Up north

(Careful, this is a loooooooong one!) 

My Dad's older sister got married and ask me to come and take the photos for her.  I was excited to be able to take Tui up north and to show him a little more of NZ.  We stayed in Ngunguru in the same holiday house that I had stayed in as a kid when we would come for summer holidays.  I had forgotten how beautiful it was up there.  We played tourist a little bit, visiting some historical sights, and had such a good time that we're going back for a few days early next year.

On one of our many pit stops along the way.

Ngunguru is such a great beach for kids. The bay is sheltered by an island, so there is vertially no waves or wind, and there are tons of different spots you can go to.  Dad took Tui and the boys for a little putter around, just like we used to as kids.

Lani just stayed and played in the sand with Grandma.

 




Soaking up the undivided attention from Grandparents.

 
My children are obsessed with Trampolines, but our house doesn't have the space for one, so they were over joyed to discover that the holiday house had one, and they spent every second they could on it.

 

We went to Paihia and visited the sight where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

 

 

This is the tree that was cut down to make this canoe, the largest in the world, made from one single tree.

  

 

 

We visited the Treaty house and the old homestead. If my 7th form history memory serves me correctly, I think this is James Busby.

  

 

 

 

This waterfall is one of 2 in the world that are in a horseshoe shape, the other being Niagra falls.

We thought that since we were already half way there were might as go the whole 9 yards and drive up to the top of NZ, to Cap Reinga.  It took way longer then we expected, but I was glad we did it.  It was surreal to stand there and look out and see nothing but sea, and this amazing amazing light, and to see where the pacific ocean and the tasman sea colide.

 

 

 

I've just finished watching a documentary about Zimbabwe and it made me feel so blessed to live in such a beautiful country where we can freely move around and enjoy the landscape that's been created.  I don't ever want to live anywhere else. :)

Miku

Last month we had a Japanese exchange student, Miku, come and stay with us for 3 weeks while she went to a local school.  What an experience it was.  I had experienced a sort of culture shock when I moved to Hawaii, but that was nothing compared to what our student went through.

She was 15 years old, deathly shy, and an only child, who's mother and father were both an only child.  So she had NO aunty's, uncles, cousins, nothing.  Imagine her shock when I told her I was one of 6 children, and had 43 first cousins on my mum's side of the family alone.  There were just so many things that were different to what she was used to; little kids and all the noise joy they bring, eating cereal for breakfast, using a western bathroom, hanging her washing outside on a washing line, helping cook dinner, having lots of free time. Language barrier was huge, but with the help of google translate and some sign language we made it through, and by the end of the 3 weeks she was so much more confident speaking english.  The boys loved her.  Vili called her "meetuuu" and bossed her around like no other, ordering her here and there, telling her to bless her food and get in the car and come play cars.  Malachi just wanted to be with her all the time.  They must have sat for hours on her bed reading books to each other.  He picked up on how I would speak slowly and with hand movements and started doing it too, it was hilarious.  It was awesome to share our ''kiwi'' lifestyle with her, and to have her share a bit of her with us. 

Here are some of the things we did while she was with us.

Playing at the park with the boys. She was super sporty so we were outside as much as possible.

 

We went for a walk through the arboretum, which happens to be infested with chickens. Miku was DEATHLY affraid of them, and after about 20minutes of coaxing, and me holding her hand (literally) we finally got her to feed one. She was so proud of herself.

 

We went out to Raglan Beach to play and have fish and chips.

 

 

We went to the stock cars, something very different for her.

  

She wore this super cute school uniform every day. 

  

 

The day before she left, her and the other students that had come over from her school in Japan put on a farewell evening, where they sung and danced and showed us little Japanese games.

 

 

They even had a little 'graduation' ceremony where they got a certificate for being in NZ lol.

 

We hope to have another student come next year and look forward to it.

1/2 a year

I have so much blogging to catch up on, but the most important of it all is that MY BABY GIRL IS 6 MONTHS OLD!!!  She's such an old lady now, and she's changed so much in the last month or so.

She has started sitting up on her own. It was funny coz it had never occured to me to even try sitting her up until I saw her cousin who's a month older sitting and I thought, huh, maybe I should try Lani, and sure enough, she could do it, I was just holding her back.  She loves it coz she can see so much more of what's going on around her then when she's lying down.

She can roll both ways like a pro now, but only ever once each way, no continuous rolling.

She can rotate 360 degrees, and is super fast, so I'll put her down, turn for a second and when I turn back she's facing another way and it almost gives me a fright. Lol.  She's also started shuffling backwards.  She pushes up with her arms like a push up and just shoves herself back until she gets stuck under the couch or up against something, and then we turn her around and she pushes back the other way.  I'm convinced she'll crawl before Christmas.\

She has said "mum mum" once, something that sounded like "brother"  twice, and says "da da" all the time.  It's actually really cute, we have these little conversations that go like this.

"Say muma"

"da da da"

"no say MUMA"

"da da da da"

"MUMA!!!"

"DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA"

She also says "ra" "ga" and "ba".  And she growls. All the time, low and long, like a wild animal. It's so funny.  And if you growl at her, she'll growl back. lol.

We started her on solids at about 5 months, but it seems like everything we try to give her she either hates and refuses (such as pumkin, apple, kumera) or else she loves it but it makes her severely constipated (banana, rice cereal).  It's so frustrating.  Because she's not getting full from food, she has to get it from me, which means we're back to waking up every 2 hours because shes so hungry.  She still won't take a bottle which means I can't even give her formula.  The ONLY 2 foods we've found she likes are canned pears and avocados.  I'm hoping it's just an age thing.  She is happy to hold stuff in her hand to suck on, like melon etc, but she doesn't actually EAT much of it so it isn't much help. Sigh.

She is super ticklish and, still has tons of rolls, her hair is growing, she likes to bang things, she makes fart noises all the time, her eyes light up when she sees her brothers, she gets shy if someone talks to her and snuggles into me, she loves listening to the Polkadots, she laughs if we clap, we call her our 'Lady Baby', and pretty much she's awesome.