A great reason to celebrate......

Our beautiful middle girl has just turned 13 and it truly was a great reason to celebrate.

I don't want to start off with a moan, but I did get frustrated when people asked me what I was doing in the second week of the holidays, I said "my middle daughter is turning 13 so we are having a party!!" And the first response was always "Ohhhh 13! Tricky age." or "Poor you" or "Oh wow, your coming in to those awful years"
I really don't want to see it that way!  I am really enjoying the teenage years.  And am certainly making the most of the time I have left with my girls at home when they no longer need me to do everything for them, and we can have good chats, and I too get excited about what they get excited about, they can cook dinner :) and much more.  It should be a fun time, not a dredded time.
Rant over..........

So Amber turned 13, and she requested an amazing race!!
We had done them before, but only around the farm/home etc but this one had to be more spectacular than the last.
I really had no idea where to start to I called a 'planning meeting' with Mike and Kaysha (15yrs)
We did some brain storming and came up with some great ideas.
So then Mike and I spent a day in town checking out the bus stops & timetables, taking photos and just getting the finer details sorted.

Then the day arrived!!! (I was rather nervous and praying we had all the clues in the correct order, all the timing was correct etc etc)

The girls arrived excited as ever, enjoyed afternoon tea, then wanted to get straight into it.

  

Eating hanging donuts.

Even had to finish the donut from the floor.

filling the drum to the top through a small hole  took a while but separated the teams nicely.

  

They then had to catch a 'taxi' to the Westfield Shopping Centre, and buy balloons and make sure they always had 6 blown up balloons with them for the whole race or there was a time penalty.

Once they checked in with their balloons they were given a clue where they had to take a photo of a stranger holding a real pigs eye. (And of course offer them a wet wipe afterwards)  I truly thought this would be difficult but both teams got the second person they asked.

They had to complete a 100 piece puzzle before catching a bus to The Base.  Most of the girls were country girls and hadn't ever caught a bus before.  So we did make sure they got on the right bus before heading to The Base ourselves to meet them with their next clue.

Once at The Base it was hard to get photos while we had to be at the check in points at the same time.

Here is one of the clues.  They had to take a photo of the full shop sign corresponding to each letter.  Then they had to unscramble the word to find the next check in point.

The next pit stop was to fill out a Sudoku in the foodcourt.

The final task was to go around the Warehouse and look for prices on the list of random items.  (Apparently one team just asked at the counter for all the prices) The rules didn't state anything different. And then head to final check in point where "Big is Good"

All up the race took 3 1/2 hours and 20 mins between the winning team and the second team.

It was such a great day! And all went without a hitch.  

They are such a great bunch of girls, and they had a blast.  The first rule of course was 'No running in public places' then 'do not draw attention to yourselves' but how could you not with 6 girls giggling around the place with balloons hanging off them.

The next day was Ambers actual birthday so we headed to Rotorua for the day..........

Ambers special purity ring from her Dad.

Presents!!

Cousins on the Gondola.

I think it will be a birthday she will remember forever!!

And so it should be, its very special becoming a teenager!