More of our trip...

Carl and Bryce at Zippies; Mom and Dad at the Buried Village (which was buried in ash from the 1886 Mt. Tarawera eruption). And a nice pic of Mom and Dad.
I am no longer 30 (and therefore close to my 20's) as of 1 hour from now. Yikes.

Luging

The trip continues...

We are having a great time and definitely recharging. It is great to spend "down" time with Mom and Dad and to be able to actually have a vacation together. Lots of good food and swimming at beaches. We went to the Coromandel for a few days after Christmas which is a region of white sand beaches, with lots of islands of the coast and great waves. We got stuck in some heavy rain for the one day we were staying in Whangamata, but that didn't stop us from swimming. It DID stop us at first and we decided to go shopping in town as a means of using up the day. Bryce found a WASJIG puzzle and we did that for most of the afternoon before I got stir crazy and needed the beach! We all went swimming and boogie boarding in the waves and.....got wet. Good memories though. We got to catch up with Michelle and Nathan and play some intense cards with Kim and John, so we made it through the rains fine. The next day we drove up to Hahei and saw more beautiful scenery. We took Mom and Dad on a 45 minute hike through some bush to get to Cathedral Cove, where sandstone cliffs are eroding away and have left caves and pillars. It was seriously crowded but no less pretty. Next, we travelled to Hot Water Beach where you can dig a hole in the sand and feel the water warmed by thermal vents from underneath the ground. Unfortunately, we were also surrounded by many other tourists checking out the same novelty and it was packed. We managed to find some solitude in one spot of the beach and Bryce and I played in the waves for a while again. We have some "cheap-as" Bob the Builder boogie boards. They ride the waves like champs though so we are very content!
Back in Rotorua the next day and we met up with Pam, Andrew, Sam, Quentin and Hugh (Andrew's Dad) for a gondola ride up Mt. Ngongotaha and some luging. Luges are little sleds that take you down concrete paths that are designed like race tracks and great fun. Mini-golf was the next activity, and resulted in Dad getting two under par and winning a free game.
NEw Year's night we went out for dinner at a restaurant that was on a street that was closed to traffic and had all the tables spread out patio-styles. We enjoyed the dinner and the people-watching, as well as listening to a Bagpipe band walk around the streets and belt out some tunes. Rotorua had a free concert in the park so the place was jammed and had a fun fair like atmosphere. We got home before midnight and had New Years back at the house, but the heavy rains started about 11:45pm, so we were dry but sure that there were hundreds of soaked Rotoruan kiwis who weren't so lucky.
Yesterday, Bryce and I went for a mountain bike ride in the Redwoods ("the disneyland of MTBiking") and then we all drove to Papamoa Beach in Tauranga to swim in the waves with Pam and family again. More intense waves at this place and a few of us got "tumble dryered" in the massive waves. I had at least 3 tbsp of sand come out of my bikini at the end of the day.
Not sure entirely what the rest of the trip entails; more riding, more relaxing and sleeping until you wake up, and more good food and time with Mom and Dad. Hope you are enjoying your holiday and that you have time to just chill like we are blessed enough to be enjoying at the moment! More to come....

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!

The dancer within...

I wanted to dance. So I signed up for a class. Somehow all of that ended up with me in a red sequin dress that was way higher than mid thigh, and fishnets. Good fun though, even with the nervous pees that occured before going on stage each time (4 shows!!).

Cat food conundrum...

Here's Eddie. Today. With one of the two birds she gifted us.

And we have had birds before and rats, and secada's (little fly like bugs) and weta's (horrible crawly insects with lots of legs).

But we have never had a fish brought to us, and left on our doormat. Nor have we had chicken with vegetables.

So why is all the food for cats, not actually food that real cats hunt out and kill? Are we really a society that panders to delicacies for our cats, like we do for ourselves? Is there anything really wrong about bird in a can for my cat? Hmmmm.

A catch up

Some pics from recent days. I never did get a chance to get more photos from the trip home in September. Might do that soon. I have truly hit the ground running ever since the plane landed and this has just been a crazy few weeks. Lucky my job has such good holidays and I will be chilling out in just over 4 weeks!
We have two new calves in the next door neighbours farm block, Smudge and Socks (named for where the patch of white fur is on their chocolate brown body). Very cute.

Carl and Denise were here this weekend for the 12hr MTB race in Wellington. Denise and I had some great time to catch-up and because the race was only 12 hours and no one had to sleep over night, they didn't need us as Camp Mom's to manage the team. We went shopping instead and had a nice lunch on the Wellington waterfront. Denise is 7 months pregnant (I think) and is looking very cute with her big belly and skinny legs. The boys came 2nd in their race. Same place as last year and most of Bryce's last few team endeavours. Says he feels like a bridesmaid, again and again. I remind him that maybe he should really train and take it seriously and the results may be more pleasing. But the worry about that is if they all truly train then they will have no excuse if they don't win, again!

Last Tuesday, B and I went down to Wellington for the Under 17 World Cup Soccer game at the stadium. It was awesome, and awesomely freezing as well! We were fully rugged up in down jackets and toques (beanies) and enjoyed hot chocolate instead of beer. New Zealand played great and scored 3 times against Columbia, who only scored once. Fascinating game and it was true sporting prowess to see the girls get fully tripped or crashed into but instead of pulling a "Hollywood" like every male pro player, the girls just jumped back up again and played on.


Another exciting event that occured was the Junior Vball tournament, where my team came 1st place. They are travelling to the National competition in December (half of the reason why I am so busy) as the first junior team from our school ever to go. Pretty cool. That night a bunch of us teachers went out to watch the rugby game, and celebrate, and ended up making quite the night of it all. Ended up at a bar which had shadow boxes. These are translucent screens beside the DJ booth with a spotlight highlighting the person who is dancing behind the screen. From the dance floor, it is just a silhouette dancing and could be quite sexy, I guess. Probably not so much when we got up there. Fun anyway though!


So I am off to bed now, after eating dinner at 10pm. Par for the course these days. But I think I am finally over the Canadian cold/flu I had! AND the weather today was gorgeous. Super sunny and just gorgeous when I headed to the beach at lunch and could see stunning Kapiti Island and the South Island in the distance. Not bad living in the middle of the Pacific.