Beanstalk

Is this a weed?  I think it is a magic beanstalk.

It wasn't there last spring.  

It has sprung up in the last couple of months.  

Now it's taller than I.  

 The biggest miracle about our pet beanstalk is that it hasn't gotten knocked down by the volleyball or a volleyball player.

Book of the week: 

Fascinating.  Alzheimer's storyline, but not as predictable as you think. 

Mother in Heaven

By the way, you've heard the idea that we don't know more about a Mother in Heaven to keep people from profaning her name?  This idea has been traced to a seminary teacher (Melvin Brooks) from the 1960's.

Hard Things Make Great Memories (Sometimes)

Sometimes we think it's fun to do hard things.  

Pouakai Crossing is not an official "Great Walk" of New Zealand, although it's been under discussion.  Most locals want to keep flying under the radar.   

At the trailhead 

Day 1 - Awesome views 

Overnight at the Holly Hut.  

Inside the Holly Hut with other hikers

Day 2, the forecast called for rain.  I thought it would be intermittent - but that was Utah-girl thinking.  
The rain was not intermittent, but a solid downpour all day, with strong gusts of wind to boot. We walked through water up to our ankles most of the way out.  

Luckily it wasn't slippery or too cold.  Just wet.  The weather was terrible...but memorable.

Splashing along the trail. 

Noah's perspective on the whole adventure ("Man Up!) can be found at JustForTheAdventure.    

So the following weekend, we decided to take on a different challenge:  the Around the Mountain Relay with the Ellingtons, Sagarin-Webbs, and Bishops.  100 miles.  Since the weather was nice, we made our life difficult (and memorable) by being the part of our team that started the race at 2:30AM. 

Mike took this picture

Oak ran the first leg, which started at 2:30AM, and our whole family was there to cheer him on.  Oak also ran a long middle leg, and then happened to also run the final leg which brought our team all the way back where we started.  We finished at 3:30PM.

Youngest kids on our team ran one 3K leg together.  Mercy in pink.
 

I'm thankful that we have been able to choose most of our challenges in life so far.  

John

John is staying with us for a few weeks to finish his exams here before going to Tonga for the summer with his family.  He helped us out by running two legs.  

Other random pictures from the week:

Q&A after a recital

a good girl

Last Night of the Proms - I've never been to a concert quite like it.  It was fun to sing and wave a flag.  

Danny, Oak and Dom in the percussion section.  

  

Books of the Week:

Thanks, Jen!  Wow.

I'm going to underline my favorite lines and give a copy to each of our two oldest boys.

Anti-American discrimination in NZ schools

Last week, Oak was the victim of some anti-American discrimination in his NZ school.

Oak missed  - MISSED! - the following question from one of his English worksheets:

Name 3 homonyms of the word "hare".*


Oak wrote down "hair" as a homonym for "hare," but then he felt stumped and couldn't think of another two homonyms.  Can you?

He was surprised to find out that none of his classmates found the question difficult.

They told him that the homonyms are "hare," "hair," "hear," and "here," of course.

They pronounce these words EXACTLY the same!






*Yes, the period - or the "full stop" - is placed OUTSIDE the quotation marks when you are within the Commonwealth of Nations. I get a kick out of the little details, like this, of living abroad!  

Go the Naki!

I'd like to introduce you to the province where we live:  Taranaki.  

There is an especially strong feeling for Taranaki right now because the professional Taranaki rugby team just won the national championship.  

Go the Naki!

Oak at the game.  Noah and friends in the background.  

We live in New Plymouth, which is the biggest town in the region called Taranaki.

Taranaki, on the North Island of New Zealand

What's a 'Naki boy?

Within days of arriving in New Plymouth, I attended a funeral for a teenage boy held at New Plymouth Boys' High School.  The teenager seemed like an outstanding young man who had died from a complication of a staph infection.  At the funeral, his mom told a story about watching her son ski at the NZ national ski finals.  In the middle of an amazing ski run, she heard people around her asking who that kid was, but before she could answer, someone else from the stands answered, "Oh, he's a 'Naki boy." As if that explained everything.

This mother used that phrase - "He's a 'Naki boy" - as the basis for her speech about her son, telling the audience about how he exemplified the best of Taranaki: the skiing and surfing, the love of the outdoors, the lack of complaining, the enjoyment of family, the warmth toward other people and the land.  

Taranaki Hardcore

Taranaki Hardcore paraphernalia is one outward sign of Taranaki pride.  

People of all ages sport Taranaki Hardcore car stickers and clothing.  In our family, Danny loves his Taranaki Hardcore hoodie.

Mount Taranaki, the symbol of Taranaki

Mike took this picture on his way to work at an outlying hospital

I felt proud to be from Cache Valley, UT in a similar way that people are proud to be from Taranaki:  It's off the beaten path, so people don't usually come here unless there's a reason.  There's a certain amount of respect for people who deal with the slightly more extreme climate.  (Taranaki is on the wet side of the island.)  There isn't very much shopping available, and that means less focus on materialism or on looks.  Both counties have one town surrounded by a lot of farming country.

One difference between Taranaki and Cache Valley farming communities is how many boys drop out of school here to shear sheep, start a dairy herd, or begin some other hands-on profession.  Noah says that we'd be amazed at how many of the boys in his top-stream classes choose this instead of going to uni.  

Go the Naki!

Pictures from the finals game, which was held last Friday

The Pitch Invasion when the game was won

During the pitch invasion, somebody used coconut-tree-climbing techniques to climb nearly to the top of one of the goal posts.

The Tenderlinks Team.  The boys' YM's president in lower RH (Sione)

You can see some other pictures of Sione earlier this year here.  

Mike at the game.  A "try" is a touchdown in rugby

Go the Naki!

We feel very grateful to be living in Taranaki.  

Book of the week:  

We enjoyed this audiobook in the car.  

Beethoven's Shadow

I had the pleasure of taking Danny to play in the Piano Nationals this weekend, held in Palmerston-North.  

I loved having Mercy and Oak, the other principal pianists in the house, come along too.

We listened to 10 hours of incredible, live piano playing over a two-day period.  Kids found that they like listening to Bach Preludes more than Bach Fugues, and that Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata gets more amazing every time you hear it.

This short audio book hit the spot on the way home:

Biss shares his hopes and fears about recording the complete Beethoven sonatas

Also finished an epic audio book this week:

This book has been my running partner for the last 6 months or so.  It's not my usual genre, but (for me) it passes Nana's test of a good book, which is that it makes me want to be a better person.

Green: "Further up and further in"

We have miles and miles of this kind of GREEN in all directions from our home in New Zealand.  This is what much of the North Island looks like.  

I snapped these pictures from our car as we drove 4 hours from our home in New Plymouth to Rotorua.  

There are not very many people or buildings.  From our house in New Plymouth, we drive 3 hours through Green in any direction to reach another big town.  

 We drove all the way to the northern tip of the North Island once (11 hour drive), and the Green was still surrounding us on every side. 

It was memorable to drive through the Green while listening to "The Last Battle" by C.S.Lewis, in which all the true friends of Narnia find themselves traveling deeper and deeper into layers of Narnia, each new Narnia becoming more real. 

"The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that.  The new one was a deeper country:  every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more." (213)

"Further up and further in!" (the Narnians urge themselves deeper and deeper into the new Narnia)

Another favorite quote from this book:  "No warrior scolds.  Courteous words or else hard knocks are his only language." (152)

Too bad that traveling in glorious places doesn't actually make us into glorious people.  Just hours after finishing this glorious drive, listening to the glorious conclusion of "The Last Battle" in the car, I felt and acted like my worst self in a grocery store in Rotorua.  =sigh=

We enjoyed seeing a new color of green during our visit to Rotorua:

This is a close-up photo of the sulphur lake in Rotorua.

Mercy and Sage in front of the sulphur lake

 A couple of pictures for the grandparents...

Joyce's boots match our wisteria.