Rugby World Cup (and other events that happened a while ago that I'm just now getting to)

*This post is edited from the original post since I found Halloween and birthday videos to add.

Hello faithful followers!  That's right, I'm talking to the four grandparents and the random people in Russia that are apparently reading our blog.  Sorry it has been so long.  No excuses really, just lots of pictures and videos to go through from several vacations and I figured, what's a blog post without pictures, right?

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to our families back home in the USA!  We miss you and wish we could have celebrated with you.  The Harvey household looks like it was packed to the brim and full of hungry people from the pictures Rob was kind enough to send.  Nice matching outfits Aunt Kathy and Cara.

We had our American Friendsgiving at our friends' home.  They provided the turkey and we provided the fixings.  Lance and I peeled, chopped, and mashed 10 pounds (I mean 4.5 kilos, oops) of potatoes for 31 people.  A little boy who considers himself quite the mashed potato connoisseur proclaimed them "the best mashed potatoes in the whole world."  That's a splendid recommendation if I've ever heard one.  Unfortunately I have no pictures from the event because I was too busy mashing potatoes or chasing James, not to mention eating.  So...you get a random picture from Thanksgiving last year.



On Labour Day weekend (Oct. 24-26) I had my first overnight without my Sweet Baby James.  I had a Girls' Weekend in Mount Maunganui and Lance stayed back with James.  I was expecting to come back and see Lance looking harried and relieved to see me home, but apparently everything was just peachy the whole time I was gone!  They went hiking, cooked meals together, and did the laundry.  Is it bad that I was hoping things would go a little less smoothly so I could say to Lance, "See, it's not so easy is it?"  Well that's what I get for wishing difficulties on my spouse.  Good job, Dada.  You rocked it.

There were 7 of us staying at a bach on the beach.  We just relaxed, drank wine, ordered pizza, played games, and hiked The Mount to see the views.  Lance and I had already been to this area (about 2 hours south of Auckland) but it was nice to do so without a baby.  I was even able to walk the beach with a delicious cone of gelato.

On October 31st the Rugby World Cup was held in London.  The final match was between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies.  The rivalry is fierce between these two teams and the whole country was decked out in All Black gear. Even James's nappies had All Blacks logos on them for the occasion.  This McDonald's sign cracked me up.

The All Blacks won, 34-17, the country went crazy for a couple days, and now things are back to normal.  I wish I could tell you more about the match but I honestly don't know anything about rugby and the game was very early in the morning.  Call me a party pooper.

For Halloween this year James was Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.  Well, technically it was a just a tiger costume since it didn't have Tigger's special bouncy tail, but James doesn't know the difference.  And since we had ZERO kids come to the door this year it didn't matter anyway!  Okay, if I'm being totally honest, he didn't wear his costume on Halloween.  He was super cranky and I didn't feel like having the wrestling match trying to get him into this costume, so he just wore it a couple days later.

On November 11th and 14th Lance and I had our 30th Birthdays, respectively.  I planned a field day and BBQ for Lance at our local park.  Our friends came and we set up volleyball, cornhole, and washers, and I had supplies for a 3-legged race and an egg-and-spoon race.  Only the latter of the two happened, but that was a huge success.

Minus our friends that won because they were cheaters!  They used the icing from the cupcakes to stick their egg to the spoon.

This post was such a random hodgepodge of short stories, but now I can do the longer, more interesting posts I've been meaning to do.  And I know I really need to do some posts about life in New Zealand.  I haven't really done any culture comparisons and I think they would be interesting for you to read.  I'll get on it, I promise!

Go Blue

Michigan Football is hard to catch in New Zealand since the games happen on Sunday mornings (early) here.  However, James and I haven't missed a game yet this year, and we've had a lot of fun cheering for the Maize and Blue (and trying to teach Maggie a bit about football).  I just wanted to make sure that I put up a post showing everyone that I am a good parent and I'm raising James the right way.  It is truly something special to have one of your son's first words be "Footbawww".  Now we just have to work on getting him to say "Harbawww".

Go Blue!

 

 

Touchdown! Hail to the Victors Valiant! 

As Mary Sue told us during our graduation speech, no matter where life takes you or what life hands you, we will forever be part of the greatest family, FOREVER GO BLUE!

Mud, lots of mud.

Daylight savings time has officially occurred in New Zealand, which means that the weather has turned for the better.  The winter rains are now turning to sunshine and beach weather.  The better weather calls for hikes and long walks on the beach.  On Saturday we figured that we would take advantage of the better weather and head to the Waitakere range.

There’s a beach just south of Piha called KareKare that has several nice hikes and some amazing beach areas.  We decided to hike the Mt Zion Hill Track and thought it would be a really nice, scenic hike.  In retrospect, I probably should have researched it a little more.  Four and a half hours and 16k later, we made it back to the car with several extra kilograms of mud clinging to our boots.

The hike was a decent challenge as it takes off straight up the cliff line, stopping for a waterfall along the way, and then a little trouble ensued.  Since it’s only spring here and it has been raining quite a bit, half of the hike was covered in mud, which was not an easy task with James on my back.  Maggie didn't get any pictures of the mud because we needed all hands free to grab any branches available along the trail to keep us from sliding down the path.  We finally got past the mud, through wetlands via submerged boardwalk,  and to the beach, which had some beautiful black sand dunes that led out to the ocean.

Lance carved this for me when he hiked this a couple weeks ago so I could find it when we did it together.

James had a fantastic time running around the sand dunes and throwing sand on both Maggie and me.  He is truly in his element rolling around in the sand.  He had a really great day and enjoyed spending time on a beautiful NZ Beach overlooking the Tasman Sea.