On the Move

I managed to live in the same house for 8 years when I was in Baltimore. I lived with my sister and my other sister lived 2 houses away. I loved the community that we had in Hamiltopia. I guess that's why I never wanted to move. Since I've been in New Zealand I've moved 3 times. Hopefully, I'll stay put for a while this time. I'm still living at the beach, but I moved in with 2 other girls. One of them teaches at the school where I teach and the other goes to the church where I've been going. It's quite common for people here to "go flatting" - so I thought I would try it. When in Rome . . .

Here are pictures of the house. I would have house pics with my flatmates, but I took the photos early in the morning and none of were looking that great. the pictures would have looked like Christmas morning photos when everyone trying to look awake and happy.




Here's a picture of the 3 of us. We had a birthday party last night for one of the flatmates so I made sure we got a picture last night.

It is a bit further from the beach than my last place - instead of a 2 minute walk it's about a 4 minute walk.
So, anyone is welcome to stop by whenever, park your car at our place and head over to the beach!

Easter Weekend

Well, this is another major holiday away from home. I've celebrated Christmas, New Years, and now Easter on this side of the world. I haven't really missed the traditions of home - not nearly as much as the people. That part of being homesick doesn't ever go away and I kind of hope that it doesn't.
Since I've been here, I've made some great friends including a fellow marylander who had the urge to make Buffalo wings and peanut butter eggs. Even though I just said I don't really miss the "things" back home, I wasn't going to pass up chocolate and peanut butter.

So, Thursday night Ted (the Marylander), Sarah ( the Canadian), and I made hot wings and peanut butter eggs and we talked about North American stuff.
Here are the wings - courtesy of Ted.
The eggs in the making.

The final product.

Everything was really really good and I have to admit, sharing the familiar things of home with people who understand made the night special.

Then, Friday morning, Sarah and I took off for the west coast to camp for the weekend. The town of New Plymouth is on the water and a half an hour from Mt. Taranaki.

Saturday morning we took off to hike Mt Taranaki, 8261 feet high. It was a long way up - especially since we started at sea level. We had to hike through scree (not sure if I spelled it right) and I had the hardest time hiking through it. I don't know how people were doing it. I told Sarah to go ahead of me and I'm glad I did because I would have just been comic relief for her. Scree is really deep gravel and rock and ash. Apparently, there's a way to walk through it but I don't know how to do it. I was watching people walk up the side of the mountain and I'm on all fours digging my hands into the scree as I slid backwards. It took forever to get to the top and I was not graceful at all. As I was clawing my way to the top, people were walking past, staring at me with a bewildered look on their faces.
Here's Taranaki from sea level.

The walk up. If you look close, you'll notice I'm wearing fleece pants. Apparently, I thought I was hiking Everest in winter.


The dreaded scree.

Views from the top.



We camped on the beach and had amazing views of the sunset.



At our campsite, there was a Christian Surfers retreat weekend. So, I joined them Sunday morning for their Easter service. It was a simple service worshipping the Lord and remembering what he did for us on the cross. It was good to be with others who shared the excitement and hope of knowing a savior who rose from the dead. It was also good to have the benediction be, "So, let's enjoy what the Lord has given to us, and hit the surf."

Even though I wasn't at home, I had a wonderful time with some new traditions and new and wonderful friends.

Weekend at the Beach

It's the beginning of March and we're getting close to the end of summer. But this past weekend was just beautiful. I woke up Saturday morning, did some chores around the house and then went for a surf in front of my house. There was hardly any wind, and the sea was glassy and the waves were small - perfect conditions for me. I spent about an hour and a half in the water, got out, and then drove up the coast to meet Kathy and Steve and the kiddos at Opoutere beach where they were camping for the weekend. They've gotten into surfing as well so we spent the rest of Saturday afternoon in the water on surfboards and boogie boards.

These pictures are on the walk to the beach. There was a peaceful little pine forest on the walk in between the campsite and the beach.


Here's a picture of our campsite - I think it looked a bit like a gypsy tent than a campsite.


I brought my summer sleeping bag and even though it's the end of summer and the day was warm, the nights definitely are cold. I also forgot my thermarest. I was totally unprepared for camping so I ended up getting so cold in the middle of the night that I slept in my car. I really hate doing that.

The next day was just as nice as Saturday. We went to a harbor where Ella "surfed" in the calm water.

I realized I didn't get any pictures of us in the water. I guess we were having too good a time for me to stop and take pictures of all the other Veltman surfers. After we packed up, we headed to another beach, hung out there for the afternoon and then took off home. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Tim's Last Week

Well, Tim is safe and sound in the USA now. I had such a fun time while he was here even though I had to work. We did manage to do a favorite past-time of Tim's, tubing down a river. The river that we tubed down was a little different than the Gunpowder back home - the river was really deep and so clear you could see all the way to the bottom. We also didn't need to worry about snakes.

We started with a 15-20 minute walk straight down to the the river through a kiwi orchard. I just have to say that Kiwis are great people. They don't care how steep the trail is, no one here believes in switchbacks. On most of the hiking trails, if it goes up or down, they aren't going to bother with swithbacks, you just go straight up and straight down, no pansy back and forth trails. So, after 15 minutes of straight down with innertubes, we arrived at this lean-to. Some of the boys climbed up on top of the shack and jumped off - I jumped from the enbankment - that was high enough for me.


This is me jumping in the river - I think I had pretty good form.
Notice how clear the water is.





We also went to Steve and Kathy's and shot clay pigeon's - one of my favorite things to do now. I shot another gun, this time a shotgun - this one hurt a lot more when it kicked back against my shoulder. I actually managed to kill one of the clay pigeons - notice the look of awe on the faces.



I drove Tim to Auckland on thursday and we almost missd his flight. would just like to say that it wasn't my fault, there was traffic here and there is never traffic inb this country. All the cars on the motoway were at a dead stop. Tim wasn't worried so that helped me not worry and stress either. We just turned up John Denver and sang with him at the top of our lungs as we figured our own detour. We made it in time which I have to admit I was a little sad about. I think I was secretly hoping that he'd miss his plane so I could have another day to hang out with him.
I'm pretty sure he had a great time here - he said there's one thing that would kep him from ever moving here- no good pizza. I have to say, it's been a tough 6 months - I haven't had pizza in that long. So, when I go home in 6 weeks, hopefully I will have it every day that I'm there.
Besides the pizza, it's a great place, so everyone is welcome to stop on over for a visit.