OUR TRIP TO THE LAKE

Yesterday's trip to the lake couldn't have been nicer.  
I expected the water to be freezing!
It wasn't.
It was very warm in the shallows, and refreshing in the deep... with some, OK... fairly cold currents in places.  But it was BLISS.

I haven't had a swim in a lake, in forever!
We have always swum in the sea... and in the past few years we haven't really enjoyed it at all.

Lake Karapiro is a hydro lake, as in... formed by the Waikato River being dammed. There's lots of hydro lakes along the length of the Waikato River.

ABOVE:  We went swimming at a new place named Waipuke Park.  It's owned by the Waipa Council.  It's got a nice swimming area, parking, playground and toilets.

 ABOVE: The playground is amazing!  It's on the upper 'field'...

 ABOVE: This is the swimming area.  I was really impressed... except the council needs to protect the lake's bank, and make it easier for people to get into the water with some steps or such like.  The lake's bank was crumbling all along the 'beach'... and in places it was quite a drop down.
You can't actually tell in the photo.

 ABOVE:  In the shallows... there is a 'shelf' that slowly gets deeper, then it drops off into quite deep water.  
Can you see the buoy behind the family?  That is the 'boundary' between the swimming area and boating area.

 ABOVE: Looking up river, so pretty.

ABOVE:  Summer is?  Fruju iceblocks after a fantastic day at the 'beach'.
Totally doing that again soon.  

Stew thinks we could even go out in the evening after he gets home from work, while it's still warm enough.  Good idea.

Today everyone is back to work/school/kindy.
I will be getting all the washing done.   Like, masses of towels!

Vacuming. General tidying.  Then sorting out my next sewing project.  I think I will do a UFO.
(UnFinished Object)

OH ... and putting this stuff on the garden:

ABOVE:  Lots of bark that we gathered from under some big trees, down by the Rowing headquarters at Karapiro yesterday!  There was heaps of it!
It's quite thin, but once I break it up into smaller pieces it will be perfect for the garden.  Waste not eh?
We managed to gather 4 bags full in only a few minutes.
I feel very... THRIFTY.  lol

ONWARD...

It was a bit of a surprise looking out the windows this morning.  Raining!  Totally overcast.  No blue sky anywhere.

It's now 11 am and half the sky is blue and half is stormy looking.
Great weather for the weeds!

I've done most of the housework, so can sit and relax for a little while.
I'm watching Home and Away actually!

Once it's finished, I will go into the sewing room and choose a project to work on.

I'm also expecting visitors... another Uncle and Aunty from Tauranga.  They are helping me organise my Mum's 80th Birthday party.

There's still EVERYTHING to get done!

My relatives arrived and we spent a good deal of time going over details for the party.
Once they left I had to ring my Mum and run the ideas by her... cos at the end of the day she had to be happy with the details too.

I now have a clear idea of what I need to do and will be working on that for the next few days.  

The biggest thing is to get a cake maker sorted out pronto!
Our venue is booked, another biggie ticked off.

We went to Mc Donald's for dinner tonight cos I was a tardy tart and forgot to get dinner organised!  Whoops.

Another quiet day in blogland... summertime, everyone is busy.  Or over in the northern hemisphere, winter and everyone is freezing!  *smiles*

Signing off for the day, time to relax.