Tour de France... here we come

Merry Christmas!!

Mom and Dad arrived safely and have been gifted some great weather for Christmas and Boxing Day. So far we have been to the beach twice, gone for a few walks, been bike riding and played a few games of petanque. Lots of de-stressing activities! Perfect for all of us, at the end of this busy year.
Christmas Day we picked my parents up at the airport in Santa suits, then took them off to the beach for a picnic, after a walk through the Botanical gardens in Wellington. Later that day we flew kites and played petanque on the beach. John and Cushla arrived on Boxing Day (Bryce's aunt and uncle) and we had a Christmas feast with them (our second ever roast we have made!).
Merry Christmas to you all and hope you are enjoying the season as much as I am. It is fabulous to have Mom and Dad here and show them the "real" kiwi lifestyle, instead of just the touristy trip they were able to take last time. Less hectic this time around, but not so many sights to take in. The next week involves a trip to Rotorua, Coromandel and anything else in between!

The man is 35!!

Bryce's birthday is next Friday. And 35 he will be. Yep. 35. I can't picture what I will be doing when I am 35. It is so far away from now. : )

So for his bday, I organised a gliding flight for him. My friend Delio, who I play volleyball with, is an instructor, and he took us both out for a flight. I had not planned on going on a flight myself, but Delio gave us each our own flight. Thankfully, Bryce's flight lasted much longer than mine did. If it had been much longer I would have thrown up in a very small cockpit and it would have been so unpleasant. It was such a cool experience, since you sit at the front of the plane and see everything! However, I think I took too many pics, cause I lost the sense of the horizon and just felt nautious most of the time. All good though. Bryce's flight was about 30 minutes and Delio let B take the controls for a while. Long enough even for Delio to call me on the ground and freak me out that he wasn't paying attention to the flying! Anyway, he just called to tell me to watch closely. And then they did two loops; full circles with the glider. Bryce was pretty happy with the flight when he got back on the ground! Lucky his 35 year old heart was able to take the distress!

Last days....

Work is done for another year and wow, what a year. Toughest one as a Dean yet, I think. And my last one too, as I move on to more subject focused work next year, and not so much pastoral. I don't know which I will like more. We shall see. So we had our staff party yesterday, all day, as per usual. So much fun. We started off as geisha's as part of my endeavour to keep the men in our office as cross-dressers as much as I can get away with. They seem to do it without much complaint each year, so I persevere. It was Hose's last day with us too, which was pretty sad to say goodbye to him. He is an amazing teacher and we will miss having him around.

The Shack

I have just finished reading a book called, "The Shack" by William P. Young. It was amazing and I would read it again with enthusiasm. It was such a neat way to see things differently about the world and God and our place and purpose in all of it and how incredibly important relationships are, as opposed to following a set of rules. Fully recommend the book.

One quote that I felt was nice, especially being far away from my "home":

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but
at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your
stomach, because you do not live in a world but a world lives within you.
(Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth)

A long week...

After the chaos and excitement of dance performances all last weekend, I am had strangely recovered by organising to take 9 14 year-olds away for 5 days to the Volleyball Junior National competition. Lucky today I am just chilling out and recuperating. The week wasn't physically exhausting for me, just a mental game of support and re-grouping after every win or loss to play another game with a fresh head.
The girls did well, although not as well as we could have done, had there been stronger resiliency in the team. We beat several teams in sets by at least 15 points, but then would lose the 2nd set and then panic into the third set. They got themselves sorted by the end of the tournament, but it was too late to prove their potential by then. Ah well. It was a good learning experience for them (and me) and they won there last few games to put the spring back in their step before coming home.

The best things of the week: fun silly team games at night, one of the girls falling through the side of a trampoline (she was totally unhurt), and the extremely funny competitiveness of my assistant coach when making up games with two couches, a ball and a Canadian.

On the drive home we noticed a big scrub fire on the side of the road. We called the fire department and then proceeded to drive past the fire (as we had seen several other cars doing). It was extremely hot and smoky as we drove past as the flames were crossing into the actual road. We drove on about 100 metres and noticed another fire on the same side of the road up ahead. We stopped because we saw police cars and fire trucks up ahead beyond the fire. About 6 other cars had also followed us and were now trapped in between the two fires on the road. We were safe, but stuck in the heat of the day (gorgeous weather here!) with all the girls getting louder and louder with no way get any cool breeze due to so much smoke. Not too comfortable. Exciting though. Delayed us about an hour.





So home and relaxing and enjoying the summer weather. 19 more sleeps till Mom and Dad arrive!