Weekend Photos...

Sammy made the paper!

We were just looking at one of the local papers and discovered that Sammy ended up being in the middle of one of the pictures that accompanied a story about the beginning of rugby season. You can read the article and see the rest of the pictures here.

Horses, rugby, coal & camp

It has been a while since we last posted, maybe it is because we are feeling more used to things, like less is "new". There are a few things that have been happening in our lives. The kids are riding horses Wednesday after school. A set of twin students of mine have horses and ride English. Dan and I both rode Western as kids so this is new to watch the kids. They love it nonetheless. The kids are also into the swing of things with rugby. They are on different teams but play at the same time on different fields at the same park. It is handy to go to one place and have both kids playing. There are photos included of a practice, where we had beautiful weather and then games, where the weather was cold. It is definitely Autumn here in Southland. The Hokonui Hills are the closest hills to us and I get to see them each morning on my way to school. This past Thursday I was delighted to see snow on the hills. It was beautiful. It is amazing how the hills look different each day.

We have also included pics of us getting coal. Dano and I went to the mine and got some coal today, you will see the different stages of the process. Sam was at camp this week and the theme was Medieval Times. He had a blast and came home smelly and tired. Abby found a friend too, her name is Belle. Belle's mother cooked for the camp so Abby got to see Belle a lot this week.
We are on a two week holiday right now. It is really nice... this two week idea. I always felt that March break was too short and felt too rushed. Two weeks is just about right. Melissa, our babysitter, life guard from LUCC and friend arrives May 4th and are we looking forward to seeing her! Partly because she is bringing us a hockey bag filled with things from home that did come with us in January. Also Sambo and Reena included things like Cheez Whiz, maple syrup, Kraft Mac n Cheese and other treats that they do not have here. The kids have spent some time getting Melissa's room ready for her. They cannot wait to see her. We have a few trips planned with her, like the Cadbury Factory in Dunedin, Doubtful Sound and Stewart Island.

This weekend we are off to do part of the Rail Trail. In Central Otago it is supposed to beautiful this time of year. We all have bikes now so we are ready to get out there. Dan has two hockey games in Dunedin this Sunday so we plan to end up there. Abby and I want to go to The Bead Shop and make some necklaces for Lillie, Kayla and Emma. I have made some beads in pottery and they turned out nicely. There are also water slides at the Moana Pool in Dunedin that we have heard is cool, so we may check it out too.

We have no dryer...like a clothes dryer. We hang everything outside on the line. It turns out that if you leave your laundry on the line for say....a weekend, fungus spores get into the clothing. My underarms did not like these spores that were living in my shirts. So, after a couple of days of itch-o-rama, I went to a Chemist (Pharmacist) who sold me some anti - fungal cream and relief is mine! Lesson learned!
Until next time,
Samantha

Routines and Porpoise Bay

Our weeks are becoming familiar and more like a routine. The kids continue to enjoy school, as well, Dan and I are enjoying our jobs. I found out this week that we do not do reports this term. I hugged that information bearer and squealed! This past Friday the kids competed in a school swim meet in Gore. Never having done anything like this before the kids were a little nervous. Abby ended up getting 1st place in Front crawl and Sammer a 2nd and a 3rd. I was able to get coverage for a class and attend this event. It was wonderful.
The kids started rugby this week. They practice Thursdays after school. They are learning the game which is new to them. They are tackling and being taught how to tackle. At first both Sam and Abby felt weird tackling. From the beginning of their lives they have been told "hands off", so actually being expected to go and tackle someone to the ground was a little foreign to them.
The kids are taking English riding lessons after school at a stable just outside of town. A set of twin girls that I teach live at the stable and offered to have the kids spend an hour every Wednesday learning how to care for horses and riding them.
This Saturday was wonderful. We woke up to thick fog, but the temperature was warm. I made some phone calls to Canada. It was so nice to talk to Pam at Grand Bend School. I was thrilled to have made Derek blush and leave the room as a result of my teasing. You know I love those button fly jeans! Mom phoned, which is always nice. Brian C. made me smile with his "Sammy" when he heard my "Hello". I miss him. Great Grandma Burgess too sounded great and was delighted to hear us on the other end of the phone.
Our plan for the day was to get some wet suits and swim with the dolphins at Porpoise Bay. We drove to Invercargill to Rebel Sports and got s few wet suits (not pretty). While in Invercargill we met a man standing on the street with a contraption strapped to his back. He had invented a cooler and spout that was refrigerated and was selling raspberry cola. Also, Dan and I bought ourselves bikes at a bike shop. The bikes will be delivered to our house this week! That never happened to us back home. April 18th marks the beginning of a two week break and we plan to do part of the Rail Trail.
Our drive to Porpoise bay was twisty and windy. Car sickness seems to find its way into our vehicles. Abby starts with...."I'm hot" in a shrill sharp whine. Then soon after she follows with gagging. There is no gravol here, but we have found something similar called Sea Legs which is only in pill form. Our kids have never really taken pills before so convincing them that they will not die by having the pill stuck in their throats is almost more trouble than a side of the road regurgitation. Once at Porpoise Bay we had a wonderful time. No dolphins but certainly lots of fun in the waves. The wet suits were necessary as the water was cold. We love being near water and waves. The place that we went to has a camp ground beside the ocean and the sites are separated by large Tussock bushes. There is very little on the sites, it is very rustic. As the sun set we drove home, showered the kids and tucked them into bed. It was a good day.

Penguins, Hockey & Butterflies

It's Sunday night here. We are resting after a weekend full of discovery in Dunedin. We set out Saturday just before lunch for the two hour trek. Dunedin is only 138km from home and the speed limit for the most part is 100 km/hr but it takes almost two hours to get there. There are a number of small towns that you must slow down to go through and then there are the curves in the road that require a lower speed. The rest of the family doesn't always seem to like the speed that I take the turns at, and this time was no exception. Sammy was feeling like puking by the time we hit Balclutha, which is about half-way. We took a break there and found a pharmacy to get some motion sickness pills. Sammy has the Horton gag-reflex and doesn't like to swallow any kind of pills so until Saturday had only ever taken liquid or chewable medicine. They don't have chewable anti-nauseous meds here so he had to learn how to swallow pills. After one false start he did it. Abby on the other hand wasn't so successful and ended up with half dissolved pills in her mouth which was enough to make her vomit. She did this on the sidewalk on a side street and then chewed more pills. We figured that made it a real trip for us.

We arrived in Dunedin and checked in at the Dunedin Holiday Park where we had booked a lodge room. It wasn't anything fancy but suited us just fine. From there we did a little shopping, we are trying to find wet suits for all of us at a reasonable price. We didn't have any luck finding any. After shopping it was off to Penguin Place to see some more penguins. We didn't do the penguin tour the last time we were in Dunedin because the cost, $85 for the family, seemed a little steep. We decided to give it a go this time though. It was well worth the expense. It was a guided tour. We hopped on a bus and after about a 10 minute ride through a sheep farm we arrived at the penguin reserve. Our tour guide then led us through a maze of trails and paths to different areas to see some penguins. We saw at least twenty penguins and we were really close to a bunch of them. There was one, Anj, that we were only 1 metre from. Part of the tour was through a series of covered trenches that have been constructed to get the visitors closer to the penguins. It was really neat. Another neat thing was the only other person our tour turned out to be from Toronto. Her name is Sarah Covshoff and she is on a globe trotting travel experience after receiving her Ph.D. from Cornell. The whole penguin reserve operation is a private enterprise started 20 years ago by a farmer. It is self-sufficient with no funding beyond the revenue it generates from giving tours, quite a feat. It was an awesome experience. We left filled with a renewed appreciation for the natural world.


The tour lasted a lot longer than we had anticipated so we decided that supper would be pizza in our room. We ended up getting Dominoes but it doesn't taste the same. All pizza here has some kind of barbecue sauce on it. Sometimes it's swirled on top and other times it takes the place of pizza sauce. Nonetheless, it was good pizza. Contrary to how Samantha has captioned the one picture, I was not drinking the giant bottle of Coke. I had three swigs and no more. In fact the bottle made the trip home and is still over half full. Before we went to bed we had to adjust our watches since daylight savings time ended in NZ this weekend. (For those of you keeping track that means we are now only 16 hours ahead.) We made the adjustment right and were at the arena, the Dunedin Ice Stadium, for an 8 a.m. game on Sunday morning. I am the coach of Sammy's team, they didn't have one before the asked me on Tuesday. I didn't share with them that I have only ever won one game as a coach! Things didn't start so well. The first game of the day we played Dunedin and got rolled. I'm not sure what the final score was because they stopped putting the other team's goals up once they were ahead 7-0. Gore ended up scoring 3 goals and Sammy got one of them. The boys weren't discouraged though and after a break were ready to go in our second game of the day. This one went a little better and they won it. I was pleased for them. There are only 5 centres on the South Island that have hockey, and only 4 of them have Peewee teams - kids 12 & under. The games are scheduled one weekend a month and they are all held at one rink. Each month the games are in a different town and each team plays two games. Next month they are here in Gore.


We were out of the arena by 12:30 p.m. and headed over to the Otago Museum. It is at the Otago University and we had heard lots of good things about it, especially the rain forest room. It was fantastic. The kids loved it, Samantha & I really enjoyed it and the rain forest room was great. It's full of butterflies, has a three storey waterfall and is kept at a balmy 28 degrees Celsius. There was also a really interesting exhibit in another part of the museum called the Da Vinci Machines. I couldn't help but leave wanting to learn more about Da Vinci.


It feels like we planned a hockey weekend in Dunedin but ended up squeezing a couple of hockey games in while we had an weekend of discovery and learning.

We love Friday nights

So it is Friday night again. I love leaving early enough to drive in the driveway and meet the kids getting off the bus. This week has been a good one, quiet, but good. Our week is starting to feel more like a routine now that we have been here over two months. Monday nights are quiet, nothing happens. Tuesday, Sam had hockey practice from 5 - 6pm, Dan's is the same night from 7 - 9pm. Abby and I enjoy a girl's night. Wednesday afternoon my school is done at 2:20pm so I leave to get the kids and take them to McKay Stables where they are learning to care for and ride horses. Then the night is free. Thursday night I go to pottery, which is awesome! Then we go to the weekend again.
This weekend we are leaving Saturday to go to Dunedin. Mid afternoon we will leave Pukerau, drive along the coast and picnic on the beach. Sam has a wet suit if the opportunity arises. We plan to see the blue penguins come in Saturday evening out at the peninsula. 8am Sunday morning we will go cheer on Sam's hockey team as they are in their first tournament. Dan is coaching the team.
For tonight we will hang out, watch TV (we just bought one), do laundry, vacuum and just enjoy the night. We have noticed that life here is more relaxed. Perhaps it has been a deliberate choice on our part, but we have really noticed that family time is important here. The "extras" are not important here. We continue to live intentionally, doing more and having less.
Just a quick update, until next time,
Samantha