Easter Weekend

Samantha was kind enough to point out that she has written the last three posts so I will share with you how we spent our Easter weekend. The first thing to note is that Easter is a five day long weekend for both of us. Everyone in New Zealand gets a four day weekend but in Southland, our province, the Tuesday after Easter Monday is also when the provincial anniversary is celebrated by some. It is a floating statutory holiday that many people combine with the Easter weekend to take a mini-vacation before the weather turns cold.

Our weekend started with Sammy & Abby having some friends from school overnight. Sammy has a group of about 6 boys in his year that hang out and have fun together. He seems to have made a really good friend with a boy named Harry. They both share a love of Yu-gi-oh and a slightly quirky sense of humour. Abby invited Sophie & Libby the other 2 girls in her year. It seems that the more time the 3 of them spend together, the more at ease Abby feels. They had some good fun.

The next morning we headed out to Dunedin for a hockey tournament. I am on the men's team in Gore. We have ice time every Tuesday night for practice. That's taken some getting used to, I haven't taken part in a hockey practice in almost 20 years. I was ready for some game action. I wasn't ready for 4 games of hockey in 2 days. It didn't start off well for my team, we got creamed 15-0 by Dunedin's best. They were younger, faster and just plain better. We were stronger in our second game on Friday but still lost. The pictures in the slide show are from that game. As you'll see I didn't make out so well on one play. Samantha and the kids came along on Friday. The kids went skating on the curling rink and Samantha froze. Sammy & Abby loved being on the ice. Samantha was fighting off a cold and couldn't stay warm. They didn't come back for day two of the tournament so they didn't witness my team winning both games on Saturday. While in Dunedin I picked up a couple of bicycles for the kids. We had hoped to surprise them on Easter morning. That didn't work, they saw them in the back of the car and started riding them right away. They were thrilled. They have been patiently waiting to get bikes.

We woke up on Easter morning to find that the Easter Bunny did find us after all. In Canada, Easter is one of the big attendance days at churches. That's not the case here because so many people go away at Easter. Our church combined their service with 2 or 3 other churches. We were about to head in when we realized the start time was 1/2 hour earlier than normal. So we missed church and instead did a test run of the kids biking to school. It is literally a 6 minute bike ride. The kids rode and Samantha & I walked behind. It was a beautiful way to start the day. We enjoyed a video call with the Richards family after that. It was full of technical difficulties but it sure was comforting to see familiar faces. It was a pleasant surprise to see Grandma Burgess and Aunt Donna & Uncle Dave for the first time since we left.

Sunday afternoon we were invited to Robert & Stacey Young's house, who live 8 minutes up the road, for an Easter egg hunt and BBQ with some people from the area. You'll see from the pictures what a lovely place they have and the spectacular scenery that surrounds their farm. There were about 12 families there for the afternoon, around 20 kids and enough chocolate that they all took 30 eggs home. Just what we needed. When you go to a BBQ in NZ you take meat and salad or dessert, just like at home. But the amount of meat that is brought to a BBQ here is stunning. There must have been 10 different kinds of meat - hamburgers, sausages, venison, wieners, lamb, beef, chicken, bacon, fish, shrimp, pork and I am certain to be missing some. There were platters of meat everywhere. Before Samantha ate each piece of meat on her plate, she would hold it up and ask what it was. No one likes to eat mystery meat. It's a meat lover's paradise, these NZ BBQ's. Sammy & I were in heaven. Samantha made a 4-layered jello, which they call jelly, with whipped cream mixed in. This was a concoction that the people in attendance had never before witnessed. It was the subject of much discussion which somehow led to Samantha explaining the concept of jello shooters to them. They seemed to think she should bring those next time. We were there from 2:30 until 10:00 p.m. It was a great way to meet more neighbours and feel part of the community. Sammy ended up staying the night with James, another boy in his year.

We all got a good sleep-in Monday and spent the day just relaxing around the house. The day started off a little grey but I'll take cloudy and 70 any day. Tomorrow we have a lunch date with another neighbour family and then it's back to work on Wednesday for a grueling three-day work week. I'm sure we'll manage. We are in the process of planning a trip to Queenstown in the middle of April that should include a family jet-boat ride and a bungee jump for me. Stay tuned for updates.