OC Partee!

We have black and white balloons and party poppers. We have black and white bunting and we are wearing our 'Go Nick' t-shirts. We even have facepaint! We had hot dogs and chips and we had popcorn.

Unfortunatley even with all this Sari couldn't stay up quite long enough to see Uncle Nick carrying the flag. Bella is still up and the commentator has just said 'We are still on the G's'. Guinea has just walked in the Olympic Stadium. We are nearly there but it is 11.00pm! Come on Uncle Nick!

Warwick Castle

We visited Warwick Castle today which is a magnificent castle dating back almost 11 centuries! It is Britains most original castle and we had an amazing time watching jousting, meeting princesses and knights and climbing the tower!

And look who came with us! We found Steve last night at the Dorridge train station after going out for some milk! I think Caro may have known that he was coming but the girls got such a surprise when the train pulled out of the station and Steve was there on the platform!

Uncle Nick is the flagbearer!

It was announced tonight that Nick will carry the New Zealand flag and lead the New Zealand Olympic team into the Opening ceremony tomorrow night. This is fantastic news and we are very proud of Nick to have been given this great honour! Here is the media release to see the details. We will all be watching him tomorrow night and can't wait to see him enter the Olympic stadium!

Nick in the Olympic korowai at the announcement dinner

Summer has arrived just in time!

We have had two weeks of dull and rainy weather since we arrived in the UK but the last few days have been beautiful here in Knowle. Great timing with the Olympics starting next week. With the sunny weather we have been spending lots of time in the local Blythe river that is only about a mile from the house. Just around the corner from Mieke and James', if you take the back road to Solihull, the Blythe River crosses the road and you have to drive through a ford. This has been very exciting for the kids as it got up to 3 feet high when it was rainy last week. Now it has dropped down again the kids want to go through the ford in the car 'Really fast Mummy!!' and we have had alot of fun walking to the ford and playing in it and getting really really wet!  

Bella, Sari and Noah in the Blythe River

We drove to Worcester on Sunday afternoon and had a picnic with James' family at Gheluvelt Park. The park has a Splashpad which is a wonderful spray park with fountains and sprayers spraying water in all the directions. James niece and nephews Jacob, Sam and Lucy were there and all the kids had a marvelous time. The adults were treated to brass band music from the band rotunda on the lake and the band surprised with some modern hits like Poker face by Lady Gaga!

Sunday afternoon picnic at Ghuluvelt Park.

Noah, Lucy, Sam, Bella, Sari and Jacob (you can see the spray park behind)

We feel like we are settling into daily life here with Mieke and James. 5 kids is at times chaos but at other times amazing like when Mieke cooked chocolate muffins with the oldest three.

'There is some mixture left in the bowl!'

Noah has given up his bedroom to the three Willis girls and is sharing his toys with them too and all this with an amazing attitude. At only 2 and a half this is remarkable. The babies have alot of fun together and even though they are so young they interact and play together.

Phoebe and Elijah sharing dinner

Steve is in Spelleto for the next few days catching up with Nick and Sierra. Nick will have a final hit out tomorrow with a time trial before he leaves to be in London for the opening ceremony on Friday night. We are planning an Opening ceremony party here with the kids excited to set up their beds in front of the television. Black and white balloons, face paint, party poppers and popcorn will keep us entertained as we wait for the New Zealand team to enter the Olympic Stadium (darn that alphabetical order with 'N' so far towards the end!) and we will try to catch a glimpse of our Uncle Nick!

Go you good thing!

Nick had an awesome race in Monaco last night running a huge personal best (that means the fastest he has ever run before!)3.30.35 and setting a new NZ record. Not bad timing 2 weeks out from the Olympics. He looked so strong and came home like a steam train! We were all watching in Mieke and James front room and as the gun went off Bella, Sari and Noah were all dressed in their pijamas and screaming 'Go Nick!' at the top of their lungs. Caro had to ask them to quieten down as she didn't think they could handle 3minutes and 30 seconds of that cheering! In the home straight we were all off our seats with excitement. We are so proud of Nick and were so excited to watch him put it all together in a great race.

Our favourite part was at the end when Nick comes in the shot behind the BBC commentators and gives a big double thumbs up. This is the silly Uncle Nick that we all know and love. The kids thought Uncle Nick was doing it to them which they were very excited about!

Uncle Nick giving us the double thumbs up after his PB.

Rude awakening - Extended One News interview with Nick

A great interview with Nick about the Crystal Palace meet. Watch it here

The Cotswolds

We have had Poppa Richard here with us in Knowle since the weekend and yesterday he took us to Cotswold Wildlife Park. To get there we drove through the most beautiful little towns with names like Moreton-on-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold (wold means hillside) that make up the region called the Cotwolds. Six English Counties make up parts of the Cotswolds Region (Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset & Wiltshire) and is distinctive because of the belt of rich limestone and of course by the beautiful cottages, fine buildings, and churches built of this material. The villages we passed through looked like time had stood still for 300 years. There were Union Jack flags and bunting up on all the shops and houses and we thought this was because of the Olympics but we were told it was because of the Queens Jubilee. Having just read four Jane Austen novels in a row Caro felt right at home! 

Stow-on-the-Wold

The Cotswold Wildlife Park is set in the gardens of a beautiful 17th Century Manor House. The Rhino and Zebra enclosure is right on the front lawn of the house and the penguins and meercats live in the walled garden which used to contain the kitchen garden for the house. Bella and Sari enjoyed stepping through the gate into the walled garden as they have just read The Secret Garden with Caro - it was very exciting to find penguins in this garden!

Noah and Sari watching the penguins



Bella and the penguins


One of the highlights was seeing the family of meerkats. They had tiny little babies who tried to stand up on their hind legs like their parents but kept toppling over as they got sleepy!

Noah and the family of Meerkats