Agrodome, Voltage and Hot Pools

Hmmm what to do, what to do?  Our first Saturday in NZ and what is there to do?  PLENTY I tell you!  We have a long list to tackle while we are here so let's get to it.

We spent the entire day in Rotorua.  A beautiful city known for its thrilling activities, natural attractions, entertainment, shopping and dining.  We started at the Agrodome which would make any 4H member envy to no end.   This famous attraction features live sheep shearing, 19 breeds of champion rams, cow milking, lamb feeding, dog demonstrations as well as a full New Zealand dog trial.  Let me tell you what, they sure do give you the full experience.  Just take a look.

Walker chosen to go on stage to milk a cow.

Proud certificate for milking the above mentioned cow.

Abby chosen to go on stage to participate in a contest.  See who can feed a baby sheep the fastest.

Her reward for winning was all the wool from the sheep that was sheared earlier in the show.  Lucky us. :/

Who knew there were so many different breeds of sheep?

Next we drove to Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park.  This was a glorified petting zoo.  It had lion cubs to pet.  Although my hyper kids couldn't stand quiet long enough to be in the cage to wait their turn that we needed to leave.  The zoo keeper worried they would get the resting cubs riled up.  Fair enough.  Didn't want any kid to lose a hand at my child's expense.  So we walked on our merry way and found some other fun animals like deer, pigs, birds, wallabies, eels, alpacas, donkeys, goats and then the mother of all mothers, the lion den.  They had 6 lions (5 female and 1 male, can we say sister wives?) in the cage.  All though this one was surrounded with fencing and signs that said "warning, electric fence".  Oh great.  Maybe this will be the time my boys learn their lesson not to touch everything they see, everywhere we go!  Is it just my boys or is it all boys that are told "don't touch that, put that down, don't touch it, PLEASE!" constantly? 

So this is how we had to draw the picture in their head so that they would hopefully listen to us for real this time. 

"Hey kids, remember that scene from Jurassic park where the boy is climbing the fence and all of the sudden the fence turns on and ZAP he goes flying off and gets hurt real bad?" 

"Ya' mom, we get it." 

"Do you really?  Because this is serious and we don't want you guys getting hurt."

"So are you saying it's like that part in the Muppets movie when he gets shocked and gets burned up?" said younger kid

"I guess so, but do you all understand what we are saying?"

"Wooooooaaaaaaaa"

And wouldn't you guess, not even 23 seconds later guess who's hand is right up there ready in slow motion touching...the...fence! 

"N-N-N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O"

Stupid me.  Why would they put the electric part of the fence on the outside of the lion's den?  It was on the inside of the double fenced area.  But still, he should have listened.  Now the lesson of "don't touch" was void again!  Darn you false warning signs!


To rest from that dramatic experience we drove a little ways off to the Polynesian Spa.  Hot mineral bathing pools that smell a little less than desirable but feel oh so good.  We swam in freshwater pools that were filled with alkaline mineral water leaving our skin "soft and supple".  It was a great way to end our long fun filled day. 

 Can't wait to see what adventure next weekend has in store for us.  Lets just hope it does not involve high voltage of any kind.
 

Getting Caught In The Rain

The sun goes down at about 9:00 p.m. giving us a lot of day time to enjoy.  So after dinner the boys decided to take a walk while Abby and I cleaned up and read for a little while.  The weather was nice when they left but that changed rather quickly.

First Day of School

It's weird to be writing that again but for Abigail and Walker they experienced another "First Day of School" yesterday with the other students at Putaruru Primary School.  They have been on summer break and just started back at school.  It was fortunate for Abby and Walker to be able to start with them on their first day as well.

Abby is in a combo class with 4th, 5th and 6th year students called the Challengers.  Walker is in a combo class with 2nd and 3rd year students called the Voyagers.  The school is rather small with only about 170 students in all. 

What we have learned on their first day is that shoes are optional.  The kids LOVE this.  It's not a joke.  I walked in to the office and the principal was not even wearing shoes.  It was awesome.  They swim each day for P.E. and so they wear Togs or what we call swim suits.  They wear uniforms and part of that standard uniform is a hat that is mandatory when they are outside.  They are serious about the sun here in NZ.

Campus is completely open to parents.  They just let you walk around, check out the class, stop by to see how your child is doing, bring them snacks during recess/snack time and bring lunches.  No need to bring anything to the office to drop it off.  No "visitor pass" or signing in or out.  They just said, "go ahead and walk on in to the class."  The encourage parents to come to assembly's and morning gatherings.  So welcoming and relaxed.

School is from 9-3 with lunch at 1.  This was a pretty late day the first day for Walker.  He even asked his teacher if they sleep there at school.  I bet he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to go home.

Their homework policy is that homework is something they like to teach as a habit and not extra school work to be done at home that the teacher should have to monitor and keep after the children to do.  With that, homework will be kept to a minimum of 20 minutes a night.  HOLY COW!  What are we going to do with the other 2 hrs and 40 mins of homework time we've been doing every night?

Again, I think leaving NZ is going to be a hard adjustment in more ways than one as we are quickly learning.

A new beginning....

So before I begin on a new week, I've already covered a bit of what we did on Thursday and Saturday.  We didn't have a Friday because of travel and the time change.  How weird is that?  Monday was a holiday here so we drove around to check out some local sites close to us.

 New Zealand, Hamilton Temple

Then we came home and swam at the local pool that is conveniently located just across the street from our home.  We are pretty excited about that.  The kids were excited to jump in and get some practice before school started the next day.  They will have the joy of swimming every day for P.E. at school and didn't want to be rusty.  I have a feeling they are going to like school.  We'll see.

Kia Ora!

WE MADE IT!  We made it through the check in, baggage check, security, long waits to board, 13 hr plane ride, passport check, customs and a 2 hr drive to our home but we made it in one piece.  Piece of mind that is.  It wasn't too bad after all.  Traveling with 4 kids we planned for the worse and hoped for the best.  When your airplane has individualized t.v.'s and gameing consoles for each person well I don't have to paint that picture for you if you have young kids.

Our home is a nice little 4 bedroom, one bath place that is a dream.  It has just enough space for all of us and a visitor (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  Two rooms have trundle beds so they have decided to share rooms leaving one room is left vacant as a guest room (for yep, you know who you are).  It has a decent sized t.v. room, kitchen/dining room and laundry room/closet. 

I think having served a mission it has prepared me for being able to live in any conditions possible.  The kids on the other hand.  They are funny.  Talmage walked right in and said "wow, this is beautiful."  The kids ran from room to room and claimed their bit of home right away.  How could we have all thought any different that Abby wouldn't want the purple felt covered walls and butterfly papering for her room.  It wasn't until they walked throught the t.v. room to the back deck that took all of our breaths away.  This place is A-H-H-H-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  My previous post with the google map, ya' that didn't even do this place justice.  Let's just say that we got here yesterday and we haven't seen the kids in two days except for when they are hungry.  Abby came in to grab something and on the way out she said, "see you at dinner time or sometime around there."  Man did that bring back memories of when we were kids and could actually say that to our parents. 

I'm not kidding about this majical place.  I'm not sure how it will to be going back to our dust stink hole of a backyard after living with the Secret Garden/jungle.  It is going to be really, REALLY difficult.  We have these views from our bedrooms and I wish you could smell it too.  See for yourself!

Our humble abode from the front

The view from the deck off the t.v. room and bedrooms

The view looking back up at the house from the yard

Another thing we have to get used to is our lovely vehicle.  According to New Zealand's standards we have quite a lot of people in our family.  Enough to necessitate a large vehicle in which to get us all around town in.  We asked for something like a large car, SUV or a van.  Nope, not here.  We qualify for what they call a "people mover".  So we're the nice American's sporting the 1994 teal PMV (that's just my cool way of admitting it's a 'people mover vehicle').  Do you think we'll blend in alright?

Our PMV yo!

Now if I can just learn how to drive on the wrong side of the car and road we'll be doing alright.

NZ Bound

And we're off!  New Zealand here we come!  We packed up our lives for 3 months, left a lot behind and are ready for this new adventure and journey to begin in so many ways.  The kids had a hard time saying goodbye to their friends and I have to admit, so did I.  Like I told Abby, "it's better to have great friends to miss while you are away than no friends at all."  We feel so blessed and lucky to have this opportunity to experience a new culture, new way of living, new people and new ways to serve.  I'm grateful for a husband who loves adventures and New Zealand so much that he felt a desire to bring his family here to experience something new.  We are truly blessed!  Yep, I said it again.  I hope you'll join us on our journey through NZ the next 3 months.  If not, we'll catch up later but I can't promise you any of the same stories or pictures to prove them to you.  Your choice.  ;)

Heading out of LAX!

Kicking it DS style while we wait to board the plane.

And we're off!  No looking back now!

Abby the Science Kid

The 4th Grade has come with a whole new set of challenges.  We've been battling them as well as they have come.  New friends, new curriculum, new way the teacher requires cursive to be written (found that out the hard way when her spelling test came back with a low score and NOT because the words were misspelled!).  We've welcomed silly boys and their teasing, California Missions, G.A.T.E work, GPA's and not just plus and minus scores.  We thought we had 4th Grade in the bag.  After all it's more than half way through the year.  BUT NOOOOO.  It's Science Fair time!  As Abby is our oldest this is our first experience with doing a science experiment and all that it entails.  Oh man has it been a while since I've done this.

We are sure glad for the help of some great family and friends for help with this one.  A lot of food was consumed to make this possible.  I hope Aunt Tam's kitchen doesn't still smell like a food court! I sure hope I get an A!