No Big

For those of you trudging through the snow, maybe sledding or building a snowman,THIS is what I was doing today: Playing on a beach, with a sun so hot I had to use SPF 50 just to try and stay pastey white!
Here are all 16 girls from my program at Orewa beach this afternoon! Too cute, too cute. I am third from the left if you can't find me. I like this place, its east coast which means white sand and minimal waves (Tasman side has black sand and big waves) but the waves were just barely there enough to boogie board! I sometimes get a little chicken when the water is super rough like it has been at the beach backhome the past couple of years, so this was a great way to boogie board for a wuss like me, although you don't go very fast. We went on a long walk down the whole stretch of beach until it ended...at a straight up rock face/cliff thing which was so cool! I will post pictures once I get them from Rebecca, cause it looked so tropical, like something you'd stumble upon in theamazon. We also played in the sand and had quite the photoshoot (for before/after pictures, duh, gotta have those) and got fresh strawberry ice cream on the way home! The perfect summer day :)
I learned a new word yesterday (I learn a lot, this one was significant to me): Morish (pronounced more-ish). Heidi brought peanut butter m&ms for our homestays to try cause they don't have them here, and last night Sheryl said they were very morish. I've been trying lately not to act like such a stupid newb-American girl by just going along with what people say, pretending that I'm following (ya know how I said they probably think I'm slow...trying to act like I'm not) but when she said that, I just had to ask her what she meant. "You know, like they make you want more and more of them!" hahaha they made a word for that? I like that one.



Other than that, we go to school, do homework, play with Kodie and Alexis (Alexis has been slowly giving me her most prized possessions, such as a funky green rock, a barbie pencil case, or today a matchbox car and a ribbon!) (and Kodie always has to come in a give Heidi and I kisses before bed, love him! plus "Anna" is one of his like 3 words), go on walks to Jess and Christine's house, go for runs on these impossibly hill-y streets, try to go swimming but never make it to the pool when they come over, and we even had a girls night with Phyllis tonight! She is Jess and Christine's homestay, and when we were painting our nails tonight, she said she had never had paint on her toenails before (she's like pushing 70)! So Jess painted her nails for the first time, it was precious. She served us milo, similar to hot chocolate, but her version is very watered down. Sis Anderton said we will be drinking milo every morning at school during "morning tea" where all the teachers take a break to get some tea while the kids go outside. Then we watched sister act which didn't seem like a very proper, old, British woman's type of movie, so it was great :)