The Jenners

Long Bay and end-of-yarn projects

2012-01-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

Oh holidays! I do like having the freedom to do whatever the heck I please, but I just feel like the past month has gone by so slowly, especially since Daniel has gone back to work and I'm left all by my lonesome during the day. It was exactly one month ago today that I said goodbye to my little class...crazy to think how those 10 months of teaching this past year just flew by like nothing.

But I am glad we've made some good friends here and have been able to do some fun things so far this summer. Last week Daniel and I went to Long Bay with a couple of other teachers from the school. The day started out rainy but we had a picnic under a little gazebo and by the time we finished it had cleared enough for us to take a nice long walk along the beach.

They had the best park!! Who says parks are for kids? I couldn't help myself and had to climb on this thing. Daniel said he would race me to the top. Who do you think won?

I also got around to crocheting a little something. When I get down to my last few balls of yarn I feel the need to finish them off before I can do a big shop and get some more. I had a whole bunch of bits left over from my blanket and decided to make this little wintery hat.

I just love the cute little earflaps!

Crochet-a-day {Koru blanky}

2011-12-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

So now that I have so much free time on my hands I figured I should get around to finishing up all of those projects I started throughout the year but never quite got around to completing. I'll try to finish something everyday, and then post about it. Today I finished my Koru baby blanket! What is Koru you may wonder...

The symbol of the Koru is a big part of New Zealand culture, especially in Maori art. The shape is based on the way a curled up silver fern looks.

You see the Koru everywhere in NZ...in paintings, carvings, jewellery etc.

I decided to make a baby blanky with green and brown Koru on it.

I looked everywhere for some kind of tutorial on how to crochet one but in the end I just ended up making a chain with a half double crochet at the tip of each piece to make is sort of round at the ends.

Finally all done!

I'm hoping that one day I'll get to tell our little kidlets all about NZ and they'll have this little blanky to snuggle with.

Peacocks

2011-12-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that the school year is finished. It went by so quickly, and it seems strange to be relaxing in my apartment on a Tuesday afternoon. Normally at this time of day I would be trying to get through reading groups in time for lunch, singing the jolly phonics song, reviewing basic words and probably scolding somebody for snatching somebody else's puzzle piece without asking. Whenever I told people that I was a year 1 teacher they always responded by saying, "you must have a lot of patience". This always made me laugh a little. Patient isn't really a word I would use to describe myself, but maybe that's why I found this job, so that it was something I could develop.

Despite the frustration and impatience I sometimes felt, I really grew to love those kids. It is amazing that you can love 20-something little people that you've just met, but it happened.

The area I taught in was known to be a bit rough. A lot of the kids at the school come from difficult backgrounds with a lot of obstacles. I was so impressed by so many of my kids, and the kids I'd meet from other classes. Some of them have to work so hard to overcome the situations they've come from.

So anyways, as I went to take things down and pack up my room I finally got around to taking some pictures. This is our little peacock craft that we did earlier in the year after our zoo trip - gotta love the zoo! So many good resources and ideas came from that unit. This was super easy (always a must when you're trying to mass produce a craft for that many kids). The kids were excited to make peacocks since they saw a real one while on our trip.

All you need is:

a paper plate

white paper (and blue paper for the top feathers if you don't want to colour those in yourself)

paint and crayons

popsicle sticks

scissors and glue

1. First you start by taking the popsicle sticks dipping them sideways into the paint, and then "stamping" it onto the paper plate to make the straight lines (some of them didn't quite get this. Check out the one bottom of the one showing in the top corner of that picture ^^ where the child painted the whole thing one big mess of bluey green)

2. Next, we painted on the dots by using our thumb prints

3. Make the body by tracing the child's shoe print and colouring it in

4. Draw 2 feet, eyes and a nose that can be cut out and coloured in. I think somebody gave me this template, but I'm sure it could be reproduced and photocopied pretty easily.

5. Cut out the feathers for on top, glue it all together and you're done.

We did zoo stories to go along with the craft. Our lesson was on rough drafts, editing and good copies, and I helped each of the kids to edit and then type their stories.

Animal Art

2011-10-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

I love my little classroom. It started out somewhat empty but has slowly been filled with all of the wonderful little projects that my kids have done.

Last term we had an animal and habitat unit. It was a great unit that lent itself so well to all kinds of art projects. We made these little monkeys over the course of many days. I found the idea online and in the instructions it had a template for separate arms, legs, ears etc....Keeping track of all of those bits and pieces turned into a bit of a logistical nightmare so if I did it again, I'd probably just cut the body out as one piece and just have them attach the parts of the face or something.

Anyways, despite how long it took to get these little guys done, the kids absolutely LOVED them, and everyday they would ask if we were going to do more work to finish their monkeys. We also did a very simple fill-in-the-blanks activity about monkeys, where they live and what they eat, which we then stuck to the backs of our monkeys. Once our monkeys were all painted, dried, and glued together, I hung them up by their tails with a little bit of green leafy stuff from the 2 dollar shop. The next morning when the kids walked in to see them hanging there they thought it was the coolest thing.

The habitats unit also gave me a good chance to introduce the idea of warm and cold colours. We talked about African Elephants and watched a little video of them in their hot, sunny and sandy climate and then based our art activity on that. The kids were given a picture of an elephant and they used black crayons to trace over all of the black lines. Then they used dye to colour the elephant. Again simple, but they loved making these. It's been a few months since we did this activity and even now if I ask the kids what they learned about animals during our unit, they'll tell me about the way that the elephants spray themselves with water and sand as protection from the sun (and they'll use their arm as a trunk to demonstrate. So cute)

Pancakes and Maple Syrup

2011-09-06T00:18:00.000-07:00

My trip home inspired me to think Canadian when I was trying to figure out a costume idea for our friend's son's first birthday party. This is what I came up with...

Despite how unimpressed he looks, Daniel wasn't opposed to dressing up like a pancake. This is actually the 2nd layer of his pancake ensemble. I made him a big round pancake shaped thing that hung over his shoulders, and then made this "maple syrup" shirt for him to go underneath so that he could take off the big pancake when he got sick of it.
.

Daniel was asked to help with the pinata because the kids couldn't quite get it to break. It didn't take him long

I was impressed by how dressed up everyone got. I think the adults had just as much fun as the kids!

Never too old...

2011-08-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, call me a kid, but when I drove by this...

I couldn't help but get very excited! Can you see that little green thing in the background? It's a slide!! So of course we had to go and try it out.

I know it's just a slide, but this is the BIGGEST public park slide I've ever seen. And I'm not going to lie, it was so much fun. I went down a few times before finally letting some kids have a turn.

I even convinced Daniel to try it out..

but he found it slightly less amusing than I did.

First interviews and other updates

2011-07-09T01:06:00.000-07:00

I survived!! And now I have time to write about it.

What a long week. This was the week when portfolios and report cards went home, and also the week of parent-teacher interviews. These were the first interviews I've done so far and I was a bit nervous and didn't know what to expect, but somehow they all went so smoothly. I feel the most "myself" when I'm in the classroom and teaching. I just love it and feel so comfortable there.

There were a lot of late nights at school and I felt so lucky to come home to such a sweet man who always made sure the house work was done and looked after me and made me something good to eat. When Friday night finally came, I got home, took a nice hot shower and cuddled up in bed watching TV until I fell asleep at the early hour of 9:00. At 23, my idea of a good Friday night is one where I get to relax without having to think about work for the next day.

So, besides the busiest and most stressful week I've had in a long time, what else is new?

Daniel has expanded his cooking horizons and made homemade soup this week for the first time. It was DELICIOUS!! I'm not just saying that because I feel it is my wifely duty. No, it really was good. It was chicken noodle soup made with his own broth and seasonings and not sure what else but ...yum! I would eat that any day. His first soup and he makes a delicious one. What a man!

Most exciting of all.....I'M COMING HOME IN 36 DAYS!!

Sorry mom...not coming home for good quite yet. Unfortunately it's only for 1 week but I'm getting SO excited to see my little nieces and nephew and to meet the new little smusher who's just about to be born. Flight is booked, arranged the time off of work and I have a suitcase full of New Zealand goodies to take to my family. I'm so excited when I think about it. It's going to be so good to just hug my family again. I can't believe it's been almost 2 years since I've seen them. At times it seems like the time has flown by but at other times it seems like I've been gone for so long. It will be really good to see them again.

Well, time for me to get back to my weekend of relaxation and finish watching my movie!

If at first you don't succeed...

2011-05-31T11:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to chalk this one up to persistence.

In my last post I told the story of how Daniel almost lost our passports. Well, almost wasn't good enough.

This time, he really did it. He lost our passports for good.

He couldn't have done it alone though. We really need to give credit where it's due....

1. It wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for the help of some thieves who apparently go around the neighborhood and break into work vans parked in driveways looking for loot.

2. It also probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the fact that his passports were in his laptop shoulder bag which gave the impression that expensive electronics were stored inside.

3. Finally, we have to acknowledge the absolute stupidity of these thieves, because after picking up the laptop case, which was very light because it only had passports and a couple of other work documents in it, it didn't occur to them that it was obviously empty, and for some reason they still decided to run off with it.

So thanks to a lot of culminating factors, my persistent husband has really proven that if at first you don't succeed, try again.

In this case, I think I would have preferred he not be successful.

Forget hunting for eggs....

2011-05-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago we celebrated Easter with a different kind of hunt which I hope doesn't become a tradition. Instead of searching for delicious, shiny little tin-foil wrapped balls of chocolate, we decided to have a hunt for something entirely different. Passports.

I can't say this search was planned. It came about as we were about to leave to renew my driver's license the day after Easter Monday, and I called to Daniel to grab my passport for me.

Daniel is always in charge of the passports. At some point in our relationship that decision just came about. When we travel I take care of remembering band aids and toothpaste and bug spray etc....and he's in charge of the plane tickets and other important documents, and generally that works out well for us.

...Until this day when Daniel lost the thing he was meant to be keeping safe.

We looked everywhere, but our apartment is small and it's pretty well organized so if the passports weren't in one of three places there wasn't really anywhere else they would have ended up. To be safe, we checked all of the unlikely spots anyways...under the bed and couch, in the car, behind the bookshelf, just in case somehow they slipped out and got misplaced.

We traced our steps and tried to remember the last time we had them. It was the week before. Daniel had them in his laptop case when we were out running errands and we remembered that we'd stopped to talk to a friend while we were out. We concluded that Daniel must have had the pocket of his bag open and either the passports fell out or somebody saw them and grabbed them while we were talking, although it seemed odd that neither of us would have noticed.

After a long search we had to accept the facts. We're overseas, and now we don't have passports. I started looking up the Canadian Embassy and finding out how we could get them replaced.

While I was busy searching online, Daniel walked up beside me and said "it's so frustrating", although his voice didn't sound very frustrated and I started to feel annoyed at the fact that he wasn't more upset about this. Daniel always stays calm, which is a good thing but in times when you just feel like screaming, seeing him stay so rational can be quite frustrating. I tried to ignore it and kept looking at the screen when again he let out a big breath and said "so frustrating". Finally, I turned to look at him, and there he was holding up both of the passports in his hands.

Where were they?

We had gone away the week before, so Daniel had put them in a spot where he concluded no one would ever look if we got broken into. The only problem is, they were also in a spot that neither of us would have ever thought to look either.

Tucking away the valuables when you go away on vacation is a good idea, as long as you remember where you put them when you get home.

Holidays

2011-04-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days of school before a holiday are always fun. Here we get three 2-week breaks throughout the year, and 6 weeks off for the Christmas/summer holidays. This is our first 2-week break of the year, and it also coincides with Easter, so we spent the last week doing some fun little activities with the kids.

The school had an egg hunt on Thursday (in the hot sun...which meant melted chocolate everywhere. Yuk! but the kids didn't mind). Then one of the parents who helps out at the school brought in 3 little newborn bunnies that their pet rabbit just gave birth to. They were so cute! The kids sat in the circle while the bunnies hopped around on the mat. I have to admit, I hogged one for a while. I just couldn't put it down.

We read some bunny related poems and on Friday as a fun activity we made these little bunny pencil toppers. Just a pipe cleaner wrapped around the top of a pencil, a glue gun, and some other little bits to make the face and ears. So simple, and they loved picking out the colours for their little bunnies and comparing the ones they'd made!

The world according to my class

2011-03-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

After a discussion about how I used to live in a place with lots of snow, I asked the kids if they could remember the name of the country I'm from.

Student: "You came from a different world eh Mrs. Jenner?"
Me: "Not a different world, we all live in the same world. A different country. Do you remember what the country is called?"
Student: ``You came from Africa``

At this point about 80% of the class starts nodding and saying "yeah!" in agreement.

I think it's time for a geography lesson.

Changes

2011-03-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing that I've learned over the past year it's that as much as you try to plan things, you never really know what life is going to throw at you.

So, I have learned to be flexible.

I had a very lazy weekend a couple of weeks ago...the kind of weekend where I watch reruns and have 4-hour skype conversations with my family, and during this lazy weekend of mine I read through some old blog posts and found {this}. I talk about our carefully thought-out travel plans and only being here for a short period of time. We thought we would be here for about a year at the most, so we found a furnished apartment (hence the purple couches in our first place that I forced myself to live with) to avoid having to buy all of our appliances and furniture just to sell it not long after. After being here for about 9 months I was working part-time at the hospital and the rest of the time supply teaching, hoping every day that a full-time job would come along and save me from the joys of being a supply teacher (like walking into a school to teach grade 6 and having the principal say "the teacher doesn't have anything planned so you can basically just do whatever". No notes, no books, no activities prepared, and a class of 12 year old kids waiting for something to do...that was a fun day).

Then one day we got a phone call and Daniel was offered a job back in Canada, but we needed to be home soon if he wanted to take it. We hadn't done much traveling yet, and I still hadn't found a full-time teaching job. This wasn't how I had thought things would go, but the job he was being offered was a really good one and we made the decision that it was worth it to go back, even if we hadn't done some of the things we wanted to. We sold the things we'd acquired and got all of our possessions down to 2 suitcases each, gave our 2 weeks notice at work and moved out of our apartment. We were very grateful to be taken in once again by Daniel's Aunt who agreed to let us stay with her while we were getting ready to head back.

I got really sick during this time. I couldn't get out of bed and was so depressed that I was spending one of my last couple of weeks unable to do anything. I was laying down one afternoon when Daniel somberly told me the time had come to book our flights home. He walked away into the computer room but wasn't gone long before he came back into the room and told me I needed to come and look at something. I could tell from his tone that something was wrong and tried to ask him but he just told me, "you need to come and see this, you won't believe it".

Here was life, once again showing us that you never really know what will happen. On the screen was an email explaining that the job description had changed due to some unforeseen circumstances. There was still a position for Daniel but not the one he had originally been offered.

This changed everything.

We spent days deciding what to do and finally came to the conclusion that if the dream job wasn't available in Canada, we were going to keep pursuing the NZ dream...a full time teaching job for me and a new direction for Daniel.

We decided to move to a whole new city. I found a job and Daniel approached the owner of the company he had previously been working for and asked if he could expand the company up to Auckland and run it himself. We found a great apartment by the ocean but unfortunately, there was no furniture inside. Despite our efforts not to, we ended up having to get all of our appliances, furniture etc. So much for not wanting to have to waste time buying and selling everything.

So, we've been in this apartment for 6 months now, and believe it or not, we've had many more of these last minute plan changes. We're getting quite good at going with the flow and we've learned to just enjoy and see what life has ready for us next.

Room eleventeen

2011-03-05T02:06:00.000-08:00

I've spent the past couple of weeks team teaching with another teacher while enrollment built up enough to start a new class. Finally this Monday, I take 17 of the little darlings that I've gotten to know and love and move into my own class where I will try to fill their brains with all sorts of information until December when the school year finishes.

So last Wednesday we announced to the kids that as of Monday, they would be starting a new class with me in room 11. The next morning, one little boy showed up about 5 minutes later than everyone else, looked at me with a confused expression and said "I went to room eleven-teen but there was no one there!"

We're still working on days of the week...and counting.

Sad week

2011-02-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

It has been a week of tragedy. First at the school with the loss of one of the teachers, and a couple of days later with the Earthquake.

I know I haven't lost any family in either of these two cases. I know that I haven't even lost someone I've known for years and years. But is it wrong to feel completely shattered by all of this? To see someone healthy and happy one minute and lying there trying to be revived the next minute just makes you feel like everything could fall apart at any second. And then there is the constant news coverage of the earthquake. I feel guilty not watching it. Sometimes I force myself to watch those press conferences, and the footage of the buildings over and over again.

I feel like there's nothing I can do, besides suffering along with everyone else who is suffering.

Sometimes I forget about everything, because it's easy to not think about it up here. Just don't turn on the TV or radio and you forget temporarily, and then I feel guilty.

All of this makes all of our normal "problems" seem like nothing...like how I somehow caught the front of our car on a chain in the parking lot and the bumper got ripped off and dragged for a couple of feet and now needs to be replaced. I've put that into perspective now....and I'm sure Daniel will come around to my way of thinking soon...

For now we're just going to keep praying, and thinking about all of the people who made it out okay, and the ones who were trapped for hours and hours and got out alive. This week the school is doing a non-uniform day with a gold coin donation, which will be good. It's just amazing to see how people start working together in situations like this.

Christchurch Earthquake

2011-02-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

Our hearts are going out to the people of Christchurch. We're praying for the ones who are still trapped and the families of those who have lost their life.

Just letting anyone who is hearing about the disaster and wondering about it know that we're not anywhere near Christchurch and we're safe. Please just pray for those people who are there and trying to get out, and all of the rescuers who are risking their own life to save them.

You can go here to find out more about what's going on.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

I feel so lucky to be married to a man who I have so much fun with

who I can talk to about absolutely anything

who will drop what he is doing when he hears me scream in the other room, because he knows that means his spider-killing skills are needed

who folds the blankets the way that I do, just because he knows I like it that way

who puts chocolate chips in the pancakes, because he knows they're my favourite

who would rather have both of us be squished on one couch 'cause it means we're together, rather than stretch out on separate ones

who listens when I need to vent, hugs me when I need to cry, and makes me laugh when I need to be cheered up

who gets cheesy chick flicks to watch with me

who doesn't like chocolate, which means there's always more for me.

who tells me I'm cute when I'm in my pjs with unwashed hair and a makeup-less face

who puts his hands in front of my eyes and warns me not to watch when a commercial for a scary movie comes on

who is always there for me

who rubs my shoulders when they're sore

who follows through when he commits to doing something

who never says no to the opportunity to help someone

who puts up with being called all sorts of cute and mushy names on a daily basis

who tells me he's proud of me and makes me feel proud of myself

who hangs the laundry, takes out the garbage, and puts away the clean dishes without being asked

who encourages me to be adventurous, but accepts me for being a scaredy cat

who still gives me butterflies in my stomach when I know I'm about to see him after a long day of work

Thanks for agreeing to spend forever with me :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Love love love

2011-02-05T16:42:00.000-08:00

I have three new favourite bands thanks to a show here a couple of nights ago.

We wanted to go see this concert a few weeks back but we found out about it too late and figured we'd missed our chance. Daniel heard they were doing another show this past Friday and decided to take me to see it as a surprise. Mental note for next time: when Daniel tells me he has a surprise, ask if it involves food. I mistakenly assumed the surprise had something to do with dinner and went there on an empty stomach. I was able to get past my hunger enough to enjoy myself though (Yes Fionna, it is possible!)

We saw The Bayonets from right here in Auckland and The Art of Sleeping from Australia..amazing! I feel it's now my responsibility to share. You can listen to some of their songs on their myspace pages or download them on itunes.

I don't know if Avalanche City is a new favourite, since I already knew about them from hearing their song on the TV2 network commercials haha... But I guess I love them more after seeing them on Friday night.

I just love this song, and this is the CUTEST video!! 2 little penguins out to see the world :)

Girl i say if only life would lean our way

well you and me we'd run away to be where ever our adventure waits

and time would be a distant memory nobody could tell us to stay

well i've been dreaming ever since i've seen you, heaven when you came my way

i heard your heart sing love love love

oh it seems awfully hard for us to find at all

well all these years will wash away and we'll be clean but we'll have nothing more

i can say there'll come another day where money and our time affords

but on our hands our wrinkles understand we never really wanted more

and all the life about to go is in my mind

and all the loudest voices in the world are never right

i heard your heart sing love love love

A yummy first

2011-01-31T04:07:00.000-08:00

I made my first loaf of bread!!

Garlic cheese twist

It was a big day. And a delicious one.

Cooks Beach, Taupo & Elder Bednar

2011-01-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

We've done some fun stuff so far this month but it seems like we've had too much to do to actually get around to writing about it. We've been planning where we're going and what we're doing and it looks like we're coming home in June, with some stops on the way home. Any guesses of where we might be going on our way?

Anyways, since Daniel is now watching a scary movie (scary to me...but I'm a wimp) I figure now would be a good time to get blogging.

The new year started with us watching the Auckland City fireworks. We didn't go into the city..no way! Lesson learned after trying to get out of there after the big Christmas event. Instead we just found a tall hill near our place and watched them from here.

Our first trip of 2011 was camping at Cooks beach. I'd never really been camping before. I've been RV camping and stuff, but this was different. Sleeping on the ground with all the sounds of summer outside...okay I am not really the camping type but I have to admit, this was better than I thought. I actually enjoyed it.

We had fun, until some of the joys of summer caught up to us...sunburn, heat stroke and seasickness. The New Zealand sun is definitely strong. Poor Daniel...I helped him put sunblock on his shoulders and back but both of us completely forgot about his very white feet, which got super red and swollen. We ended up coming back home to recuperate and going back out again the next weekend.

This was right after we got home. It got much worse. Over the next couple of days I got a glimpse of what my husband would look like if he gained about 150 pounds, or at least, what his ankles would look like.

So we went back, more rested and more sun smart, although we were pretty good the first time... just not good enough for the South Pacific sun I guess.

Daniel went fishing with all of the guys and got some good catches. When I saw them unloading the fish they'd caught, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to bring myself to eat them. Daniel likes to say I'm a psychological eater because even if food tastes good, if the idea of it bothers me I can't eat it. I was a vegetarian for most of my teen years, not because I thought eating meat was wrong, but just because the thought of eating something that had been a living and then was killed was just disgusting to me. Even to this day, I only like meat when it's well done and has some kind of sauce on it to disguise the fact that I'm actually eating a dead animal. Yuk.Anyways, I thought that seeing these fish flapping around was going to gross me out too much to eat them. One factor I didn't take into account: beer batter. My goodness...I can honestly that was the most delicious fish I have ever eaten. The combination of the super fresh fish and the crispy sweet beer batter was amazing!!

We went out on the boat with our friends to pull in their net. These crayfish were still very much alive and before I picked one up I was told to make sure I held it the right way, otherwise it might try to grab me with its little claws!

We saw the most amazing views at Cooks beach and as we went through the Coromandel on the way there and back.

From there we went to Taupo to take some pictures of our friends' new little baby. She is the CUTEST!!! The only downside was having to put her down and stop holding her long enough to take pictures. I could have snuggled this little cutie all day!

Then this past week Elder Bednar came to speak to the Young Single Adults. Since Daniel and I have been called as the "YSA Couple" to oversee and help the YSA, we got to go to the fireside. Also in attendance were Daniel's Mission president, and the previous mission president from Toronto East, President Callister, who is now in the Pacific Area Presidency. Elder Bednar did an open-forum question and answer rather than just speaking to the YSA. He was really funny, especially when he talked about marriage. He said it took him 30 years to learn that sometimes, women just cry. There doesn't have to be a reason. There doesn't have to be anything to "fix". After 30 years, he has learned that when this happens, he just needs to give his wife a hug and say I love you. I'm glad it only took Daniel about 2 years to learn this :)

Warm Christmas

2010-12-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

We had a nice Christmas this year but the warm weather kind of threw me off and I had a hard time getting into the holiday spirit. We were glad we had friends and family to share the holiday with. We spent Christmas morning having breakfast and opening gifts at Loana's and then went over to Daniel's cousin's place for a yummy Christmas dinner.

Mom sent Christmas cheer in the form of winter related gifts... I carried my "Let it Snow" bag around but the weather didn't seem to listen.

There were lots of little events going on here in Auckland, one of which was "Christmas in the park" a big free outdoor concert. The best parts of the night: watching the big Christmas tree get lit up and seeing the Santa float make it's way through the crowd. The not so great part: waiting 2 hours to get out of there while being surrounded by swarms of rowdy teenagers.

We also had a Christmas event in our town called Midnight Madness where the stores stayed open late and had all of their pretty Christmas displays up. Here I am in front of Santa's village.

Overall it was a great Christmas but I'm looking forward to cold, snowy one next year.

My first teaching job - Top 10

2010-12-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

Thursday was the last day of school here in New Zealand and the last day at my job teaching my class of new entrants. The school year here is really different. Summer holidays run from the middle of December until the beginning of February, and then there are three 2-week breaks throughout the year.

It's also really different because, unlike Canada where everyone starts school in September, here the kids start school the week they turn 5. So at the beginning of the year there might be one Kindergarten (new entrant) class made up of about 15 kids, and as the year goes on and more kids turn 5, there may be 3 or 4 new entrant classes. That's what happened at the school where I was. I was one of 3 teachers hired throughout the year as the roll continued to grow.

Even though the kids in my class only had about 2 months of Kindergarten, they'll all go into Grade 1 next year (or Year 1 as they call it). The ones who turned 5 in January and have had a full year of Kindergarten go directly into Grade 2 (Year 2). It's so different and it took me a while to wrap my head around the way schooling works here. Kindergarten in Canada is usually half days and consists of a lot of playing. Here, the kids jump right into school. Full days, no naps, minimal play time. Everyday I taught my class reading, handwriting, story writing, and math, and we would usually do something a bit lighter in the afternoon like gym, music or unit studies.

I really loved my class. Although there were times when it got very frustrating, I loved it. I looked forward to going into school every morning and the days flew by. It feels so good to actually be doing the job I've dreamt of doing all of these years, and doing the thing that I spent ALL of those years at school preparing for.

So I was thinking back over my first 2 months as a teacher. The time went by really quickly but at the same time, it seemed a lot longer than just 2 months. I've thought of my top 10 favourite, most memorable moments as a new teacher. Here they are:

10 - Getting hired. That's where it all started! This was my first job interview and I had pretty much told myself that I wasn't going to get the job. I just decided in my own mind that the interview process would be a good experience. When I sat down to be interviewed I was asked questions that I didn't know the answer to, so I was really surprised when they called and asked me to come and work for them! I stayed as calm as I could, just long enough to say "Yes", and "Thank you", and then to hang up the phone and start jumping up and down with excitement.

9 - Singing the NZ national anthem for the first time in assembly, accompanied by the voices of 500 kids. I especially liked singing the part in Maori. I can now do it without reading the words!

8 - Having my classroom fully set up. When I was first hired and shown to my new class, it was a big storage room full of gym equipment. Thanks to a lot of help from the other teachers and a lot of time getting everything ready, I was able to turn it into a classroom. I wish I had a before picture.
7 - One afternoon while doing an art activity (making the pieces of the water cycle - rain, clouds, sun etc. - out of construction paper and bunches of tissue paper) I sat down beside one of the students and started to join in the craft. He stopped gluing on his tissue paper for a second, turned to me and said "Mrs. Jenner, you're a nice teacher". So cute!

6 - During Christmas assembly, I looked over to see one of my normally rambunctious boys sitting very, very still. More still and quiet than he had EVER been during an assembly. I look back a few minutes later to see his eye lids dropping, and a few minutes after that to see him swaying back and forth. One of the other teachers said I could move him to lean on her legs and sleep. Poor little thing was so tired and it was so adorable.

5 - My class Christmas party. I had a little caterpillar on the board and every time the kids were good as a class they earned more pieces to make the body longer. I told them that once we reached 20 pieces, we would have a class party. So on the last week of school we had our little Christmas party. I made up a counting game with a Christmasy theme and we did lots of art and ate cupcakes and all of that fun stuff. We had a little bit of extra time at one point so off the top of my head I made up a game called "sleeping Santas". Basically the kids just had to lie down and stay very still, without moving or laughing, while I walked around saying "ho, ho, ho" trying to make them laugh. Kind of a lame game, but that's the beauty of 5-year olds...they LOVED it!! And it got them to quiet down a bit. I was quite pleased with myself.

4 - Watching the kids learn. I got to see this on a daily basis and it was just the coolest thing. My favourite was watching them trying out new words and reading for the first time. Even though they would just be little words like "am" and "can" and that sort of thing, it's a huge accomplishment for them to realize that letters have certain sounds and when you put those sound together you make words that carry meaning.

3 - Sitting in my class during lunch one day, trying to get some work done, I decided to take a minute and just look out the window. Normally I try to tune out what's going on outside during breaks if I'm not on Duty, so I can focus on whatever work I'm trying to finish, but I decided to just look outside and appreciate where I was. I saw all of the kids running around and the ones in my class standing outside the door, hands and faces pressed up against the class. When I looked over they smiled and waved. This is one of those moments when I just thought, "I love my job!"...and then I had to get back to work.

2 - The last day of school was just a half-day, and since I needed to completely clear out my class Daniel came in with me to help. The kids really liked "Mr. Jenner" and had to be reminded to leave him alone so he could do his packing up. This was also the day that all of the kids in the school were brought into their new classes for the following year so that they could spend an hour with their new teacher and class. Since the kids in my class were all pretty young they were a bit confused by all of this and later when I tried to ask them who their new teacher was, they all replied "Mr. Jenner". Although Mr. Jenner did have fun in my class, he was ready for a break after only a couple of hours with the kids, so unfortunately for them I don't think teaching primary is something he'll be doing anytime soon.

1 - My favourite thing of all was something else that happened on a daily basis...hearing the hilarious things that the kids would come up with. Like for example when I was testing one of the boys on his number knowledge and he did really well...

Me: Did your mom teach you your numbers?
Boy: Nope!
Me: Did you learn your numbers at Kindy (preschool)?
Boy: Nope!... I'm just a smarty pants!

I couldn't really argue with him!

I loved my class and I'm going to miss them!!

A few of the kids with their Clifford masks on

Kids

2010-12-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

I cringe when I look in the far right corner of my classroom and see my glue sticks being mutilated by the student who I have just lectured 5 minutes prior. "You only need a little bit of glue," I say as I demonstrate how to make a box around the outside of the page and then an X in the middle. I turn up the glue so that only a tiny bit is showing. "If you turn it up too far you'll waste all of the glue and then we won't have any left". I get a nod and for a minute I think that maybe they understand.

But I know it's all in vain. The minute I turn to walk away I know that the wheel on the bottom of that glue stick is quickly being turned to expose 2 inches of the stuff. When I look over again I see a crayon being jammed into it, and somehow within minutes the whole table is one sticky mess.

I breath in, take a step back and remind myself that they are only 5.

I do this several times a day. I do this when one of my very sweet little students brings me hand fulls of flowers that she's pulled up around the garden, roots and all. Everyday I remind her that flowers are for looking at and not for picking, but every morning I find a pile of some leafy, dirt covered thing on my desk. Again, I exercise patience.

I exercise patience when I tell the kids that at snack and lunch time they are supposed to stay outside. That's the school rule. The teachers in the orange vests are the ones you talk to if you need help while you're outside. Yet every time I try to stay in and get some work done during breaks, little people start trickling in. They are, of course, always in crisis.

Student: "Mrs. Jenner (comes out as Mrs. Jenna with their little accents)..um...outside...um...there was this boy and um...I think he was from the other class...you know the ones in that room and....he pushed another boy and he was crying and he wouldn't be nice to us and I was sad."

By this time 3 or 4 more students have come in wanting to join the conversation. I remind them to walk away from people who are bothering them, and if they don't stop to find a teacher in the orange vest. I lock the door, sit back down at my desk, and within minutes there is a little face pressed up against the glass. "Missus Jenna!!!" knock knock knock. I never get much done at lunch time.

I exercise patience when it's time to go swimming and I wait 10 minutes for the kids to get changed, only to see them walk out with their suit on backwards. Well, this doesn't take much patience. In that case I just laugh.

All of the cute stuff they do makes up for it though. And when they actually learn stuff...amazing!! Watching a kid go from knowing no letters to being able to recognize every letter in the alphabet and tell me a word that starts with that sound is just fantastic. So, as long as the kids keep being adorable, I think I can handle crayons being jammed into the glue.

It makes me think though...at one time that was me. I was thinking back on the ridiculous things that I got up to as a kid:

* Ripping apart a hard-boiled egg that was meant to be used to decorate for Easter in my grade 1 class. It was a brown egg and of course, everyone knows that if an egg is brown it still has a live bird inside. That's what one of our fellow 6-year olds told us so we believed him and slowly peeled back the layers. When we saw the cooked yellow yoke in the middle we mistakenly took it to be the body of a little yellow chick and got very excited. We were disappointed when it crumbled in our hands.

* Leah and I "shaving" our arms, legs and faces using body lotion and a hair clip. Somehow we got the idea to lather ourselves up with moisturizer and use a barrette to wipe the cream off. Needless to say, we used up our mom's cream pretty quickly and we were very greasy kids for a couple of days.

* Styling our Barbie doll's hair with our mom's hot iron. We stopped when we started to smell burnt plastic.

* Running away from home "forever". We packed some apples and raisins to sustain us and ended up sitting on the front porch eating our snacks for about half an hour before getting bored and going back inside.

*Going into the theme park business. All of the kids on our street got together and decided to host a kid's fun day in my parent's backyard. We were going to have sandwiches and games and costumes and it was going to be the best thing ever. I think we named it Kid City. We advertised to all of our neighbors who had little kids, but on the big day we ended up going away with our family and forgot about it until afterwards. I have a feeling that no one showed up at our gate expecting anything.

It's reassuring to know that I have since outgrown my silly childhood ways...somewhat.

Bucklands Beach

2010-11-06T00:53:00.000-07:00

It's hard to remember living in a place where we didn't see the ocean everyday. We've gotten so used to these beautiful views. I think the only solution is to bring the rest of my family here...then there would be no reason to come home.

So Conways and Jenners...any takers?

Still not sure? How about a view from the top...

Thames and our big move

2010-10-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went out to Thames with some of our friends from Hamilton. The guys went diving for Mussels while the girls enjoyed the scenery and the pretty sea shells. Afterwards we took a walk through the markets in town, had some lunch, and then Daniel and I started the drive back to Manukau.

We decided to take the scenic route which was a little bit longer of a drive but meant that we got to drive along the coast.

So much has happened over the past couple of months. We moved from Hamilton up to a little town just outside of Auckland where our place sits just a few minutes from the beach.

Most exciting of all....I got a job teaching Kindergarden! (Or as they call it here "New Entrants") I love it. It's exhausting, but I absolutely love it. When I'm not chasing after a wandering 5-year-old or scolding someone for rubbing a glue stick all over their desk, I get to actually watch them learning and observe the sweet and funny things that their little minds come up with.

I still can't believe that it's almost the end of October. We've been here for nearly 10 months now! The weather just keeps getting warmer and I have to remind myself that Christmas is only a couple of months away. We've been invited to a couple of Christmas parties and have been told there will be BBQs and outdoor games. So bizarre compared to Canada where the term Christmas Party is usually associated with wearing something fancy that will inevitably not be warm enough and then making the dreaded walk from the car to the inside of the building in high heels that sink through a foot of snow and leave you with cold and damp stockings. I'm looking forward to a warm Christmas but I know it will be hard to be away from everyone too, especially when I keep seeing cute pictures of all of the new babies at home. Maybe my mother-in-law will make the trip over here and bring some of the grandbabies with her....worth a try!

One whole year

2010-08-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Daniel and I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. This weekend marked 4 years since the day we met for the first time, and 1 year since we got married!

So I thought it would be fun to think back to some of my memories from our wedding day.

The hair dresser came to my house really early in the day and I sat in the kitchen, watching the news and eating a yogurt while he curled my hair. At some point while he was spraying and bobby-pinning the strands to my head it just sort of hit me...I was getting ready for my wedding. I was getting married!! But it wasn't until I actually walked in to the temple and was sitting there, about to start the ceremony, that I started to feel nervous. Who knows why...I had spent the past 3 years getting to know Daniel. I guess it was just the feeling of knowing that within the next 10 minutes, everything would completely change. I would go from being single Miss Conway to a married lady. Daniel and I would go from two people in a relationship to two people who had agreed to be together forever.

After the ceremony, right as we had finished signing all of the forms that made our marriage official, we were told to take a few minutes and write down exactly how we felt, because soon it would all just be a memory. I'm so glad that we did. I wrote down that I remember feeling so much light. I couldn't describe it any other way. Everything just felt so bright and happy and beautiful. We spent the rest of the afternoon surrounded by friends and family, the sun was shining, and I just remember feeling so fortunate and blessed. The day couldn't have been better.

Walking into the banquet hall for the reception was amazing. So much planning went into the reception (much of which was done by my mom, who should go into business as a wedding planner!!). Food tastings, meetings with decorators, last minute re-arranging of tables and place settings. To walk in there and see it all come together so beautifully was such a great feeling. We made a point of really enjoying our day and taking in every detail. So many people warned us about how their wedding day was just a blur. The brides and grooms said that they didn't see much of each other over the course of the night and that they didn't even have a chance to eat their meal, and we were determined to not let that happen to us. We made sure to enjoy our food, spend time with each other and dance with our family and friends.

My absolute favourite part of the day was our first dance. We danced to an Anberlin song called "Inevitable". Daniel and I were listening to it one night while we were driving and heard the lyrics, "I want to be your last first kiss that you'll ever have" and we decided that it was perfect. While we danced Daniel sang it to me and I tried my best not to completely turn into a crying mess. Then, as we were dancing, Daniel told me to look around. Everyone was standing and watching us dance. The lights were on us and all of our family and friends were smiling as they watched us. The lyrics of the song went "We could stay in this moment for the rest of our lives" and again, I felt so fortunate for how perfect the day had been.

Now, a year later, there's no fancy party but we are still feeling fortunate and very blessed. We had a relaxing anniversary weekend with a trip Raglan for the day. We drove over to the coast and watched some kite surfing, and then took a walk along the wharf. Sunday morning I got a special treat...a yummy breakfast cooked for me, and Daniel even did all of the clean-up!

We've had a stressful couple of weeks as we moved out of our place and were unsure about exactly what was going to be happening in the future, but as Daniel always reminds me, "everything is fine as long as we have each other." I feel so lucky to have someone so loving and supportive. He is patient with me and helps me to gain perspective on what's really important. It has been a great year and we just pray for many, many more together.

Sick of being sick!!

2010-08-17T20:52:00.001-07:00

Oh sickness.

It always gets me at the very worst of times. Like, say for example, as we were about to leave Canada and come over to New Zealand, which, coincidentally, was also Christmas time.

No..last holiday season did not quite go according to plan. In my mind I envisioned eating clementines around the Christmas tree with my parents and sister with Bing Crosby playing somewhere in the background. I imagined snuggling and cuddling my little baby niece, and playing with my little nephew, letting him push the buttons on my computer (because I'm cool Auntie Jo and saliva and crumbs can always be cleaned off later...), and opening festively wrapped boxes and packages, many of which would contain gifts that would not fit in my suitcase and would therefore remain in Canada for the time being but which, nevertheless, would be very happily received.

Tears, yeah I expected those. But I figured they would be tears of the usual sadness that's felt by people who are not going to be seeing their family for months or even years. I didn't expect tears of pain, as I woke up every morning for 2 weeks with the sensation that I had been whacked in the face with baseball bat during during the night.

I had never been that sick before, and thankfully have not been that sick since, although this past week I have felt frighteningly close. It's not Christmas or my Birthday, but that doesn't mean my body hasn't decided to make friends with a flu bug at an inopportune moment.

A few weeks ago I finally got all of my teaching stuff sorted out and have been getting supply teaching calls almost every day. In the past week and a bit I've been teaching grade 6, grade 2, and kindergarten and I have loved it! Surprisingly, kindergarten was the most fun. The kids actually really listen, they are so sweet, and they find enjoyment in the smallest things (like the fact that it was their turn to pick up trash outside after lunch. They ran around with gloved hands, with excited little shrieks of "Rubbish!!!" every time they found an old wrapper or broken piece of plastic on the ground) Anyways, the point is, this week I haven't been able to take any of the teaching calls because I'm at home with that familiar smacked-in-the-face feeling. Everything aches, I can't breath, and I have a cough that sounds like I smoke 4 packs a day. I guess it's ironic that the job that I enjoy so much is probably to blame for the fact that I can't enjoy that job this week, seeing as how those little kids usually have faces covered in snot....

On top of that, we're just about to do some traveling.

So, why do I keep getting sick at such unfortunate times?

I try to stay away from this...and I certainly don't do this...

Am I just one of these people who wasn't lucky enough to be born with "a superior immune system", (something that Daniel claims he possesses)? Will I be confined to a life of sniffling and sneezing at the worst possible times? I hope not, but for now I'll just continue to find my solace in hot lemon and honey drinks and great big boxes of aloe Kleenex.

Fiji

2010-08-13T01:38:00.001-07:00

Fiji was....

GREAT!

We Really loved it. The warmth, the food, and of course, being there to see Seru and Sarah get married! We were able to be there for their sealing and then went to their reception in Seru's village, which was amazing! Daniel also got to show me around some of the places where he served his mission and introduced me to a bunch of his friends. Daniel has always talked about how much he loved Fiji, and now I can see why!

Taupo Weekend

2010-07-13T03:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Daniel and I drove over to Taupo to visit our friend Sarah who took us around and showed us her town. Taupo is a big tourist spot, with a beautiful lake and mountains (one of which is Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings!)

We only had a day and a half to spend there so we tried to do as much as we could in the little time we had. The first stop was the Honey Hive, a huge shop full of tons of different kinds of honey, and other bee & honey related stuff.

Then Sarah showed us Huka Falls, the largest waterfall on the Waikato River!

My husband...what a good learner! He always stops to read the informational signs

Afterwards, Sarah took us for a little hike through the forest around the lake. We were able to go out to a few really pretty lookout spotsWe also discovered some caves and went exploring! I really liked my loaned headlamp and wore it for the rest of the walk! haha

After dinner, we went to some heated indoor and outdoor thermal mineral pools. Nice and relaxing...and the warmth was very welcome after a day of walking around in the cold. Taupo was suprisingly chilly..only about 9 degree highs, which doesn't sound too bad for the middle of winter, but it was some of the coldest weather we've felt here in New Zealand.

The next day after church we took a walk around town and I got to see this GIANT fish!

Taupo is beautiful and we're planning to go back when we road-trip around the country at the end of the year!!

More food part 2

2010-06-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

On our big grocery shopping trip we decided to stock up on cans of tomato sauce since we eat so much pasta. We noticed a cheaper brand that we'd never bought before, and being the thrifty folks that we are (or try to be) we decided to get these ones instead.

Yum! We love pasta. It's so cheap, easy, and quick to make.

It wasn't until I opened a can one night as I was making dinner that I noticed a few things that seemed a little strange: 1) The sauce looked a bit brighter than normal
2) The texture was completely smooth. No little chunks of tomato or visible spices at all
and 3) it smelled very...sweet

A quick taste of the sauce confirmed the suspicion, or shall I say fear (we had bought over 10 cans of the stuff!) that had started to form in my mind.

This was New Zealand style "tomato sauce", or in other words...
Ketchup.

I told Daniel about my discovery and was trying to figure out what we could do with all of these cans of ketchup when I suddenly remembered something. A few weeks ago we were having friends over for dinner after church. I had to prepare everything for the meal before church so that when we came home I could just stick it in the oven. I decided to make lasagna, and in my haste, I used one of these cans of so-called "tomato sauce" in the recipe.

Ketchup in lasagna! To be honest, it was one of the tastiest ones I've ever made, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I guess I have a new secret ingredient.

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-20T01:05:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's day to my Daddy!!

More food

2010-06-02T21:55:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I came home from work to find that our cupboards had been cleaned out. I wondered where all the food could have gone. Didn't we just do groceries a few days ago? Maybe we had been robbed. There was no other explanation for our food supply being depleted so quickly.

My mother-in-law is probably thinking that she's found herself in a similar predicament, and strangely enough it only seems to happen when I stay at her house, but that's besides the point.

What happened to the food isn't important. There's no need to point fingers or make accusations about certain people being able to eat seemingly unnatural amounts of food in relation to their size. All that mattered was that the situation needed to be rectified. I needed more food.

Daniel arrived home shortly after I did and came to the same conclusion I did, so we decided to go to the grocery store. Since Thursday night is our temple night, we didn't have a lot of time, but the situation was so bad that we really couldn't afford to put off our grocery shopping for another night, so we decided to hurry. Grocery shopping for half an hour, fill the car up with gas, unpack the food, get ready and be out the door by 6:00.

We walked quickly through the grocery store, filled up our cart, and were at the checkout in good time. The bill came to about $150.00, and just as we were about to pay, Daniel noticed a sign that said "Spend $200.00 or more and save 25% at the pumps". Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to go back and stock up on an extra $50.00 worth of stuff, so we just had to accept the fact that we'd be paying full price for gas.

We drove over to the gas station in the grocery store parking lot, but since it was the first time we'd ever filled up our new car, Daniel hadn't realized that he couldn't get the latch open to fill up the gas tank because our key fob didn't have a battery in it and it's one of those cars where you need to click unlock on the fob in order to unlock the gas tank. We spent about 10 minutes trying to get it open, and finally decided to come home and search online for a way to release the lock manually. By the time we figured out how to open it, we realized it was too late and we weren't going to make it to the temple in time. So, Daniel got an idea. Since we needed to get gas anyways (and since we had now figured out how to actually get it) why not go back to the grocery store and get another $200.00 worth of food....

There are certain things that we know we're going to eat, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to stock up on them. 20 cans of tomato sauce, 10 bags of pasta, 12 boxes of cereal, 8 boxes of granola bars, 7 boxes of crackers, extra peanut butter, jam, mayonaise .... I wish I had thought to take a picture of absolutely everything before we started putting it away. The floor and counter were completely covered in food. Tons and tons of delicious food!!

But strangely enough, most of it seems to have disappeared again.

Lately I have learned...

2010-05-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

You shouldn't use one of the big carts to do groceries when you have to walk home afterwards

After 9 pm, anything goes on New Zealand TV

Smushing food down the drain using the back end of a spoon is not a solution to dealing with the gross stuff that gets rinsed off the dishes

I am capable of killing spiders on my own (but only the little ones)

There is such a thing as baking cookies with too much sugar in them

My husband has a high tolerance for very sweet cookies.

Top 10 reasons why my Mom is the best

2010-05-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

10) She geniunely cares about everyone she meets and is the most selfless person I know. She thinks about other people all the time and how she can help them. She'll call people to make sure they're okay, visit them, bring them food etc without anyone asking her. She does it just because she cares

9) She's smart. She speaks 3 languages, has 2 degrees, and knows a lot about just about everything! She loves to read and research things on the computer so she's always well informed.

8) She was a great mom to my sister and I when we were growing up and always made us feel loved and important. She came to every single awards ceremony, school play and concert helped our at Pizza days and school fundraisers etc. She never put us second to a job or a hobby and never made us feel like she was too busy for us.

7) She's a really good dancer

6) She is hilarious and a lot of fun. We've spent many late nights staying up talking and laughing our heads off.

5) She is stylish and looks great. I've had several people ask me if she was my sister when I show them pictures of my family. No one can believe she's the age that she is (mid 30s..)

4) She's a really good cook. I really could go for some of her broccoli and cheese casserole or sweet potatoes with bacon right now...mmm

3) She's very creative and imaginative. When we were little she used to get cotton fluff on Christmas morning and put it around the empty plate of cookies that "Santa" ate...saying some of his beard had shed haha! She would also sprinkle little bits of glitter after we lost a tooth and say that it was "fairy dust" from the tooth fairy.

2) She taught my sister and I important values like honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, faithfullness etc. and she set a good example for us by living a good life herself.

1) She is easy to love because she's one heck of a lady!!

Happy Mother's day!!!! :)

Sweet As

2010-04-28T04:07:00.000-07:00

I haven't word Wednesday-ed in a while, so here it is.

When people want to describe something over here, they often stick "as" in the sentence...but not in the way you'd think. It's almost like they're starting a simile (remember those from elementary school?) but then don't quite finish it. Whereas we might say something like "I'm as hungry as a horse!" they would just simply say "I'm hungry as".

Whether you're saying something is big, funny, loud....you can always add an "as" on there to emphasize your point.
Some other popular phrases: Sweet as, keen as, and if you really want to sound like a local, add the word "Mate" on the end of your sentence for good measure.

At first, it almost sounded like people were swearing, and saying another word that starts with an A and an S...but they most definitely are not.

The half simile - it's Kiwi as!

I'm a Toys "R" Us kid

2010-04-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

Commercials are so deceptive. You'd think that maybe the ones aimed at little children wouldn't be so sneaky, but the advertisers have no shame. I, like most children, listened to all of the catchy little jingles that were aimed at selling me some plastic piece of happiness, but now, I have a complaint.

Toys "R" Us has lied to me.

I watched their commercials. I sang along to their song. Like so many others, I fell victim to their cunning ways. I was fooled.

They made it sound like you had a choice. Their song went, "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys "R" Us kid". And part of me truly believed that they were presenting a viable option. Just say you don't want to! Growing up? Nah..I'd rather not.

That was my plan.

Yet here I am, with groceries to do and dishes to wash and garbage to be taken out. Where is my box full of barbie dolls, the ones I used to spend the entire day dressing up in those tiny scandalous barbie doll outfits that they always came with. Where are my Polly Pockets? Where is my pirate ship Lego set? I loved that Lego set! Why are all of my fun childhood toys shoved in a box stuffed in some closet in my parent's basement. I thought I made it very clear. I DON'T WANT to grow up!! I'M A TOYS "R" US KID!!!

I didn't agree to adulthood, it just happened. Sure there are benefits, like eating cookies at any time of day, INCLUDING before dinner, and not having to do math homework, and being able to drive a car. But as far as I'm concerned, these are merely tiny consolation prizes for losing the game of age.

It just kind of occurred to me the other day that this year I'll be 23. How did this happen? I don't know, but frankly I would feel a whole lot better if I could just surround myself with barbies for the afternoon and forget about this whole adulthood thing while combing through their knee length hair. But Toys "R" Us has left me high and dry. Not a toy in sight, and the future is looking grim.

Auckland Weekend

2010-04-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to Auckland...the BIG CITY! Our friends invited us to stay with them for a couple of days and even lent us their car to drive around in (people here are unbelievably kind and generous). We did a lot of stuff, so here is our weekend in a nutshell.

We did some learning

Saw some penguins

Sat in a shark's mouth

..went downtown and into a chocolate shop. That chess set is completely made out of chocolate!! We got to taste test some of their unique chocolates. One had lime in it and another had chili. They were so good! We bought some too, but those didn't last long enough to have their picture taken..

Next we went up a big hillAnd saw the viewAnd this thingThen we went to Pokeno, a tiny town just outside of Auckland, for their famous 42 flavours of ice creamand saw some cowsAnd horses

And that was our weekend!

Sheer fun

2010-04-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

Get ready for the baaaaah-ed jokes.

There were plenty of them in Te Kuiti, the "Sheep Shearing Capital of the world!" Here's Daniel in front of their pride and joy...a giant sheep shearing statue. Apparently the stylish hat he's wearing only gets put on him for special occasions, which this weekend certainly was.

We made the trip to this little town for the annual "Running of the Sheep" and it was a lot of fun. They put on a little festival, with lots of food, rides, markets and performers. Everything was sheep-centered...all of the shops put up pictures and funny signs and gave their stores sheep-related names.

Then, in the afternoon, they had the main event -- about 1400 sheep running down the main street!!

I think the poor sheep were probably wondering what the heck was going on. They got a little bit confused part way and starting running in the opposite direction and literally trampling over each other, but all of the sheep reached the end unharmed.

Don't you wish ewe were there?

Beware Mother-in-Law

2010-04-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

The other day I overheard a lady talking about her mother-in-law from "heck" who was staying with her for a few weeks. She explained how this woman would often find ways to stick subtle nasty comments into every day conversations, and would even just flat-out insult her to her face. I tried to imagine what that would be like, but honestly couldn't. Some other ladies joined in and had comments to make about their own husband's mothers. It made me feel really glad that I've been blessed with a great mother-in-law.

So since I know Fionna likes Top 10 Lists, here is mine for her.

Top 10 Reasons why I'm thankful for my mother-in-law

10) You're always in for a good laugh when she's around. I think some of the funniest stories I've ever heard are ones she's told me.

9) She's fearless and adventerous. Not only has she gone skydiving, but perhaps more terrifying, she's braved the streets of Harlem, at night time, in order to get chocolate for us girls while we were on our trip in New York City. That is brave!!

8) She makes the most delicious ham. Seriously, I stopped being a vegetarian because of it. Delicious, honey ham...

7) When I eventually have kids they're going to have a great Nona Fionna who will do fun stuff with them, even if she does occasionally terrify them by dressing up in her gorilla costume.

6) She knows I miss my neices and nephew, so when we go on Skype she gets them to come over to the computer and holds the littlest one up to the screen so I can see how cute she looks. To really appreciate this one, you need to see the picture. soooo cute!!!!!:

5) Even though she took me to see a pretty questionable movie the first time we met, (it was Borat and we didn't know what it was about until we were sitting in the theatre. Needless to say, we ended up walking out about 25 minutes into the movie and had a good laugh about it afterwards), overall she has really good taste in movies, TV shows and music.

4) She has some serious creative skills. She knows how to sew, knit, bake things that are tasty and look cute...I'm hoping to learn a thing or two...

3) She makes me feel cared for and treats me like a real daughter. When I was really sick over Christmas, she came in to check on me and even let me rest in her bed during the day because it's the most comfortable one in the house. And she was gracious enough not to video tape me looking so sick even though I know she kind of wanted to LOL.

2) I can talk to her like a friend. She always listens and offers good advice.

1) She raised a very nice boy that I was lucky enough to marry.

Night Glow

2010-03-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

Last week was the worst. Just so... frusterating. Thankfully, we had a fun weekend that helped to remind me of why I love it here. Even though things here move a little bit more slowly at times than I would like...there are definitely a lot of benefits to living in a part of the world where things are not quite so..hectic.

Like, for example, balloon festivals!

Last week the city put on a 5 day event called Balloons over Waikato where they brought in hot air balloons from all different parts of the world. There were some little balloon-related activities and things going on during the week and then on Saturday night they had an outdoor event called Night Glow. The balloons were lit up while music played and fireworks went off in the background. And they had FREE buses going to and from this completely FREE event. It was so fun to see all of the families walking down our street to the bus stop with their blankets and little kidlets in tow. Everyone was just so happy and excited....it was just such a nice feeling of community.

A good portion of the city was there...it was packed!!

It was a really fun night!!

Working Woman

2010-03-23T03:10:00.000-07:00

I'm bringing home the bacon....

..the spendable kind. And let me just say this, if my job didn't pay really well, I would have quit...immediately. It's only been a few days, and I'm supposed to "give it time" according to Daniel. Apparently the feeling of being bored to death will slowly become less pronounced until eventually, I forget that such things as fun and excitement actually exist, and I fall into a comfortable rut where constant tedium seems like a natural way of life. I can't say I hate it. Hate is a strong word, and I don't have any strong feelings about this job. It makes me feel nothing. It destroys my zest for life. And I'm not exaggerating (that much). It's just ...dull.

I'm a secretary at the hospital in a unit where they deal with all the files and information for patients with antibiotic resistent infections. My job is to print off all the data and compare if there have been any changes, if they've been given new antibiotics or been transferred to a new ward of the hospital, and then to make sure the nurses get the information so they can follow it up. It stinks.

The people are nice, which is good. The building is clean and new. I have my own little office space, with a window and a fan and a heater. It's super close, so I can walk to work every morning. So, I'm trying to look on the bright side, and keep reminding myself that I won't be there forever.

Teacher registration is slowly moving along. I got another step done yesterday, getting myself a nice set of fingerprints done! That was kind of cool...getting to go into the police station and have my fingers covered in black ink and rolled across a sheet of paper. I felt slightly guilty, like they were going to find my prints all over the package of oreas in my cupboard and I would have to confess that YES, I have eaten a lot of them!!

And then, just when I was feeling like things were really getting underway, I got a wonderful email from the New Zealand Qualification Board yesterday.

Further information/documents required:

The initial check of your application showed that we need further information/documents from you before we can proceed with your application. Please provide: - Original academic transcript for your Bachelor of Education degree

NOTE: An academic transcript is a list of subjects or modules studied and the grades or marks achieved for each, issued by the relevant University or Educational Institution. Not only is it a requirement for applicants to provide academic transcripts, without them it would be extremely difficult to give a fair and correct assessment of qualifications.

Oh, thank you for letting me know. I was so completely unaware that when trying to have my TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS recognized, that I was supposed to submit proof that I completed a TEACHING DEGREE!!!
It's not like I spent an entire day back in October getting in contact with the University so that I could request transcripts. It's not like I paid $30.00 for them to be mailed to me, or waited 3 weeks to get them. And the fact that I am 100% positive that I submitted those transcripts, in a neatly organized folder, with all of my other transcripts and diplomas and reference letters, must just be a mistake.

So now I get to spend my day off filling out forms and sitting on hold and waiting in line at the post office. The sad part is, this is still way better than being at work.

Word Wednesday - Short Forms

2010-03-17T03:07:00.000-07:00

They seriously love their short forms over here. It’s all part of the whole laid-back, no shoes required kind of vibe they’ve got going on. And I’ve decided that short forms really are the way to go. While us North Americans have been wasting our precious time on unnecessary syllables, the Kiwis have truly discovered a much more efficient way of talking.

In most cases, any word that seems just a little bit too long to bother with gets shortened and the end is replaced with an “ee” sound. University becomes uni, mosquitos become mozzies, and sunglasses become sunnies. Cardigans are cardies, mushrooms are mushies (so appealing...) cousins are cuzzies, relatives are rellies...and the list goes on and on.

One of my favourites is their website shortform, which is a bit different. When you ask someone for a website, instead of responding by saying “double-you, double-you, double-you…” they’ll say “dub, dub, dub..." And even though no one seems to realize that you actually don’t need the “www” at the beginning of a website and they are, in reality, wasting time saying it, you can't help but admire their determination to abbreviate every word possible!

Waihi Beach

2010-03-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago our friends Sam and Candice invited us to spend a few days at Waihi Beach. We went boogie-boarding and Daniel even tried surfing! I had been feeling a little bit sick earlier in the week and on the day we were supposed to leave I started to feel even worse, but we decided to go anyways and hoped for the best.

I spent the first day in bed, watching movies and getting as much sleep as I could. The second day, I started to feel a little bit better and I decided to try to enjoy the beach. The salt water and fresh air actually helped a lot, but after being in the ocean for about 20 minutes, Daniel cut his big toe. It didn't look very bad at first, until we started walking towards the house and he left a trail of blood in the sand! It took a while for it to stop bleeding, but it finally stopped and we bandaged it up.

I guess I should also mention that the next day, Daniel's toe was starting to heal, and he was trying to be very cautious of his foot, making sure nobody bumped into it. Little did he know that the only person he needed to worry about was me. I accidentally stepped directly on his big toe. I don't think I've ever stepped on his foot before, but somehow I managed to put all of my weight on the only part of his foot that was injured, causing it to start bleeding like crazy again! I swear I didn't do it on purpose...but it was kind of funny....

But, this didn't stop us from boogie-boarding and spending our last day out in the water! Waihi Beach was so beautiful.

Word Wednesday

2010-03-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have heard a lot of words over here that have made me stop and go, "huh?" Sometimes, it'll be a familiar word, used in an entirely different context. Other times, it will be a word that I have never heard before. So I've come to the conclusion that Kiwis really do have their own little language, and while I'm learning it I thought I would share my newfound vocabulary with whoever is interested in learning. My advice though, don't try to use these words back home and expect that anyone will know what the heck you're talking about.

Today's word is jandals

Sounds like sandals, and in essence it has a similar meaning, but it's more specific. Jandals is the word they use to describe a specific type of Sandals: Flip Flops, or the more humourous "Thong" sandals.

Over here, they don't use the word flip flop. In fact, I jokingly explained to someone that in Canada the right shoe is called the flip and the left shoe is called the flop, (thus together they are flip flops), and they believed me! They've just never called them that before!

To New Zealanders, there are sandals and jandals, two very distinct forms of footwear, and they are not to be confused!

Loana's Wedding

2010-03-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

Daniel's aunt Loana got married a couple of weeks ago and she asked me to be the photographer, which means...I have photos!

You can click HERE to see them

Everything was perfect! the weather was sunny and warm, Loana and Derek looked amazing, and the reception was a lot of fun. Daniel even danced (though he told everyone he wouldn't). It was a great day :)

6 months of JOY!

2010-03-03T01:03:00.000-08:00

We've been married 6 months!! Since there were only 28 days in the month of February this year, our 6 month wedding anniversary fell on the 1st of March, which was kind of cool!

So to commemorate this little milestone I thought I would share some of the post-wedding photos we had taken by our wedding photographer, Ramya. She is amazing! She offered to meet up with us in Toronto a few weeks after we got married to take some fun photos.

Family Visit

2010-03-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

Daniel's Aunt Loana got married a couple of weeks ago, so some of the family from Dunedin came up for a few days. I was finally able to meet Daniel's grandparents and his Aunt Trudy, as well as his cousin Sarah, and I got to visit with his Aunt and Uncle Carl and Marie again. Here are some pictures we took on the morning before everyone headed back home.

It was really sad to see everyone go. We all had a lot of fun and I can't wait until we go down to the South Island to visit!

Finally..Apartment pictures!

2010-03-01T01:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the wait is over. At long last, I have some pictures to post of our new apartment! (Mom and Leah, I know you'll be excited about this!)

Because of our lack of internet (which is another post all in itself) I haven't been able to make any posts about all of the stuff that's been going on, including moving into our new place, which seems incredibly spacious compared to where we used to live. It came fully furnished with a fridge, washer, dryer, couches, cushions, beds, curtains, table and chairs which was perfect for us. We're not going to be here long and we didn't want to bother moving a whole bunch of furniture into a place just to have to move it back out 6 months or so later.We bought ourselves the bare minimum, some dishes, pots and pans and bedding, and I put up some pictures, and that was about it! We were also really lucky because Daniel's cousin and his girlfriend lent us a TV and some other household stuff so that we didn't have to spend any extra money.

Our place is not that big, but it feels HUGE compared to where we used to live in Toronto. I actually have a kitchen...a real kitchen, with countertops! In our old apartment I was always complaining about having no space to put my stuff when I was trying to cook. Baking trays would often end up balanced across the toaster just to make enough room, and so this time when we were looking for apartments, Daniel paid special attention to the kitchens, knowing that a good sized cooking space makes for a happy wife.

The only decorating I bothered to do

I love our spacious bedroom! We have a big closet, and we have a second spare bedroom that we mostly use for storage.

We love our new place!!

My confident husband

2010-01-30T22:39:00.000-08:00

I'm married to a very confident man. It's one of the things I love about him. No matter what the task, Daniel usually feels confident that he can complete it, and he's usually right. Whether it's setting something up on my computer, putting together furniture, or finding a great deal on a trip, he thinks he can do it, and most of the time, he can.

I've only know Daniel about three and a half years, but based on what his family tells me, he's always been this way. I've heard that even as a toddler, Daniel was always convinced that his way was the right way, and that he could do anything.

Nothing sums up Daniel's opinion of himself more than a photo he drew when he was younger. His mom had it framed and put it up on his wall in his old room. On a piece of paper was written "Daniel, Age 7". Beside it he had drawn a picture of a boy, and there was a caption that read, "I never feel little, I always feel big". Confidence was never something he lacked.

While I love this quality about him, I have to admit that it can sometimes be frustrating, and even worrisome. When it comes to matters of safety, Daniel will often respond to my advice with phrases like "I'll continue to do what I've always done and I'll be fine". It drives me crazy, especially when I'm giving him good, solid advice. I've learned to save my pleadings for the big things if I want him to listen, and not to bother at times when it's not something extremely dangerous. This past week was one of those times.

We were going for a walk by the river. Off to the right side of the path are narrow logs, set up like fence posts to mark off the path from the deeper part of the forest. Daniel decided that he'd like to jump along these narrow, slippery (it had recently rained), uneven wooden posts while wearing his flat, thin-soled walking shoes. I thought about warning him several times, but decided it wasn't worth it. He wouldn't have listened anyways. And so it wasn't until he slipped and fell on the log, then fell to the ground on his back, bruised up his foot, scraped his leg and elbow, and got his shirt covered in dirt that he decided to stop.

He was fine, but has been limping for the past few days because of it. And even though the ball of his foot is a purpley colour, his confidence remains unharmed.

Apartment Hunting

2010-01-27T21:16:00.000-08:00

I had my first experience looking for an apartment about a year and a half ago when I was moving away to go to school. My family and I went up to Ottawa for the weekend about a month before school started in the hopes of finding a place for me to live during the school year. I had left the task of finding an apartment to the last minute, but I wasn’t worried at all. How hard could it be to find a decent place to live?

That experience taught me a lesson: never, EVER think finding an apartment or house is easy. It is not easy. It is difficult, and sometimes just plain disgusting. The worst part is, you really never know what to expect. Let me give you an example.

During that memorable weekend in Ottawa, we decided that it might be useful to go to the University of Ottawa and check out the bulletin board where they post available housing. We took down a few of the names and numbers and set up times to go and take a look. There seemed to be a lot of promising places available. One read something like this.

“Room for rent in an apartment with 3 other females. Fully furnished. Great location, only 5 minute walk from Campus. Looking for studious, quiet tenant. Parking available"

This sounded like exactly what I was looking for.

We found ourselves outside of a video store, where a very large man in dirty wife-beater was dumping out large slop buckets full of dirty brown stuff. We figured we’d got the wrong address, until a lady walked past the man and invited us to come in to see the apartment. We followed her up a long set of stairs until we got to a very plain-looking second floor, which consists of a white hallway with a number of doors on either side. She opened the door to a room the size of a closet, which was “fully furnished” with a small cot and a card table. I looked out the back window to what appeared to be the parking lot, but it turned out that parking wasn’t available for this building after all, that was for the people next door. She walked us down the hall to show us the bathroom, and the kitchen which, somehow, was even smaller than the room for rent. At the very end of the hall there was another long staircase, leading up to one single door. We asked who lived up there. “Oh, it’s just an older man, he rarely comes out though”.

Since then I’ve looked at houses and apartments in a few different cities, and now in a whole new country, and I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter where you go, you can find a lot of crappy places, many of which are hidden behind deceivingly nice sounding ads and conveniently cropped photos. Miraculously, we ended up finding a great fully furnished (with more than just a cot on a card table this time) 2 bedroom apartment in a great location right near town, for a pretty reasonable price. We move in about a week and a half from now and we’re really excited! I’ll post some pictures of the place once we’re in there.

First impressions

2010-01-17T21:44:00.000-08:00

We've been here about a week now, so here are my lists of what I love and don't love so far.

Love:
1. The weather is great! The temperature is around the 20 range right now, so it's warm but not unbearably hot. It's their summer right now, so we've been getting mostly nice weather. It rained today but otherwise it's been mostly sunny.

2. The people are nice. Everyone seems really friendly and helpful. At the airport after we arrived, there were some guides to show people around, and there was even someone handing out mini toblerone bars! People in this area also seem more relaxed and laid back here from what I've seen. It's their summer holiday right now, so that could be why, but I think there are other reasons. Never having to wake up to 3 feet of snow on your car probably helps. Also, there are just less people in general. The entire country of New Zealand has only half the population of the GTA, which I would assume means less waiting in lines, less traffic jams etc.

3. Everyone talks with cool accents, but the best part is that people think WE'RE the one with accents.

4. Chocolate! The chocolate bars are much bigger, and cheaper than back home. They are the biggest chocolate bars I've ever seen! And there are so many different kinds.

5. Rather than traffic lights they have roundabouts, which makes driving places a lot quicker.

Don't love:
1. The lack of traffic lights makes crossing the street almost impossible in busy places.

2. My appliances don't work. The voltage is different and so when I plug in my blow dryer (my nice new one that I got for Christmas) it gets REALLY hot, so hot that it turned my fingers all red and I couldn't keep it on for more than 2 minutes at a time without having to turn it off to let it cool. I'm going to have to buy all new ones. I haven't even looked for them yet, so I'm not sure what the selection or prices will be like.

3. High-speed internet and cable are a lot more expensive and therefore a lot less common. Many places use Dial-up and only have a few channels on the TV. Television I can live without...I actually don't watch much of it anyways since I got used to not having one when I was away at school. But it's the internet thatI've become dependant on. Now more than ever I need to be able to use it to keep in contact with everyone. I feel so out of the loop. I haven't read the news at all in the past week, and I usually can't access more than a couple of things on facebook per day. Most of the time, when I get onto the computer, it's only to upload some photos/update on the blog, and check my messages (which can literally take hours). At least it'll help me develop some more patience.

4. I miss my family and friends. It's only been a week so it doesn't seem that bad so far. I lived away from home for a year and went a few weeks at a time without seeing my family, but I can imagine that as the weeks and months go on it'll get even harder. I miss family dinners at my parents and chatting with everyone. I'm sure we'll make friends here, and Daniel has a lot of family here which makes being far away SO much better, but nothing can replace girl talks with my mom and sister. I also really miss my little neice and nephew William and Maia. It's sad to think that they're going to grow up so much while we're gone. Whenever I see little babies here I think of William shouting "Auntie Joe!" and seeing Maia's little gap-toothed grin.

5. Everything seems backwards to me right now. I'm sure I'll get used to it and it will seem more normal over time, but right now, it all seems a little weird. When I drive with people, it often feels like they're about to drive right into other cars because they drive on the opposite side of the road. The escalators are on opposite sides, and at church, the speakers even sit on the opposite side of the pulpit!

There are some new things to get used to but overall we're having a great time! We wake up in the morning and open the blinds to see beautiful rose bushes and flowers growing by the window. We can walk outside without a coat (such a nice change from the -20 degree weather!) and we're surrounded by great people. We're staying in a really nice part of Hamilton and we feel really fortunate to have been able to come over to this beautiful part of the world!

A long way to go to play video games

2010-01-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

Everyone who knows Daniel knows that he, like most guys, loves his video games. Even all the way over here, he managed to get his hands on a playstation. He and his cousin Nathan love to play Grand Theft Auto (a terrible game, but kind of funny to watch) and FIFA world cup soccer.

In his defence, he played more the first day or two that we were here because we were tired and there wasn't much else we could do yet. Now that we've started to get things set up, he's spent less time with the video games and more time with friends and family. Thank goodness!

Down by the river

2010-01-15T15:28:00.000-08:00

The other day Janelle and Nathan took us for a walk down by the river. We spent the first couple of days sitting around and relaxing, trying to recover from the trip, and we figured it was time that we got outside.

The weather here has been perfect so far. Warm, but breezy. Everything is so beautiful!

These were the bluest flowers I've ever seen!

On the other side of the world

2010-01-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

I decided to create a blog so that we can keep our family and friends up-to-date on our life, now that we're on the other side of the world and communication is going to be a little bit more difficult (dial-up internet and expensive long distance aren't the most conducive to keeping in touch). So I thought I would create a little place where I could share pictures and travel updates.

Daniel and I had talked about coming over to New Zealand ever since we first started dating, so it feels a little surreal to actually be here now, after so much time talking and planning. Our trip started around 8:00 am Sunday morning. We loaded up all of our luggage into my dad's truck (a daunting task, since we had 3 huge, extreamly heavy suitcases, Daniel's golf bag, and our carry-ons) and my mom, dad, Leah, Daniel and I headed to the airport.

We said our tearful "goodbyes" and started the very long process of international travel. We showed our boarding passes countless times, and went through one security check after another. Our first flight was a short one to Chicago, where we caught our next flight to Los Angeles. We got onto the plane, sat down, and waited...and waited...and waited. No take-off. Finally, an announcement came on, informing us that there were some extra heavy bags that had to be loaded onto the plane, and that it was taking a bit of time to get them on. Daniel and I both looked at each other, wondering if these were our bags. We had used the biggest suitcases allowed for our flight, and had filled them to the maximum weight capacity. At check-in, they were labeled with tags that read, "heavy, may require assisted lift" (hey, we're going to be gone for a while). If any suitcases were heavy enough to be holding up the plane, it was probably ours. A little while later, a new message came on explaining to us why we still weren't moving. The luggage was too heavy, and had to be taken off and sent on the next plane. Daniel and I exchanged weary glances again. Having 4 connecting flights is already a luggage nightmare. Suitcases get lost all the time on regular flights, let alone ones where the bags need to be shuffled around from one plane to the next in 4 different countries. I had seen so many family members come to visit with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, only to find out that their suitcases were somewhere in Indonesia. My dad, for example, went to Africa and came back suitcase-less. The airport asked for details about the luggage, the size, colour, and make, with the promise of delivering his belongings to him once they were found. About a week later, the doorbell rang, and my parents opened the door to find a suitcase sitting on the front porch. Now, either my dad described his suitcase as a small, bright pink ladies bag, or the airport made a very big mistake. Understandably, I was not overly confident in whole process. I had packed a change of clothes in my purse for reassurance, so all I could do at this point was hope for the best, and take comfort that worst case scenerio, I would at least have one clean thing to change into once we arrived in New Zealand.

Once they had sorted out the luggage thing, the plane took off, and 3 1/2 hours later, we arrived in Los Angeles. It was so nice to be outside without a jacket on. No snow, no cold, not even much wind!

We had a 5 hour layover in L.A., most of which was spent waiting in lines. By this time, we had been traveling all day and were incredibly exhausted, and so when we boarded our flight to Fiji, we were more than happy to sit back in our big reclining seats, cozy up under the blankets that were waiting for us, and drift off to sleep as we flew over to the South Pacific. The flight to Fiji was just over 10 hours, but it didn't feel very long at all.

After waiting for a few hours in the Nadi, Fiji Airport, we boarded our flight to Auckland. We were almost there! The sites I was able to see from the plane were absolutely breath-taking.

After about 35 hours of traveling, we'd reached our destination!...sort of. We needed to get from the Aukland airport to Hamilton, which was a few hours away. We weren't really sure how to get there, but we eventually figured it out.

We took one bus to Manukau city around 2:00 and then waited for our bus to Hamilton which was scheduled to pick us up at 4:15. Shortly before the bus was supposed to arrive I started to feel tired of sitting around and wanted to go and stretch my legs. The bus stop was right outside of a shopping mall, so I decided to leave Daniel with the luggage to go for a little walk inside. Daniel warned me that I only had 10 minutes to walk around if I wanted to get back in time for the bus. No problem, since all I really wanted to do was get a bottle of water. As I left he teased "if you're not here when the bus gets here, I'm getting on without you!"

The mall didn't look much different than any other mall, aside from the fact that I didn't recognize any of the store names. I sort of expected that something inside would look a lot different than shopping malls back home, but it was pretty average. One thing did surprise me though...all of the signs in the store windows. SALE, 50% off, 70% off. Everyone had warned me about how expensive New Zealand would be, but looking at the prices as I walked by, they didn't seem much worse than a lot of shops in Canada. I didn't have any time to shop, and didn't need anything anyways, but it was fun to walk around and look in the store windows. I walked past a grocery store, and decided to see if food was as expensive as I heard it would be. Again, there was nothing shocking price-wise. I made mental notes of the price of bread, almonds, salad dressing...eager to tell Daniel my findings. I was so excited, that I completely forgot that outside, there was a coach bus headed for Hamilton pulling into the bus terminal. I panicked as soon as I realized that I'd completely lost track of the time and started walking as quickly as possible through the shopping mall. I walked towards the doors and immediately looked over to the place where I'd left Daniel sitting. He was still there, a good sign. As I got close5 he looked up and motioned towards the mall driveway. There was our bus, driving away. Dangit. The bus that we needed only came by every couple of hours, so we had to wait until 6:30 to catch the next one. Needless to say, Daniel was not impressed. And I didn't even end up buying a bottle of water.

Our bus dropped us off at the Hamilton City bus terminal and we found a taxi to take us to Daniel's Aunt Loana's house. It was a long trip, but after about 48 hours of traveling we're finally here!