's how it looked:
I am going to try hard to get it right next time, and if that fails I'll try the next time, and the next, and the next, and the next, until I have it right. I want to do this more often, 'cause this is what I call "one small step for me, one giant leap for learning to cook".

First time cooking noodles.

Tonight was a cool night, I got to cook my first batch of noodles on my own, and they tasted great! I managed to boil them on the stove without burning myself, and I even got to cook up a batch for Xander, but he still kicked up a fuss as usual. Dad's having to tell Xander to eat his noodles as I'm typing this blog post, and now he's just filled up the cup holder on his highchair with them. Lol. I asked Mum if I could cook my own noodles from now on and she said yes, and the thing is, this is the first meal that I've cooked on my own. I think I'm going to cook noodles for lunch/dinner regularly now that I've done this.

A trip up north

Yesterday was really exciting. First we went up to Auckland to sample some Giapo ice-cream, which was absolutely delicious. There was a wide range of flavours like pineapple, cherry, plum, even avocado! My Two top favourites are the pineapple and cherry for the fact that the cherry was simply pure heaven, and the pineapple is one of my favourite tropical fruits. In the Giapo place there was also a live you-tube channel that locked up when Dad was interacting with it, his face was frozen on the screen for all the other customers to see. After being pulled away from the ice-cream we headed out of Auckland to the Gannet colony at Muriwai beach, when we got there I saw lots of Gannets, some on the cliff sides, and some in flight. This was all very exciting for me because I had never seen Gannets before, so for the next couple of hours of so we took lots of photos, some of which I'll put down at the bottom of this blog along with some photos from Auckland. Unfortunately my little brother started getting ratty and we were all getting rather hot so we headed back to the car were we saw a couple of para-gliders. On the way home I so wanted to go back when it was cooler and take more photos of Gannets, but that was a very interesting day, can't wait 'till next time!

The other day was rather sad, we had just come home from watching the practice for the speedboat race when Mum told me that my pet rat, Coal, had passed away. I was very sad and went into tears, but I tried my hardest to let him go, and I will never forget him. Dad did something that warmed my heart a little bit, he buried Coal in the garden outside the playroom, and Mum said that as something special we could buy a plant and put it on top of Coal's grave, so that calms me down enough to put me out of tears. Even though my rat is dead, I will always carry him in my heart for as long as I live.

farm visit

Today I went out on a trip to a farm, and boy was it fun. There were lots of cows and calves, we even got to pat them! I learned that when newborn calves are brought in, they need to use a sort of plastic container with fake teats on them to get the newborns to learn how to feed, and for the older calves there was a big mechanical version of the plastic feeder used on newborns that was attached to a big tractor. We also went into this milking shed where the cows went onto a circular conveyor belt and were hooked up to small tubes that connected to the teats on the udders that squeezed out the milk, the cows then get off the belt and go into a feeding area, the milk is then processed and filtered into the milk that we drink now. After the tour of the farm me and a friend of mine that lived there stayed a little bit and he showed me some other bits that we weren't shown before, like he showed me this big tank of stuff that was a bit like maple syrup and this little tube that showed how much stuff is in it, a bit like the gauge on the side of a kettle. Near the end of the visit me and the farm boy were over by the calve sheds when a guy came in with a new calve and a dead one on the hood of his vehicle, the poor little thing. I think this visit was quite cool, and if I get another chance, I think I'm going to try some of that processed milk.

As an extra bonus, here's some photos I took: