Ok, so I admit that we have, in the past, been quite a busy family. But more recently we’d begun to take things a bit easier (relatively). Weekends at home, weekends on the beach – taking time to just be.
Well all that went out of the window about six weeks ago. It all started with two three day trips to Australia in consecutive weeks with work for me. Then it was the first of two weekends away for Josie. Did the girls and I take it easy? No, we met some friends from Wellington at the Zoo, who were up for the weekend. It was a lovely day out, as the zoo always is. It was especially nice to share it with some new people to the girls.
The following weekend Josie and I indulged our brains in the Auckland Startup Weekend. This is such an awesome experience, that despite the incredible imposition we have to place on our wonderful friends to make it happen, this was our second go around. Click on the logo below to see their website. Basically it’s a competition that involves going through the process of creating a company from nothing in just 54 hours. It runs from Friday night at 5pm through to Sunday at 9pm. The days start at 8am and finish at 1am. It’s full on, stimulating, exhausting, inspiring, challenging, and a million other ‘ings’. The most important is compelling. Having got a taste you see the world in a new light. It’s a world where it is possible to produce a lean startup business model in just a couple of hours. It’s a world in which you define the problem first and then look for the solution. A world in which you validate your assumptions with real people before sinking any money into anything.
That takes us to this weekend just gone. And it was another weekend away for Josie. Although this time, she headed back on Saturday evening for some much needed family time on Sunday.
Through one thing and another we found ourselves at the art gallery on Sunday. I love the fact that when we told the girls we were heading into town, the first thing they asked to do was go to the gallery.
We resisted Lucy’s urge for speed-art by asking her what she thought about all the paintings. She took this to heart and started offering her opinion on everything, chin in hand, quizzical look, head cocked to the side. “This one make me think it is a nice painting because it is black and white” and so on.
As usual the activity room was set up brilliantly and Josie and I had a fab time until too many other kids came along and we had to give up our spots at the drawing table.
I love the gallery for photos. Lots of uncluttered, bright backgrounds and excellent lighting make for some very flattering, almost studio like images.
We’re looking forward to an even more relaxing weekend next week where I intend to spend a significant portion of it on the beach.
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