Sunday, March 27, 2016

Lost in the Backcountry




When I dropped Oak off for an adventure race on Saturday morning, deep in Taranaki farm country, I heard people talking about how many different rural roads led to the race start.  The race start was about an hour from home, on gravel road some of the time.

I didn't worry about looking at the map when I started to drive home.  I knew that I was generally headed in the right direction, and guessed that all roads would eventually lead to the main road.  Spotty coverage.



I rambled home, stopping to take pictures now and then, enjoying the quiet.  Surprised now that the gravel was lasting so long.   Passed 2 cars with farmer-looking men.  Another car parked by a stream - fisherman?  Where was everybody?  When would I get any internet coverage?



Over an hour later, I had NOT come out on any main road, but had reached a DEAD END!  I was SHOCKED!  It was someone's house!  

The END of the road

The homeowners were in their yard - man, woman and child - each dressed in a bee suit.  They said they would never want to live anywhere else.



There was no connecting road between my dead end and any other road!  The bee-suited family told me that I needed to drive 45-minutes back down the road to the next road that actually connected to any other road.  It was back to the little town of Eltham, and then another hour drive back home to New Plymouth.  

It took me about 2.5 hours of driving to get home, instead of 1 hour.   A major navigation error. Needless to say, I didn't stop and take as many pictures after reaching the dead end.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me to always keep my gas tank over 1/2 full-

I watched a farmer, his young son, and 7 sheepdogs
move their sheep through several paddocks.

white sheep on the hill


I'm thankful for a good audiobook, good weather, and awesome scenery.

New respect for Taranaki Backcountry








Saturday, March 19, 2016

2015: A Year in Quotes

These quotes bring back a lot of happy memories for our family!  Possibly less hilarious for everyone else...[long post alert]

Joyce

Workday back at home:  Joyce washing windows

"I had a forehead today."  
-Joyce's abrupt contribution to the dinner conversation.  She meant that she had had a headache.

"So are you just going to see her skin...or her?"
-Joyce tries to understand why I'm traveling to USA when Grandma Great passed away.

"Don't!  Under here is my warmness!"  (Joyce pushing Sage away from tickling her armpits)  "Actually I have a lot of warmnesses..."

6AM in bed on a Saturday morning, I see the dark silhouette of Joyce's head inches away from my face and feel her hot breath on my face.  She whispers urgently,
"Mommy!  I can count to one hundred...and twenty...nine!"

"That's not shopping!  That's buying!"  
- Joyce accuses me of deceiving her after running errands with me one day.

If all your family dies when you are a missionary, would you drink coffee?
(What?!  Joyce is trying to process Noah's mission call, and obviously needs more details...)

"It's a pretty great view, eh, Mom?"
-Dec. 2015.  10K into the Pouakai Crossing.

"If I have my birthday at my house then Madeleine will be mad at me.  I don't have enough friends without Madeleine.  Only Paige."  
-poor Joyce

"It USED to be blood."
-pointing at dried blood across her ankle and foot


Sage



"A lot of people here are wearing racing shirts."
-observation at the Hancock Flat reunion.  Awesome group of people, in many ways!

"Who would want to give him $1000 just for playing a piece?"  Sage skeptical of Danny's piano awesomeness.

"My heart was pounding when I was playing my Czerny.  I didn't know if I'd be able to play it perfectly to the end.  I think today was the best lesson I ever had."
 -Czerny Op. 599 No. 2 - never thought of this exercise as a big milestone before...

"I've gotten very interested in Shakespeare.  Can I read it?" - thanks, Grandma!

"I don’t think I’ve EVER been late for church.” 
-said with a big sigh.  Sage is curious about how it would feel to belong to a family whose mother wasn't always playing organ prelude.

"But I haven't heard about Joyce's day!" 
-Sage protests when I tell girls to be quiet in their beds and go to sleep.  Joyce isn't all that forthcoming with me about her school day, but gives the full version to Mercy and Sage at night.  


Mercy


Mercy's school teacher, prompting Mercy at parent-teacher conferences:  How can you tell if it's a good question?
Mercy:  "If Google comes up with the right answer when you type it."
 -hmmmm, that's not what Dr. Riddle taught us in Epistemology class...

"This one is red-orange-y."
Mercy tries to describe one of her Mozart variations.

"What's that white thing?  It's an egg!  It's white!"
Mercy in USA

"I've NEVER seen Mercy leave her clothes out like that before!"
Joyce is amazed to see Mercy's skirt on the bedroom floor.


Oak



Joyce to Oak:  "You're a Buff Man Scrub."

"One of my teachers says to act our age not our shoe size.  But for me, it's the same.  I'm 13 and my shoe size is 13.  Most kids in my class are 14 with 10 shoe size."

"It was cold...but we've done colder."
Oak after jumping into Lake Louise on Hancock Flat Reunion.

"LGBT?  It sounds like a kind of sandwich."
hmmmm...

"The best part of Christmas Eve is the banter you have with your brozos once you get in bed."

Mike to Oak, after Oak returned from EFY:  "Did you make some good friends that you'll stay in touch with?"
Oak:  "Yes, I made some good friends.  No, I won't stay in touch with them."
(Oak faces reality with no Facebook account, no smart phone)

"We are at the top.  Been here for about 45.  Weathers sick beans as"
Oak, Text from top of Taranaki.  Jan 20, 2016.

Sam Weise to Mike, when Mike complimented Sam, Annabelle and Jason on all the distance they'd covered in a 2-day training weekend:
"If Oak says we can do it, then we can do it."


Jeans are so uncomfortable!  They must weigh 3 k-g!” 
– Oak's reaction to wearing jeans for the first time in about a year.  


Danny

volleyball moment


Holly:  Am I a strict mom?
At the same exact time, Danny, "yes," and Oak, "no."

"It's like a belly!"
Oak or Danny discussing why it is so fun to punch a plate full of crepes.

"I was just reading this poster about a concert and found out that my name is on it."
- Danny reports on his day at school.

Sr. Rudd to me:  "Danny?  Isn't he the one that is so disciplined on the piano?"

Dr. Peery-Fox to Danny:  "You need to get a girlfriend."

Danny on high school debate rules:  "That's not fair!  Whoever goes last would win!  That's how real arguments work."
-Danny, after hearing the rules for high school debate competitions

Danny to Noah:  "You're wasting my time!  What am I supposed to do with 5 minutes?"
-Danny is sincerely perplexed and frustrated as Noah delays getting out the door to go to a painting job.

"I hear tickling!"
Danny had been anxious to have FHE finished and bolted out the door as soon as he could.  However I heard him say this just a few minutes later as he headed BACK into the FHE room...

Danny to Mr. Leath, school counselor, "That would be a hell'uva schedule..."
-oops, time to refresh our kids' understanding about what I would consider proper language for a Kiwi vs. an American kid speaking to his high school counselor.  

"I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom...and Danny was practicing!!!"
- Sage.  Danny has been known to get up very early to practice the piano before school.

Holly:  I’ll be out running errands, if you need me to bring anything over.  (before a long day at school)
Danny:  Food.  Always food.  


Noah

volleyball moment

"Your shower doesn't get cold!"
-Noah, complaining about having to use the shower in the master bath.

"We're going to keep doing our morning workouts ...for the big breakfasts and the swims."
-it seems that Hillary trainings must go on.  Early morning training and then a swim in the ocean.

"What?  There was a new Avengers movie?"
-A week after release date.  One of my favorite things about living an expat life.

"It's sick!"
Noah, about the disco ball in MAVY, the dress shirt he had fitted, ball props, and basically anything to do with the ball.

"I had the BEST day of school today that I've ever had or will EVER have!"  (I was just being arrogant...ten bucks that I can throw this frisbee into the basketball hoop from sitting in the front row of bleacher...twenty bucks that I can make it in the other hoop.  I did it!  And everyone saw it!)

"Where's my knots book?  I always tie a new sick knot before I go to bed."  9:47PM, Nov. 17, 2015 

"People will think we're a bunch of bogans, with all the junk food on the sugarplum tree right as you walk in the door."  -Noah, worried about his image

"We had pizza and then we had yarns."  -Noah about spending the evening with Sam and Josh.

Nice little girl at the YMCA said to Noah:  "Do you want to see my pukana face?" She passed a piece of paper in front of her face...and everything changed... and then she passed the paper in front of her face again, and went back to being a nice little girl at the YMCA.  

"It's too late to go up the mountain, what about going skydiving instead?" -Noah, 6 days before leaving on his mission, wants to go out in style.




Mike


"The thing Daddy REALLY likes is SUGAR"  -Joyce, as we're discussing what to get Dad for his bday.

"What's that book again - "Go, Kill a Mockingbird"?  -Mike, trying to reference "To Kill a Mockingbird"

I've been learning all kinds of interesting things about our lives by doing finances.  -Mike doing finances after extended period without paying them much mind.

I reckon Dad might be a sneakier version of Danny.  -Noah, when Dad went to let out the chooks and missed most of the dishes...

"Ewes?  I didn't quite get to that."  -Mike, after spending a lot of energy defending "ewed" in a Boggle game ("ewed" as in, being hit by a ewe, or "you know when you've been ewed" ) Mike wrote down "ewed" but failed to write down "ewes."

Holly:  "What should we have for dinner tonight?
Mike:  Mush!
-a great fall-back for the nights when nothing else sounds good.


Holly



Noah:  "You CAN'T miss!"  When I said I didn't know if I could get to college friends reunion this year.  

How can I be so stiff and we didn't even beat the walkers?  -newbies at navigation!  First rogaine, ran as hard as we could but still finished last place with Mercy, Aug 2015.  

"Luckily, I'll probably be dead by the time any of you get skin cancer...." -directed to kids who resist sunscreen admonitions from Mom.

Links to Quotes from 2013 and 2014:   here and  here 


Tuesday, March 8, 2016

ARC 2016

Packing up at Boys' High on Friday morning.  It seemed like Noah was going to pop into view at any moment...

Link to last year's ARC (Adventure Race Coromandel):  ARC 2015
Last year was the first time that I served as support crew for an adventure racing team!  I've done it quite a lot since then, but obviously still getting the hang of it, since one of the most noteworthy events of the race (for me) was missing our team at the first transition point!
Lots of other unique things happened on this race...


The parking lot outside the Fat Pigeon Cafe in Piopio - 19 Ferraris!
Calum, Sam, Josh
Gorgeous 5-hour drive to Coromandel.
Race briefing at 4PM on Friday.
Race started at 6AM the next morning:
  • 34 K mountain bike, 
  • 5-8 hour orienteering trek with river crossings, 
  • paint balling through an assault course with snipers,
  • rifle shooting, 
  • and then a 4-6 hour rogaine on mountain bikes.
We missed our team at the first transition!   Luckily, we have a big team, and some of the other support crews had taken a quicker back road, and they were able to send our boys off!
I took this picture from inside MAVY, looking past Mike and Keith to Richie McCaw,
whose support team parked right next to us! His thigh muscles were amazing!
another transition point


Oak shooting 5/5
  
after the race

.
Everyone's legs look the same after a race.  

Comparing routes and choices
Then a swim and a "mean feed" at the bach
 

At the debrief session later that night, 3 our of the 4 boys on Oak's team said that "beating our support crew" to the first transition point was their highlight of the day!  (It made them feel fast . . .  they WERE fast!  They came in 30 minutes before the estimated minimum time, and far and away the first out of any of the teams to arrive at the first transition point)








Monday, March 7, 2016

Danny's Eagle Project






Danny planned a Benefit Concert for his Eagle Project. . . some of the best musicians in Taranaki; one of the most enjoyable programs that I've attended!  I felt very proud!

Danny learns not to believe everything you read in the paper,
as he is brazenly misquoted.  




Program:
MC for the evening: Ben Hall.  Ben had written out his comments, and they were the perfect mix of humor and personal stories.  He made a real contribution to the evening.

Check out this program variety!  The variety made the concert feel that it flew by all too quickly!

  • Classical marimba
  • Organ 
  • Pop Vocalist
  • Classical violin
  • Jazz piano
  • Flute and classical guitar duo -very classy 
  • Danny finished with a great speech and then played a piece called "Tribute," as a tribute to the volunteer community.


instructions for the stage crew

Setting up the marimba - Dominic is AMAZING on marimba
Wonderful group of musicians
Joyce handing a program to some friends.
Price of admission:  2 items for the New Plymouth Food Bank

10 minutes before the start time - the venue is filling up.


David Codd on organ -
Bach so loud and majestic that it drowned out all sound
from the "Americarna" Festival happening downtown.
Violinist, de Jesus Silva, with his new baby.  Anne Bovett in the background.

Matt Sagen's jazz improv was a highlight.
This is his most recent CD cover.

Anne Bovett's write-up:
https://www.facebook.com/MusicReviewsTaranaki/posts/835620943216728Concert Review
The next day:  dropping off food at the Food Bank.  



Mr. Prasad, high school physics teacher, has been a great mentor for Danny - I am very thankful.