I wanna go home....

Holly, Scott, Lillie and Hunter flew in to Detroit Friday night. Mom and Dad were waiting for them and brought them home. While talking with Holly last night she told me of plans to camp with the Hortons, sleep overs for Hunter and Owen, Wild Zone play days. I want to be there.

Holy Fog!

This morning we awoke the thickest fog we have ever seen. The buses would have been canceled, for sure, back home. The buses ran here in New Zealand. The drive to work was interesting, curvy roads and about 50 metre visibility. As the day went on the fog just sat there, not moving at all. By 4 o'clock the fog was thicker than in the morning. I actually felt a little claustrophobic like the fog was closing in around me on my drive home. I will take photos if the fog is still with us tomorrow.

We got an email telling us the Sammy had been chosen to try out for the Southland Pee Wee Hockey team. This team is a selected group of kids from a large area including Dunedin, Queenstown, Alexandrea, Gore and the Otago area. He is pretty excited to be chosen to try out. This Sunday is the try outs and we should know soon after whether he has made it or not. We'll keep you posted.

I met with a local dance teacher in Gore this week. She is wanting me to teach an intermediate Jazz class on Monday night. I will also be starting to teach Tap as well. My dance shoes are here with me, but I just have to get in touch with Florence for tap music. I am looking forward getting back into dancing. I am also loving that Abby is now wanting to take Ballet and Tap again! When we first got to NZ she wanted to take time off from dancing ( which made me cry) but things have changed and the dance bag has been dragged out, the shoes tried on, the leaps around the house are happening again....and I am happy!


I have included pics of Sammy sporting his new Red Wings shirt that Grandma Horton gave him. He may have missed rubbing the Stanley Cup win in Uncle Gerred's and Grandpa's face, but he was ecstatic to get a t-shirt in the mail.

There are also pics of the kids at Dolamore Park in the Hokonui Hills. We went to the park after church this weekend for a picnic lunch and some play. It is winter here, daffodils, pansies and primrose are blooming, the grass is green, the weather is usually around 60 - 65 degrees...I can handle this kind of winter (except the crazy fog).

Dad turns 60 tomorrow and it is really weird not being there to hang out with him in the backyard and celebrate our birthdays.

Moereki and Naseby for Hockey

This weekend started with gale winds Friday night. They began to whip around 4pm and continued right through the night until Saturday morning. Sam's rugby game was canceled as a result. I did not sleep much Friday as the sound of the wind was unbelievable (and I may have thought the roof was going to fly off). Melissa arrived back from Australia so we left earlier to go to Dunedin to pick her up. We traveled to Moereki just north of Dunedin to see the boulders. I have included pictures.
After we played in the ocean we headed inland to Naseby where Sam was playing in a hockey tournament on Sunday. Naseby is a little village snuggled at the base of Mt. Ida. Mt. Ida is amazing. We took many photos. Saturday night we had supper (tea, as NZers call it) at a Pub in Naseby then we hit the hay in our cabins. It was snowing as we went to bed. Naseby sits at 2000ft above sea level. Sam played two games of hockey Sunday and his team won both games. He got two penalties and a total of 4 goals between the games. The boys are really starting to pass well. The rink at which he played was an outdoor rink. It was really interesting, we had never been to an outdoor rink before.

Bluff

This weekend is when New Zealand celebrates the Queen's Birthday. They call it Queen's Birthday weekend, no fancy names here. What it means is that Monday is a holiday, making this a long weekend. It's nice that the school term is halved by a long weekend.

Our weekend started with two rugby matches on Saturday morning. Sam had a game in Edendale, about 25 minutes south of us and Abby had a game in Gore. Both of the kids teams won. Sam's team played their best match of the year. Sam loves it and is right in there pushing the pile and getting after it. He comes home covered in mud needing a shower. After Abby's games, you wouldn't even know if she played or not. She's out there on the field but so far does a lot of trotting after the play. It is strange to us that our more aggressive child is very meek during rugby. Saturday was a wet and drizzly day so we did some housework(and by we I mean Samantha), and hung around the house.

Sunday morning we headed to church in more drizzle but things had cleared up by the time we got home so we headed to Bluff. Bluff is the southern most town in New Zealand. It is a quaint little village with an incredible walking trail along the coast line. It feels like you are tip-toeing along the edge of the world. We headed out for Lookout Point, a 50 minute hike one-way. We thought that this would be a good test for Samantha's knee. She found it not too bad except for the downhill sections which caused some discomfort. Abby seemed to find the walk much more difficult than the rest of us. You would have thought she hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for days the way she carried on at one point. We were pretty sure that her legs were going to fall off as well. They didn't and Abby survived quite nicely. We made it to Lookout Point just as the sun was starting to set. It made for a spectacular view. On a clear day you would be able to see Stewart Island off the coast. We were able to see parts of it but most of it was clouded in. At some point we plan to spend some time on Stewart Island. It is accessible by ferry or helicopter. We headed back towards the car at a much quicker pace fearing that we would run out of daylight. We made it just in time. On the way back to the car we experienced thunder for the first time since our arrival. There was a storm coming across the Foveaux Strait and thunder rumbled out of the storm for a good 10 seconds. Samantha loved it. Enjoy the pictures.