On December 5, Luke and Ryan went on a field trip to the Raglan surf club for school for a beach education unit at school. The learned how to swim in the ocean, how to watch for signs safety signs in the oceans and how to work with life guards. They came back changed men....ocean swimming addicts!
On December 7 and 8, we decided to celebrate my birthday by going to the zoo and to some friends' houses. The most exciting part was feeding the giraffes carrots. On Sunday, I was surprised by cakes everywhere we went!
One made by Steven and Natalie Wong!
One made by our neighbors, the MacMillians!
On December 14, we accidentally found ourselves at a city sponsored Super Hero party!
On December 18, the kids finished their New Zealand school year! I found out I was awarded the scholarship, and then we started creatively decorating with left-over decorations from the neighbors, the forever helpful MacMillians.
Then our ward's young men and young women showed up at our house to sing Christmas carols!
On December 21, Steve and Natalie Wong took us on an adventure to the southern Coromandel. We went to Waihi beach, a beautiful waterfall, and a hike through a closed train tunnel. We also stopped in Paeroa to take pictures with the L&P bottle ;)
Paeroa
On December 23, we went to the Hamilton temple to see the temple Christmas lights.
On December 24, we had a simple Christmas Eve. Ryan spent the night preforming security at the temple and the kids and I watched a Christmas movie.
December 25: Christmas Morning!
It's at this point, that I must acknowledge that we would have never had a Christmas without the generosity of others. I cannot believe the kindness we've experienced, and I never want to forget it. Most of the gifts we had were supplied by many of "Santa's helplers!" We've made huge sacrifices to be in New Zealand. We have learned a life time worth of lessons, gifts were an added bonus!
Knowing the missionaries were going to come over for the day, Suzanne dressed in a skirt and put on her missionary tag. It was darling, although she wasn't particularly interested in taking a picture.
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Swingball!
Cricket.
Sad Eric lost at swingball.
Kindly given "New Zealand" specific gifts.
We ended the day with Christmas dinner with the missionaries in our ward and with some new friends, the Blasers, recent arrivals from Arizona. For our dinner, we had Cafe Rio style salads! Can't get better than that! Sister Fitzgibbon also honored us with Pavlovas, a New Zealand/Australian Christmas dinner tradition.
Wow- December was crazy- Slow down! I felt like you were always having a blast :)
ReplyDeleteWow, you guys had so many amazing stories in Dec. It was fun reading. and seeing.
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