Christmas at 29 °

You could have fooled us, but it is Christmas time! We had a quiet, yet lovely, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Our eve was ridiculously productive and we felt very proud of ourselves, which I’ve summarized in this list:

The Christmas Eve of Accomplishment:

1. Solved the mystery of the dud cigarette lighter in our car

2. Made a massive breakfast of all my favorite things (OJ, pears, pancakes & bacon!)

The box did not lie when it said, "Makes 18" 

3. Cooked delicious stuffed mushrooms (Chris is the real chef!)

4. Concocted Christmascrack (which is not as easy as it sounds when the store doesn’t sell Chex, Golden Grahams, or corn syrup! Needless to say, it wasn’t nearly as good as Aunt Teri’s)

Hmmm... 

5. Did a load of laundry (how can it not be a good day with the smell of freshly laundered clothes!?) 

Christmas day was wonderful on a completely different level. 

Firstly, it was 29°… C! That is much different than F- it was about 85° F at 4pm! Whew! 

How could you still have a normal day after talking to these three?! 

Regardless of the heat, the beginning of the day seemed like any other- with the exception of opening the rest of the presents from our students and NZ friends. We spent our day relaxing and soaking in the great view. It wasn’t until we started Skyping family that it really felt like Christmas. Being passed around at the Curry’s celebration and then making our way through the Aplin/Pring party really put us in a great mood! Seeing everyone and getting a little taste of home was really what we needed to make the day special. These interactions jumpstarted our motivation and we decided to head to the beach and enjoy what was left of the day! Our beach endeavor brings us to list 2:

Christmas Sea Creature Fabulousness:

1.     11-legged starfish

2.     Heaps of mini starfish

3.     One big crab (which sometimes disappeared into sand plumes and it was terrifying!)

4.     A paua shell (they sell the whole shell in stores for $10+ but most the time they break it up and make jewelry out of it)

5.     Hermit crabs & winding snail trails everywhere

As for an update on our life plan, we have decided to return to The States after our trip to the South Island. This decision (not taken lightly) is a result of our desire to settle in somewhere and start a solid life together. I’ve written more on this, but I think I’ll wait to post it until we’re closer to the end of our travels.

We are currently working on our plan for the South Island. So far, it’s comprised of approximately 12 stops, glaciers, fjords, skydiving, a quake-stricken city, our tent, and so much more. We are trying to strike the perfect balance between planning and fluidity. Essentially, we’ve researched our route and possible places to stay & things to do! I’ll post a more detailed plan…once we have one!

We missed you all dearly on Christmas and we hope that you thoroughly enjoyed it! Stay safe and have fun on New Year’s Eve!! We’ll let you know how it is… seeing as we’ll be one of the first in the world to bring in the new year! J  

* Remember, you can click on the pictures and it should bring up a panel to view them all larger!* 

Now I leave you with two comics that Chris made- enjoy!! 

A New Chapter

 As I write this, we are cleaning up and packing away all our belongings once again- our time in Napier (this time around) has come to an end. It really is bitter sweet. We are eager to embark on the next exciting (and mostly unknown) leg of our journey, but we will miss the wonderful people and places we have come to know here. We just have to say, “Goodbye for now.”

Our AMAZING host family!! 

It's hard to say goodbye!

Before I get ahead of myself, we spent our last weekend on an amazing tractor tour of Cape Kidnappers. This tour just so happened to be on the day of our graduation- YAY we are college grads!! Because we obviously didn’t make it to the ceremony and there really wasn’t much of a to-do about it, it doesn’t feel any different. We did have a celebratory breakfast! Chris and I worked very hard over the past few years to make this happen and we are thrilled to start careers… somewhere… eventually… we’ll sort that out.

Yay, go us!! 

Back to the tour! This was one of the neatest experiences we’ve had so far. Driving about half an hour out of town, we arrived at this little shack where we picked up our tickets. We snacked on ice cream in the blazing heat, waiting for our ride. Soon enough, two big tractors with long wooden trailers rumbled down the road. Everybody on! Our tour guide, Rod, was hysterical right from the beginning! He humorously intertwined fascinating geological facts and driving gleefully into the waves and over rocks. After taking in the stunning views and information as we drove along the beach for about an hour we arrived at the end of the cape. Now, this tour is advertised as a gannet tour and this is where the gannets were… well almost. A bit of a hike through pastureland and rolling hills brought us to the Plateau Gannet Colony. We learned that these birds nest in the exact same spot every single year and they mate for life. As intoxicating as the smell of their poop was, the view was enough to make us stick around for a while. I am eager to see if the sea is this stunning kind of turquoise all around the country. We made our way back down, ate our lunch, and ventured back on the bumpy trailer.

We saw a man catch a stingray while fishing! 

The last week of school was just a blur! I will miss my little 5-year-olds so much! One of my little ones excitedly came into the room on Tuesday, flung out a skinny arm with a wrapped box and shouted, “Mrs. Curry, I got you a necklace!!!!”  I will cherish this beautiful necklace! It is a traditional Maori double twist. The twist represents the joining of two people for eternity; it symbolizes the bonds of friendship, loyalty and love that will last forever. Awww!

Now, we head to the nation’s capitol city, Wellington- our new home until mid January. After that, we plan to spend time traveling the South Island and possibly make it over to Australia. The plan (according to this week) is to travel, possibly work (seasonal jobs like fruit picking) and then try to make it back to The States for a job at the beginning of the new school year. Who knows if that plan will hold up though- we seem to keep changing our minds!

Off we go again!

Sending our love and warm Christmas spirit,

Us 

Rockin' Rollin' Graduates

Alright! Alright! I’m sorry I’ve been slacking in blogland, but that is because the real world has been so hectic! The school year is winding down for the kids, we had full control in the class, and on top of that turns out we have to figure out how to survive in the ‘real’ world- we graduate THIS WEEKED! What?! How did that happen? All that hard work and now it’s onto bigger and better things where hopefully we can stop paying other people and start getting paid!

Nevertheless, I am truly sorry for neglecting all of you!

We’ll start with last weekend when we went to the National Aquarium of New Zealand. We were very impressed! It is decently sized and it provided a wealth of information about the native species of the islands- turns out most animals aren’t native! The most exciting part was getting to see real live kiwi birds! Patience certainly paid off for us. As you do in museums, aquariums and the like, we started traveling in an adopted group of people meandering at a similar pace. After a few minutes of watching the two hardly visible kiwi birds run back and forth across the back wall, our acquaintances made their way out of the dark room to see the little penguins.

Live kiwi bird 

 Chris and I stayed behind, happy to admire them from afar. As if it could see us (which it couldn’t because of the one way glass), one of the moderately sized fowls waddled right up to us! I snapped pictures like crazy hoping that some iphoto editing would be able to bring out the little creature in its dim habitat.  (You see, they are trying to fool them into thinking its nighttime so they will be active.) It was marvelous!! Then, we moved onto the ‘little penguins’ - that’s actually what they are called because they really are the littlest! After the penguins, we made it just in time for the feeding of the animals in the aquatic archway. A humorous diver put on quite the show for us as he fed the stingrays from his own mouth, took a phone call, and hand fed the sharks. The show was a great way to finish off a fascinating visit.

Stuffed kiwi bird

 

Little Penguin! 

Later in the week, my CT’s delightful parents took us for a ride around town in their 1925 Fiat. After the ride, we enjoyed a delicious meal and relaxing visit. What a treat!

The past couple weeks at school we have been sending home books, writing final reports, and practicing relentlessly for our end-of-year Christmas program. (I wake up with Pukeko in a Ponga tree, the Kiwi 12 Days of Christmas, already stuck in my head!) Full control has been a liberating experience. It provided us the highly anticipated opportunity to single-handedly run the class. We are both ready for teacherdom! It was full-on (a Kiwi expression for ‘intense’) and we had little spare time, but it was a great way to see how piloting a classroom really works. 

To conclude our full control, the weekend rolled in with a 5.8 earthquake at 7:30AM Saturday morning. I must say that I was a little disappointed with my first quake at school where I experienced it, but didn’t feel a thing. So as startling as it was to be shaken awake, I’m pretty pleased that I actually felt an earthquake! The doors banging woke me and everything gradually started to rumble. I shot straight up and sent a forceful hand Chris’ way- “CHRIS! I think it’s an earthquake!” It lasted for about 30 seconds with subsequent smaller shakes to follow for the next few minutes. It wasn’t scary, but more of a totally new and unique experience. I’ve lived my whole life only hearing about such occurrences and now it was real. Needless to say, I was wide-awake and ready to go for the day! I spent the rest of the day being very productive compiling and packaging Christmas packages.

Sunday was spent relaxing on the beach and mulling around town. We were so entrenched in the day we even got lost on our way home to dinner- luckily we came across a dairy (convince store) and acquired sustenance… creamy, caramely, frozeny sustenance! In our aimless travels, we came across Bluff Hill lookout and subsequently the most stunning view of the bay! Eventually we found our way home.

So maybe we're lost... 

Now, as I mentioned, in less than a week we will be college graduates. This means we are thinking about… the future! Funny thing is, “the whole world is open” to us. I’m pretty sure my oh-so-knowledgeable mum said that some time ago and suddenly I believe it. I am going to be a teacher for a long, long time, but right now, what am I? I know that I am blessed with a voracious wanderlust and the perfect partner to venture the globe with me. Perhaps the best thing to do now is to travel. New Zealand has been the first stop on this trip, where next?! Plans change and this one may too. My desire for career stability (and a need for a dog) may lure us back to the states for the beginning of the next school year or we may work and volunteer our way across the seven seas. We plan to establish the next steps while we spend 3 weeks over the holiday in Wellington. As of now, we will head to the south island for a few weeks then perhaps to Australia. We’ll keep you posted!

Until next time!!! 

Exoskeleton of a recently molted cicada