Teach Children: Check.

On Tuesday, I officially finished all of my assignments for the semester, and today was the last day of my practicum (being in the schools) so my semester is completely finished! I still won't be home for just under 4 weeks though, cause I have a lot of the world to see before I'm done over here. Starting tomorrow morning we will leave for Hamilton and Rotarua, then I will be home for a day, gone for another week, home for two days, then off to Australia, then off to Samoa, so don't be offended if I don't respond for a couple of days because I don't know where I'll have internet and where I won't! At the very least, I'll be home in 4 weeks and we can chat then :)First of all, can't ever get enough of these sunsets. That's basically all. Except the sky looked SO much cooler apprx 3 minutes before this- it goes too fast!

Monday started out fun a super chill day at school, then we had FHE plans that night! We went to the Olsen's house for dinner and FHE as we did a couple of weeks ago, and we just love it there! They have six kids ages 3-15 and the parents are the sweetest and most welcoming people. We have been so lucky to have them in our ward here. This is the five year old, Vanz who is clearly a ladies' man.

On Tuesday I spent lunch learning how to haka with some of the boys in my class. I had asked them a while ago if they know how to do it and all assured me they were pros, but I may or may not have forgotten that at age 6, kids still think they are really good at everything even when they could use a little more practice. Needless to say Kapa (far right) went home that night and learned it for real so he could re-teach me before I left :)

Today was a GREAT last day! We had a little field trip to a nearby park for a rubbish clean-up which we walked to, cleaned up, played on the playground, and walked back from. The rest of the day was just playing and swimming, but with so much lovin in between! The staff had a surprise lunch planned for us of tasty finger foods, my kids made me a HUGE card (which they all signed but all within the same 3" square, most were spelled right so that's a plus), I got lots of hugs (which I later found out is not really supposed to happen as a teacher, my bad), lots of "I'll miss you miss..." with all variations of Goode at the end (such as Cood, Google, Goose, Coo), but the best were the "I love you"'s from the little terrors in my class that I send to "the blue desk" several times a day! Seriously, little Chance who used to be so bad, and still is for most except for me, made it all worth it when he sheepishly came to play with me and just kept saying "I'm gonna miss you, misses" under his breath. I love this job.

We had lots of time this afternoon to just play and have fun, and of course refine our haka. Farewell Room 21!

Some highlights from the past couple weeks:

Deb: Rrrrr, what letter says rrrr?

Selwyn: Tiger!

Levi was telling me to say hi to his dad when I go to Samoa: Go to the bank, cause he's stuck in a cage at the bank because he stole a bunch of money. His name is Rio....(some super long name) (sad, but just funny how he said it)

Ms. W: What does fantastic mean?

Levi: Good-As?

The next 3 answers were -as answers.

Mrs. Hobson: Why doesn't he want Monkey to steal his shoes?

Bailey: Cause he doesn't want monkey toe jams in it!

Some of my students asked Jessica (Miss Bringhurst) what her name was, but they couldn't say it, so they asked: Can we just call you Miss Goode?

Norhan: Sometimes you can't even walk because there is so much poop everywhere.

Me: Where? (She had told me yesterday that Ana had pooped in the bathroom so I thought she was referring to that or something)

Norhan: In Thailand. (She has told me everyday for the past 6 weeks about her trip to Thailand that has been in 14 or 17 days every day since I arrived. Usually its about the high-heels for kids or the beautiful dresses or the swimming pool from which you can see all of Thailand, so this was a first)

Levi came rushing out of the changing room, shirtless as usual, and told Jess and me that Paerata had thrown someone's underwear over the wall into the girls changing room, so we told him we'd go get it and he said: It's black, and really dirty!

(Sick, you go get it then!)

I have never been asked so many times in one week (let alone one day) when I'm going home to Australia. I think it's cause Levi likes to ask me how things are back in Australia and it has kind of gotten stuck in everyone's head. Finally yesterday I stopped the class and reminded them I'm from America, not Australia so today when Levi said something about me and Australia, I said, "Where am I from again?" and he immediately said America...so somewhere he's not making the connection.

They Call It Work?

School was great this week! I had some major break-throughs with my kids discipline-wise cause I’ve refused to yell at them and in my 5^th week I finally started seeing positive results! Here is most of our wonderful Room 21, aren’t they a handsome bunch? FYI I was crouching down, I am in actuality significantly taller than 5 and 6 year olds, I just wanted to fit in, ok?

It was a particularly fun week because we had some fun with the kids outside of the classroom. On Tuesday we had a teacher vs students (seniors only) softball game during morning tea, which was legit! It was so fun with all of the younger kids watching and cheering us on, and my cool level sky-rocketed with the boys in my class once they saw me with a big hit (even though it was caught so I got out). Plus, who doesn’t love a reason for a casual Tuesday.

On Wednesday we got to go with the swim team (11 kids yrs 6-8) to an away meet to be timers, and that’s basically what we did all day was time but it was a lot of fun getting to hang out with the older kids cause they think we’re the coolest (don’t tell them our secret about how we’re actually not). It was also nice to have a whole day off but still get to spend it with kiddies.

Friday was a cruzy day of swimming, walks, homework, grape vine trimming, Christchurch earthquake memorial service on TV, and a sleepover with all the girls that night. These grapes are SO good, despite the seeds.

We went to the skytower for lunch on Saturday! It was so much more exciting than I had expected- first of all the view is, naturally, amazing, but then we had lunch in a revolving resturant with 4 courses at $55 a person and we were all dressed up so we felt quite fancy! We loved the revolving feature: there was a little ledge on the outside of the ring that stayed still so we would put notes or different things on it (or just stand) and wait for it to reach the table behind us, so it was an eventful 3 hour meal. Here I am with Diana, Katie, and Rebecca J After all that food we went and took a nap on a beach in town.

We went to a rugby game and guess who was there! Alyssa Isidoridy! Alyssa lived directly across the street from me all through elementary and middle school, and I hadn’t seen her since high school, but she is here on a study abroad too! We noticed each other’s New Zealand pictures on facebook so we switched numbers and decided to meet up at the game. It was so fun catching up and talking about making grilled cheese on snow days!

The Lord’s took us to Yum Cha (pronounced Yum Chow, oddly enough, which is coincidentally a very appropriate name for it as well) which is a type of Chinese restaurant where they bring the food around on trolleys and you say “yes please” and they mark it on your ticket and everyone just dives in and is eating so fast (except for me, those darn chop sticks got so sticky cause I kept having to compensate with my hands, but then grab my chop sticks again, snowball effect). What’s that you ask? Are you eating French fries? Why no, that’s actually a chicken foot. What’s that? Was it tasty? Why no, it reminded me too much of a cold, clammy, bony, wrinkly finger marinated in one of the Asian sauces that I dislike. But how exotic am I? Check a chicken’s foot off of my list of foods to try- done and done.

Here we are after eating with the whole family! From left to right: Raewyn (Sheryl’s mom who lives in an attached house, she watches the kids all day), Heidi, me, Sheryl, Alexis, Kodie, and Kerry. Love them!

On an Island in the Sun...

This week was the Pasifika festival in Auckland where there were lots of shows, food, souvenirs, etc, so Thursday night we went to the festival opener which had just one stage open that showcased one dance/song from each of the islands represented at the festival.

Because we are at the mercy of the bus schedule for our arrivals, we got there an hour early but found it very easy to kill time in the beautiful Western Springs park. There were REAL LIVE PUKEKOS which I was holding at about a unicorn level up to this point because we hadn't seen any, but at this park the pukekos were just out amongst the ducks, geese, black swan things (freaky red eyes, I feel like they were an omen, waiting for something bad to happen now), and pigeons. Let me just tell you, they are so funny because they have such long skinny legs that remind me of an awkward teenager. The Pukeko in a Ponga tree is real, my friends.

That mountain that is right behind my head (excellent placement) is the volcanoon Rangitoto Island that Heidi and I hiked on Friday. Before going Raewyn told me it was a "new" volcanoe, "it just erupted 900 years ago" so I was a little bummed we weren't going to see any bubbling lava, but maybe a little more relaxed knowing I was going to make it home that night. We took a ferry from the city to get there and we realized that we had officially taken every mode of transportation we could so far on this trip: airplanes, cars, buses, feet, a train, and now a boat. Did I miss any? We thought that wasexciting.

Here we are at the top, overlooking Auckland! It's kind of hard to see, cause the skytower is directly behind my head (again, grateful to those who took our picture for us, but we kinda missed the point here) and cause its a very flat and sprawling city, but there she is!

Today we went to see more of the Pasifika festival. They had all of the different islands set up a stage and lots of tents with vendors for food and cool things to buy in different parts of the park. Here I am watching the Kiribati dancers, whom I had never even heard of before. Along with Kiribati the islands represented were Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, and Tangata (Maori/Aotearoa fits in there somewhere too). Very cool to see the little differences in each culture. We are now working on our hula-ish/ grass skirt dancing in front of our mirror so we're pros by the time we go home:)

Vacation From My Vacation

I was talking to my friend, Nancy, the other day and she pointed out that all of our little trips we take are basically vacations from our vacation. That's when I decided that I love my life :)

Here are some of my cute kids!

Selwyn and Benjamin: Selwyn is not the best behaved but I have the hardest time saying no to those dimples. You can hardly understand a word he says because of some sort of speech impediment or something (it's almost like he mumbles to an extreme) so he does plenty of talking with his eyebrows! Benjamin had head trauma (that's what they refer to it as) when he was younger so he is in our class but there is a teacher aid glued to his side all day, even while playing outside. I wish he was showing his teeth because he is so cute without his two front teeth!

Our school has Swimming Sports this week, aka a school wide swim meet which was so exciting! The kids have swimming 3 times a week (I get in with them, so fun!) and we work on things like blowing bubbles and using kick boards, so they just did short races against kids their age such as "running" in the water for a short distance. So fun! From front to back of the line: Sam, Selwyn, someone not in my class, and Chance (Chance is the one white boy in my class whose entire name I can say). The girl with the long braid on the side is Alexis who I live with- check out that hair!

Some of the Room 21 girls before their big race! From front to back of the line again: Faith (as opposed to another girl who used to be in our class Phayth, pronounced the same), Alondra, Italy ("like the country"), Mariayah, Ana, and Kyara.

This is the most quoted LEVI that I have blogged so much about. He is the youngest in my class (started school last October, everyone starts on their 5th birthday) and he is just so funny. Here he wouldn't smile because he was distraught over his lost shirt after swimming sports. We never did find it, eh.

Some more "Why I Teach..." moments (I realize they're probably more entertaining to me cause you may have needed to be there/ hear their accent/ know them so feel free to skip over this part):

Ana brings in a pterodactyl for show and tell and talks all about it with some impressive facts, and said they lived "ages and ages ago, like real old" then Levi chimed in: Ummmm they were actually around in the 80's, not the 50's. (Mind you she hadn't mentioned anything about the 50's but I'm glad to see you've got your thinking cap on, Levi)

We were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up and last time we talked about it Ana told me she was going to be an "acrobatic" (not acrobat, they corrected me) but this time: I'm going to be a really famous artist when I'm a grown up. I'm already kind of a famous artist because I have drawn heaps of beautiful pictures. I'm also a famous dancer right now.

Alondra showed the class a picture from when she was little and Mariayah asked: when were you little?

Hey, at least it was a question instead of a statement this time, right Mariayah? (they are learning the difference between questions and statements at the moment)

Me: We're going to sing now. You're a pretty good singer, right? (He had explained before how good he was and that he would be famous one day)

Levi: Yeah, I'm a GOOD-AS singer! I'll sing anything you want right now. What should I sing? (in a very bring-it type of tone) (they add AS to everything, not the a-word as I thought when I first got here, sweet-as, good-as, cool-as, big-as...)

Benjamin: Good morning Room 21.

Class: Good morning Benjamin (standard procedure for oral language practice/ show and tell)

Benjamin: This is my hankie. You go like this **blows his nose**

I thought it was very informative.

This weekend we went away to Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Penninsula. We rented some beach houses and stayed Thursday and Friday night. We sat on the deck watching the waves, star gazed, watched the sunrise, and played on the beach!

So this place is bizarre. On this one spot on the beach, you wait for the tide to go out and dig holes to make little hot tubs! The water that comes up is super hot, we even had to bring in buckets from the ocean at some spots cause it was too hot. It has something to do with volcanoes and carbon dioxide or something, but it is the strangest/ coolest thing! Nancy and I were holding down our spot while we waiting for the tide to go out- this spot was so hot that we were basically dancing the whole time so as not to burn our feet!

We were the only people on the beach all morning, but it looked like this for a good 4 hours, then every desserted once the tide came back in. The advice we were given before finding a spot to dig was "Be aggressive!" because the people are so crazy :)

On Saturday we went by Cathedral Cove on the way home which is another Narnia filming spot that is beautiful. Unfortunately we couldn't actually go down to the cove because of the rainy season, but we went down some crazy muddy paths (slid down is probably more accurate) and climb around rocks to get a good view from outside of the cove. The pictures are on another camera so stayed tuned for those on facebook later or something. Here I am with Neeley and Whitney heading down to the cove!

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Although school is fun (what's not to love about 1st grade??) the weekends are where we really get to explore and experience New Zealand! This past weekend was particularly packed with fun stuff and minimal lesson planning.

On Friday, Heidi and I went on a Coast-to-Coast city walk where we basically followed a map that took us walking all over Auckland to hit a lot of the big sites and see many hidden treasures along the way. We started on the northern coast and walked down to the southern coast as we walked around the University of Auckland (found mini- Brigham Square, felt so at home), through the "Auckland Domain" aka huge park in Auckland that hosts many a cricket game and romantic picnic, up Mt. Eden so we got to see it in daylight (also where we met a fellow traveler, Leon from London who disagreed with us many times about which way would get us to the top and later to the bottom of the hill, fun to talk to though), through many city streets which we took note of for a future evening out on the town, around and up One Tree Hill (which is currently No Tree Hill, cause they can't agree on what kind of tree to plant...so you go with a monument instead? Ok, do it your way), and finally to the other coast (although you never quite make it to the coast coast, cause there is a motorway in the way)! We walked 16 km (give or take, may or may not have needed help with the map TWICE) in 5 hours.

Here I am with the monument on One Tree Hill. Look familiar? I sure hope you got permission from Washington for this one. I thought it was appropriate that I was wearing my VA shirt and visiting the mini Washington Monument :) (yes, I do know the monument is in DC, don't worry, I got it).

We went to Piha beach with the entire group on Saturday. It is one of the more popular beaches around Auckland. James showed us around, taking us climbing around the rocks to get to this HUGE cove, called Honeymoon Cove that was absolutely beautiful and like nothing I've seen before. I don't really know how to describe it other than big sandy area with cliffs on 3 sides and big rocks on the 4th side that water crashes against for a very theatrical feel. This is Rebecca and me on the rocks right at the mouth of the cove (not getting too close to the edge, duh).

As we were leaving the cove, going back to the main part of the beach, we walked up along a mountain/cliff this where there were good views of Piha. That big rock is called Lion rock and it is just right in the middle of the beach area. Here I am with Hannah, Janet, and Whitney!

Next, James took us to another beach down the road at Karekare where we had to walk along a river (or wade, but that was risky business with cameras in tow) to get to the beach. I should tell you that at both of these beaches are west coast beaches which means they have black sand (don't forget your jandals aka flip flops) and they have really rough waves. There are huge rescue crews on watch at all times with a huge canopy set up on the beach and they set up flags everyday marking where it is safe to swim. The rescue at Piha even has a show on TV on Monday nights called Piha Rescue, and people die there all the time. Needless to say, we didn't exactly swim all that much during our visit.

From the beach at Karekare we took a ten minute walk and arrived at these waterfalls! How cool? Beach one minute, and the next you're "tramping" (nothing to do with trampolines or promiscuous women, it means hiking) or "bush walking" through a tropical forest! I hadn't gotten in the water all day up to this point, but I just couldn't resist.

That night we had a little combined birthday party for the three of us who turned 21 this month because 21 is traditionally a big deal in New Zealand (fading fast, apparently). On this birthday, people are given a key to the house, showing they are finally old/ responsible enough to come and go as they please, so we got big paper keys that everyone signed. This was our cake-- almost as wide as the three of us combined! Here, the birthday-er makes their wish as they make the first cut into the cake, not when they blow out the candles. Also, at this party (but not at the one's we've had with our family) we blew out the candles before everyone sang. Everyone does a little Hip Hip Hooray after they sing too.

Our Beginnings at Colwill

We're back in primary school! The beginning of the year is always so exciting, and a little chaotic, so we're loving it!

But before we started school and after our trip...

Kerry took us fishing! Alexis and I often sat at the end of the boat to fish which was probably not my best idea and here's why: Within 5 minutes of getting situated up there, I broke the boat! Kerry told me to scoot back, so I did, but I scooted onto the window of the hatch which is apparently plastic and I BROKE IT. How awkward... "Did I do that?" Erkel style. Kerry was cool with it (don't worry mom, told him I'd pay for it...still waiting for my total to come in though) and we continued to fish. Then Alexis and I were having a little competition that involved dangling our feet in the water, but when I went to stand up, my slippery, wet foot slipped and I rammed my shin into the safety bar and I could have sworn I broke my leg. Fo rills. (I didn't cry though, cause I know you were thinking that.) When the throbbing stopped approximately 3 minutes later and discovered I could walk (it's a miracle!) I felt a little stupid for assuming the worst (although I told no one I got hurt) and figured I'd at least have a sweet bruise to show for it. That night I told Sheryl about my misfortune and she gave me Arnica cream (that might be way off) that was supposed to reduce the bruising (I wasn't buying into it) but I put it on cause she was standing there watching me and I couldn't just say "No thanks, that's balogna" and guess what: NO BRUISE. I was disappointed, not gonna lie.

We caught a total of 13 snapper that day, this being the one HUGE one Jessica caught (the rest were all the size of the pictured above) so we brought him home after Kerry so gruesomly destroyed his brain while on the boat so cook him up. I was scared but he was delicious! (Alexis named him Chompers which made the execution and cooking/eating that much harder for us all) When we were taking these pictures Kerry gave us a tip to hold it as far away from you as possible to make it look huge, but he really was this big, I promise! While we were fishing Kerry kept saying there was no use for fish finders that day because the other boats could just listen for all the squealing we made each time someone caught a fish... it's probably true, we were pathetic, very obviously newbs.

I started my practicum on the following Monday in Ms. Khan/ Ms. Whitehouse's Year 1 and 2 class. Year 1 is like our kindergarten and 2 like first grade, so 5 and 6 year olds! The past two weeks have been good, but a little bit of an adjustment from American schools. We came here to learn about their teaching methods and were told to not take anything away from their discipline and it has been surprising to see why. Their system is basically yell until you've scared them. I simply can't do that, and my teachers have said things like "Your voice doesn't really carry" or "You have to have different tones: one for when you are nice and one so they know when they have crossed the line" or "Did they meet your expectation? No? Now blast at them" but from my experience in the American schools, a teacher can be even more effective when they use a soft, quiet voice, and it is possible to have a quiet, peaceful classroom. I'm still figuring out what to do, but I figure if I can keep them quiet enough to teach them something while keeping their dignity in tack, then I can do my own thing with discipline once I'm back home.

I was excited to get the youngest because the younger they are usually means the funnier they are. I've been writing down the funny things I hear, and realize that most of them are from the same couple people. I guess the others just need to share their insight with me more (maybe the others just aren't quite as creative with their thinking yet...) Here are some of my favorite things:

Sam starts playing with my arm hair and says: You don't have black feathers! (Unfortunately he was disrupting so I had to cut him off and didn't get to hear him elaborate)

Ms. W got something wrong when she was teaching and says: Well teachers don't know everything, ya know?
Selwyn: YES THE DO! (very emotionally)
Ms. W: No, they really don't.
Selwyn: YES. THEY. DO!

Levi: I had electric shock one day. On my foot.
Benjamin: Did you die?
Levi: No, it just hurt.

Levi: Did you know there are real baby dragonflies? There are. They breathe just a little bit of fire. I saw a real dragonfly that breathed heaps of fire at my friend's house. That's why I came to New Zealand. My friend's was in Australia.

Ms. W: Why is spider scared of bird?
Levi: Because he might eat his brains up!
moments later... Levi: Birds eat cats. (Very matter-of-fact-ly and kind of to himself.)

I read a book called When Henry had Imaginitis and I asked if anyone knew what "imagination" meant, Levi raised his hand, took a deep breath and said: Katie Perry once said, "If you live within your imagination, you will get everything you want."

Ms. W: So tonight when you're having a shower, think about if you gave this notice to mum and dad.
Selwyn: So do we have to have a shower?

We were discussing the Christchurch earthquake and Levi brought up the Australia floods: My cousin Jessie was on a plan to Australia when it was flooding.
Ms. K: Is she alright?
Levi: Yes, she's still on the plane.

Today I overheard a conversation between Levi, Kyara, and Ana at lunch about the Easter Bunny and God, but I could mostly just hear Levi's side of it...
Ana: You can't ever see the Easter Bunny, eh?
Levi: No, you can't. You have to stay asleep or God will come down and growl at you. You can't see God cause he's in the sky...(they must have carried on about God)... I saw a picture of God once, so that means he's real.

Imagine all of those in a New Zealand accent, with many more "eh?" added in. So great. Pictures of cute children to come soon.

I like this whole teacher thing, kids hand you stuff all day (and you take away distractions) and its sometimes fun to look down into your hands and realize what you've been holding for the past hour. At one point today it was a price tag, a huge pencil case covered in blue dragons, two broken pencils, a stack of papers, and a Barbie microphone.

Something I learned this week: kids will do ANYTHING for stickers. The shinier the better.

This age is also entertaining because they are so often in their own world, and hear what they want to hear. For example, we played heads down thumbs up yesterday and only two people had their thumbs squeezed each round, but without fail we had at least 5-7 kids stand up each round when we asked who's thumbs were squeezed.

I haven't stopped singing this song since I first heard it 11 days ago.

Last weekend we went to Point Chev beach on Friday (we get Fridays off, excellent set up) and just bummed on the beach literally all day. No pictures, so sorry.

On Saturday we spent the morning at Kodie's 2nd birthday party at a huge play place. That night we went into Auckland and went around the Chinese Lantern Festival (they've been celebrating the Chinese new year for like a month, it's not exactly NEW anymore, is it people?) There were lanterns galore (would have been cooler at night) and a whole street lined with food vendors. This was one of the best moments of my weekend:

Me: Are those oysters?
Heidi: No, I think muscles.
Together: So many muscles!

We thought it was funny :)

That night we went to our first rugby game. It was so much more exciting than anticipated! I expected it to be a lot like football, but it was so much more entertaining to watch because it's fast-paced, plays are much longer/ the clock doesn't stop, they have big fire shooters for when the home team scores, everyone is super into it, rugby players are FINE (dibs on the blues' kicker #10)
(or the entire cantebury crusaiders team), plus we were watching guys that play for the All Blacks! I decided that its a perfect mix of wrestling, soccer, and cheerleading because they do essentially wrestle, the movement around the field is more like a soccer-type of sport, and they throw one guy up in the air like a cheerleading stunt everytime a ball is thrown in bounds. I'd like to apologize for those sitting close to us for the group of loud and stupid American girls sitting by them who asked a question every time someone else touched the ball, or didn't touch the ball.

This is the first (and quite possibly only) time in my life that I would have a summer birthday! So my day started out great when I got to school and both my teacher and my teacher aid had brought me chocolate cakes, as well as a boquet of flowers! They are too sweet. I let the whole staff have at one of the cakes in the staff room during morning tea, so the entire thing was gone by the end which was good news for my hips. That night I went to dinner in another part of the city to an Indian resturant (I have had SO much Indian food since being here, it is fantastic!) and it was, of course, so good. At the end of the dinner they brought out a cake that Sheryl had made at her favorite little cake joint and they decorated it like a Reese's heart! So funny because Sheryl always makes it sound like I rave on and on about Reese's, so she stole one of mine and the guy did a SOLID job making it look exactly the same. She makes so much fun of us "American girls and their peanut butter" because I have gotten Reese's holiday shapes (one of the best candies known to man, duh. Second only to Reese's crispy crunchy bar.) in 3 out of 4 packages I have recieved here. Plus peanut butter m&m's. They don't have any Reese's here so I am so grateful to the love I have been shown through these packages.

Afterwards, Kerry took the kids home to bed and Sheryl and Raewyn (Sheryl's mom who lives here too) took Heidi and I to Mt. Eden which is the highest point in the city and you can see the whole city in every direction. It's best to go at night so you can see the lights. It is actually a volcano and it has a huge crater at the top, looks like an excellent sledding hill. The best part of this experience was listening to Sheryl and Raewyn carry on. They tease each other so much and they make each other laugh SO HARD that they're both crying and we can no longer understand a word they are saying. Sheryl (who I'd say is in her late 30's) even started driving away from the gas station as Raewyn came out from paying and was beside herself when we heard Raewyn yelling from outside. This picture is funky, but you get the idea :)

My birthday was made complete with a phone call to my mom and a surprise boquet of my favorite- sunflowers! From a secret admirer? Thanks to you, mystery man!

South Island Adventures!

I have been back for a week and a half and can finally update you on my life! So sorry these are long overdue! Let's just start from the beginning, shall we?

DAY ONE:
We left at 5:35 for our flight down to Queenstown and felt so famous as we exited the airplane (aeroplane here, what??) via stairs as we put on our shades and waved to everyone (who were all facing the terminal on their way off the plane... I still felt important). Even the land around the airport was beautiful with huge green mountains. This is where we met our buses that we would be spending so much of the next week in, and we just went into Queenstown to drop our stuff at the hostile before exploring. THE LAKE IS REAL. I can't emphasize that enough, cause I know that teal doesn't look like a color found in nature, but its real and just the most beautiful thing out there.
That afternoon Dr. Jacobs took us to the Shotover Jet which is a boat that can drive in super shallow water. The guys train for 8 hours a day for 3 months before taking passengers because they drive so fast and so close to the rocks. It was so fun, Janet and I couldn't stop laughing the whole time because we kept getting so scared! It was one of those times you are exhausted after a 20 minute ride because of smiling and laughing and screaming so much! I especially appreciated the Asian guy in front of us that was praising the Lord (with his hands and all) after every corner in very broken English :)
Then we drove on to Arrowtown which is just a cute little town with like two streets of shops, resturants, old-fashioned candy stores, etc. I bought some Jade there that I plan on setting into a ring someday (jade is all the rage here. Every shop specializes in jade, paua shells, and bone carving stuff and thats what they have tons of at all these markets we've been to).
Monday night we took a long drive through Glenorchy which is one of the places where Lord of the Rings was filmed, aka cool overgrown/ mossy forests and then beautiful mountain scenes. This was our first exposure to New Zealand's abundance of sheep! Jessica even got out and chased one down just to be able to touch it, very exciting. This picture was taken at our turn around point which was so pretty with the sun starting to set. It was a super bumpy ride along dirt roads for 2-3 hours but that made it just that much more fun!


DAY TWO:
In the morning we decided to discover more of Queenstown and went for a walk through the park/gardens (to be refered to from now on as "the gardens" if I ever refer to it again) where there is a decorative river (bigger than a stream, but not a full on river...) with fountains, cool trees, cool flower, and lots of walking paths. Then we took a little hike to Sunshine Bay through the woods (pictured here) (which is also where I did a headstand on a tree stump for those up to date on my facebook albums). One of my first hikes in my vans (Dr. J scared us into thinking he'd be strict about us packing lightly...which is why I repeated so many outfits, so sorry), but I felt just fine, they never let me down!
That afternoon we went to The Puzzling World which we were worried would be totally lame (why would you go to a museum when you are in the most beautiful place for outdoorsie stuff??) but it was much cooler than expected. Huge human maze which we never figured out after 50 minutes...I know I'm smart though, ok? On the way there we stopped at a huge fruit stand that was such a wonderful sight, so much fruit everywhere as well as real fruit ice cream, so we all loaded up on fruit for the week and we got to sample stuff like green plums! Odd how that was one of the more exciting parts of my day... don't make fun.

Basically every night we spent sitting along the wharf watching the sunset, sometimes eating gelato with street performers in the background and little jewlery vendors (got sweet bracelets) which was another one of my favorite things.


DAY THREE:
Big. Day.
On Monday we paid for all of our activities for the week, which is just about the only reason I went through with my bungy jump, cause I totally think I would have backed out if I had to decide that morning! I went with a girl from my group named Nicole, and I'm also glad I did that because after we get all harnessed and tied up around the angles, we penguin walk to the edge and the nice old man counts down from 5 and I knew we would be much more likely to get hurt if we didn't jump in sync (n*sync?) cause they told us you have to jump head first to keep your neck safe when you hit the bottom of the rope. I was oddly calm as they were tying us up, and I just really don't know what came over me cause it was surprisingly easy to jump! Maybe its because I had seen a couple girls go before me (someone did a spectacular pocahontas dive, very inspirational for future bungy jumpers) but we just went for it! It was crazy, and it was kinda nice knowing we weren't going to get dunked (a popular option) at the bottom cause otherwise I think I would have been focusing on closing my eyes and stuff, but this way I would just enjoy the view. Oh yeah, right before we went, a rainbow appeard directly in front of us and for some reason that made me feel so calm about it, plus the guys just told us to aim for the rainbow which was a fun thought. Anywho, I did it, check out my fb for more pictures. One I am keeping private (the postcard I sent you, Mom and Dad) shows the pure terror on my face mid-jump, I just think it looks goofy to be honest. It's probably the most accurate of my true feelings at the time though...

After that greatest feat of my life (really was a big feat. I had thought about putting it on my bucket list but decided against it because I thought I would never do it in a million years, so might as well not put something on that I won't be able to check off. I have since put it back on with a large check next to it.) we thought we were the coolest/bravest/most dare-devilish people on the planet, so we thought the world's largest swing would be a piece of cake. But then we got to the bridge you walk to get out to the launching platform...it was super long, narrow, 140m high, and swayed in the wind so much that we had to hold on for dear life every step of the way! The platform is also just suspended on cables between two mountains anyway so it swayed the whole time. We saw this other guy go first and then got even more scared because we hadn't realized you have a huge freefall before the cord is pulled taught! Luckily on this one the machine lets you go so you don't have to take the initiative to jump. The lady hooking us up was taunting us the entire time being like "wow, we're super high, huh?" and stupid stuff, but that made it even more fun as we got even more scared! It was so fun though, even longer free fall than our bungy, but then you are just swinging so high, and I rode with Whitney so it was fun to just scream our lungs out. A great bonus? 3 words: Free. Trucker. Hats. It was legit. Also the van ride up there was crazy cause the driver even told us to all move to one side of the van at one point going around a curve on the edge of a cliff.
Needless to say we had to go home and take a nap cause our heads were hurting from so much adrenaline in one day. Such a great day though!

That afternoon we went up the mountain in a Gondola to ride the luge (little carts on these big tracks going down the mountain, then you ride up a ski lift and go again) and this picture is from up there by the tracks. These were some of our prettiest views of Queenstown itself and the lake.


DAY FOUR:
We took a boat ride around Milford Sound which is a huge fjord. This is where Avatar was filmed and it was amazing! Tons of waterfalls (especially the day we went cause it rained. Rain is good for some things, see? Plus, rain meant we had to buy PONCHOS which is another thing that makes things more exciting) and spooky clouds that make it look mysterious. There were dolphins and seals, and none of those flying things from Avatar as far as I could see. While there we went out to this underwater observatory thing that was just built in the water in the Sound, so you see fish swim by and stuff. I loved the sound!

DAY FIVE:
Lord of the Rings horseback riding! It was so fun! We were out in similar scenes to Glenorchy from the first day, but you could picture it in the movie more. We rode through the woods and in the valley as a lady spit out fun facts about the filming of the movies and stuff. She told us whose horses had been in which movies, my Joey was in Narnia Prince Caspian! He was an old grump, but I was proud of him none the less. He tried to eat my friend's horse one time, so we were sent to the back of the line (classic discipline tactic for elementary students btw) and then I was kinda nervous he'd freak out again, but he was good, and he was a great listener, cause I did most of the talking ;) That afternoon we "went for a pleasant walk" and ended up hiking straight up this mountain which was really fun. It was a good chance for me to get to know some of the other girls who I hadn't spent a ton of time with yet, so I really enjoyed it. That night we celebrated Nicole's birthday eating at the most popular place in town, Ferburger and just sucking the last bit we could out of Queenstown before we left in the morning.

DAY SIX:
We drove 7 hours from Queenstown to Christchurch, went to a couple big markets, ate kebabs for the first time, and went to a Waitangi Day celebration. Waitangi Day is the day the British and the Maori's signed a treaty, so the celebration was very 4th of July-esque. Super random stuff happening with different performers, but very entertaining to say the least. Plus fireworks at the end, so it just really felt like summer!

DAY SEVEN:
Church. VERY interesting Relief Society discussion that had us all very uncomfortable cause the teacher (aka president I think) said she disagreed with one of our girls' comments that we had been so thankful she brought up. Long story short it was about questioning the preisthood, and these ladies seem to have been trained to not trust a thing the priesthood says. We could see what they were saying, but they were just acting very extreme about things. We're over it though :)
We spent the afternoon driving around the mountains and beaches, not much to say that hasn't already been said, beautiful. (I need a synonym for beautiful...)We went to another museum that afternoon (I'm officially museumed out for at least 6 months).

DAY EIGHT:
We drove to the beach but it rained all day, so we spent time in shops and such. Wanted to buy everything. Bought some postcards. So proud.

DAY NINE:
Beach: take two. We spent the entire day at this beach! I finished the Giver (again... love it), make this sand fortress with our BARE HANDS, walked along the pier, ran around in the freezing/ low tide water with Janet for a little work out (they said the water was polluted, so let me know if you notice any extra arms growing...), watched a sand artist do crazy stuff, held a crab, and played games with James (our driver) like crazy bones and battle of the sexes (there were two old men and 16 byu girls, great game). In the evenings in Christchurch we made dinner in our hotel cause we had little kitchens, and then rented movies from the hotel and had big movie nights. Great fun :)

DAY TEN:
Exploring Christchurch. Cathedral, the square, little fudge shops and stuff in an oxford-looking town, and the botanical gardens! Loved it! You could spend literally an entire day there, we didn't cover nearly all of it before we had to leave for the airport. Here I am with Begonias in the Begonia house! We had a photography contest (with Whitney and Janet), a picnic, and just tooks a million pictures.
On our way to the airport we ate at Dennys (classy. better than in the states though) and everyone was so excited to eat KETCHUP haha everyone was getting excited to write in their journals about it.
Then we flew home! (we decided home refers to Auckland, home home is Provo, and home home home is our hometowns).

Now get up to take a lap and stretch, you'll need it after reading this entire blog entry! It was such a great trip! Keeping 16 girls together for 10 days straight got a little intense at times, but it was worth it and we bonded. Soon I'll update you on what has happened since our trip cause we started school this week!!