About a weekish ago it was Sophie's and Eliza's 10th birthdays. It was on the Queen's Birthday weekend, so we got to stay home from school! It was so fun! For breakfast it was crepes, cream, berries and Nutella. Then we played games and watched Home Alone 4. When it came to lunchtime, we each made our own pizzas... and then we ate them.
After lunch, Sophie and Eliza went on a scavenger hunt to find their gifts. Then they opened them, back to back, so they didn't open the same ones at the same time or know what they were getting before they actually opened them. It was hilarious though, because apart from 2 of the presents, they opened all of them at the same time.
Once the presents were opened, we went down to hang out on the beach (with a camera). We took heaps of pictures, but then the tide started to catch up with the rocks we had taken refuge on, and we had to flee...
After safely (mostly) making it back to dry land, we ate cake and ice cream. The chocolate cake was delicious, but unfortunately we had a banana cake which I am pretty sure was never enhanced with real banana. The ice cream too was delicious though, so all in all it was very yumalicious.
For the main event we went to go and see little blue penguins at the Royal Albatross Centre. There were about 20 people in our group, and two guides. They took us down to a viewing platform as soon as it started to get dark. There were lights that didn't bother the penguins along the ground so that we could see them when they came in. For about an hour we waited, watching the ocean for a dark shape that could be the penguin raft. At first there was nothing, until we heard them calling to their mates on land. Then we saw them. There were about 20 of them in the first raft, all flopping and waddling over the rocks up to where we were. They were SOO adorable, all running past us and tripping themselves and others over there clumsy feet. After the first raft we all seemed to think it was over, so we just laughed and talked while waiting for the guides to start back up the hill to the Centre. But no, it wasn't over. There were still two more rafts to come, making it a total of 39 penguins that we saw that night. We were all so excited. In the end we made it back up the hill to drive home.
At home, we watched 1/2 of a Nancy Drew movie before heading off to bed. I think that both Sophie and Eliza agree that it was the best birthday ever!