Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!  We hope everyone has a blessed, joy-filled, and safe Christmas.

I've had a lot of people asking me how Christmas is celebrated in New Zealand.  First of all, very strange having Christmas in the summer.  A lot of holiday parades at beaches and Christmas BBQs.  James sat on Santa's lap outside in a park. There are still parking lots of Christmas trees for sale and the typical Christmas-themed goods at the stores.  No one puts lights on their houses, though, because electricity is SO expensive.  Lance and I did the happy dance when we got our $400 bill down to $180 this month.  I turn off outlets and use the clothesline like a madwoman.  It's sad when the first thing I think when I wake up to a sunny say is, "Oh sweet, a good laundry day!"  I haven't seen any lawn blow-up decorations either, not that I miss those.  I've seen a couple Nativity Scenes at some churches, but not many.  It doesn't feel like Christmas.  I've been playing Christmas music just to remind myself it's the holidays!

Pictures from James's first visit to Santa:

Since we are going to be gone in the South Island for two weeks on a roadtrip over Christmas and New Years, it seemed silly to get a tree.  So I made one out of sticks, paper, yarn, and homemade clay ornaments.  I'm pretty proud of it.  I think it looks cute in a very, very rustic kind of way.  I tried.

Thank you to our families and friends who sent Christmas packages and cards.  They help us feel a little holiday joy when we are so far away from all of our loved ones.  We are sad James is having his first Christmas without his extended family, but we know he will see them when he gets older and he can actually form memories.  In the meantime, Lance and I just remind ourselves that we will be here on Christmas Day.

Here's our Christmas itinerary in case anyone is interested.  Obviously we will have much to post upon our return.

Dec. 19- Fly to Christchurch
Dec. 20- Dunedin
Dec. 21- Dunedin
Dec. 22- Catlins
Dec. 23- Milford Sound
Dec. 24- Te Anau
Dec. 25- Queenstown
Dec. 26- Queenstown
Dec. 27- Wanaka
Dec. 28- Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers
Dec. 29- Greymouth
Dec. 30- Kaikoura
Dec. 31- Jan. 2 Christchurch
We will be driving around and sleeping in a campervan!  Pray for a safe, successful, and SANE trip!

Love you.

You've got a little something on your face...

James's 6 month birthday has come and gone, much like the solid food we introduced along with it.  Yep, that was a poop joke.

Enjoy the pics of a messy baby.  Feel free to guess what he's eating.

Bon appétit!

Hanua Falls

A couple weekends ago we went with our friend's Ashley and Todd for a hike to Hanua waterfall and reservoir.

We met them at a farmer's market down south then headed to the hike.  After we arrived I realized that I forgot to bring my hiking boots.  My flip flops weren't going to cut it on this muddy trail.  Ashley was nice enough to lend me her Toms, which I proceeded to cover in mud.  We hiked around for 3-4 hours then stopped at a beach-side cafe in Maraetei on the drive home for a beer.  It was a lovely, sunny way to end the day!

The native Kauri tree is very vulnerable to many things that can be carried in on the soles of hiking shoes, so many hiking trails have stations for shoe cleaning when you enter the trail.

He's getting too wiggly for his own good.  Changing diapers is getting to be a challenge.

Upon our return, my shoes were right where I left them.  So I wouldn't forget...

Jail

Let me out!

Please?

Happy Birthday to US!

Lance and I celebrated our New Zealand birthdays together since they are only 3 days apart (Nov. 11 and 14).  We hired our FIRST BABYSITTER!  Well, 'hired' is probably not the best description since it was Lance's co-worker who offered to watch him. But still. I handled it well.  James did very beautifully-  played, ate, and slept.

We just took 3-4 hours and went kayaking and to lunch.  All of the beautiful weekends we have, and the day we decide to kayak it's stormy.  Our kayak hire had been for two separate kayaks, but with winds being as strong as they were I was worried about getting separated from Lance.  I don't exactly have the strongest arm muscles in the world.  So we opted for a double kayak.  Lance regretting it immediately when I started splashing water back on him from the front.  In my defense, we were soaked from the rain and wind anyway.  And he even made fun of me for wearing my wetsuit!  Now who's laughing, honey?  Lance and I aren't the most in-sync team you'll ever meet on the ocean blue.  There was a rowing team out practicing and they were beautiful to watch.  We, on the other hand, couldn't go in a straight line for the life of us.  The waves and current were buffeting us all around and we looked the worse side of bedraggled by the time we brought the kayak back in.  We hired it for 2 hours but only managed a little over one.  We were pretty proud.

Lunch at The Attic in Mission Bay and we headed home.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  We weren't looking good so I don't think you missed out.

Can we borrow your shovel?

We are extremely behind on our postings.  James has started to crawl the last three weeks and any spare time I have has been dedicated to either planning our Christmas trip to the South Island (we leave on Friday!) or Christmas presents.  With the little guy commando crawling like a champ, 'spare time' is getting hard to come by.
Back on November 8th we decided to head to a well-known area of the Coromandel Peninsula (where we went camping) that has two attractions: Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.

Hot Water Beach is located on top of a natural hot spring, right at the edge of the ocean.  It is only accessible for an hour or two on either side of low tide, so with low tide at 2:30 we had to plan accordingly.

First stop was Cathedral Cove, which is a beautiful beach about 15 minutes from Hot Water Beach.  It takes about 30 minutes to hike to the cove, so we thought we were right on schedule when we arrived, only to find the parking lot for it was dinky and...full.  Lance dropped us off and went to park the car further away.  Unfortunately the parking lot is at the top of a very long hill.  He had to run uphill for 1.7 kms (1ish miles) to get back to us. Poor guy.  On the plus side, I had plenty of time to suncreen and hydrate James!

The hike to the cove provided plenty of beautiful views of both the ocean and its plentiful islands, but also the rolling green farmland inland.

Thirty minutes later we were at Cathedral Cove.  What a fun place to spend a day relaxing and soaking up some sun!  The sand is lovely and soft, the water is sparkling and blue, and the big archway that gives the beach its name makes you feel lucky to live on Earth.  Nice job, God.

Just after this picture James took a wave full on in the face.  Great job, Dad.

He was not amused.

Our time there was too short, but we needed to allow time too get to Hot Water Beach, otherwise we were going to miss out on the low tide.  About an hour at the cove, hike back (including a long jog downhill for Lance), and we were heading to the beach.  Now, I had read ahead of time to bring a shovel to dig your own pool.  Having left all of our digging utensils state-side, we thought we could get away with our hands.  We were wrong.  The sand filled back in faster than we could dig.  And by 'we' I mean Lance.  Someone had to hold James!  Just trying to find an empty area to dig was cutthroat.  We walked up at the same time as another family and both stepped into a recently vacated, pre-dug pool.  Apparently I didn't sit down quickly enough, because I blinked and it was full.  We wandered around, dipping our feet in cold pools.  We found a lukewarm one, borrowed a shovel from a family in a pool that was steaming, and got to it.  The more we, ummm, Lance, dug, the colder it got.  Not wanting to look aimless, we sat in the cold water.  James was starting to look a little chilly when the family who lent us the shovel told us they were leaving and we could have their pool.  Score!  Ahhh, nice and warm.

James enjoyed splashing in the water.  The perfect kiddy pool.

 

As the ocean crept into our lovely pool, we packed up and headed home.  Later that week we were talking with our friend, Ashley, who moved out here the same day we did.  We told her about Hot Water Beach and she said her Kiwi boyfriend was complaining about all the tourists that don't bring shovels.  Such a pain.  "Oh yeah, can you believe those people..."  Oops.