Mercy

Mercy's Piano Recital

 audience:  Hannah, Tiffany, Gaastras, Hockeys, Jocelyn and Judy, Meera, Sukena and sisters, Webers, Sagens, Mom and Dad on Skype, Cardalls, and our family, including Noah who fell asleep standing up (caught on video in the background during Mercy's recital) because he was dealing with 12-hour jet lag.

We had a birthday party for Mercy later in the week.
Mercy told me that the girls she invited to her birthday party would dress up unless we told them not to, and she was right.  All the Kiwi girls were dressed in darling party dresses.  The only two girls that came in casual dress both have American moms!

Oak organizes a game for girls in party dresses

Happy Birthday, Merce!

Freedom Camping

It seems like the world would be a better place if everyone could have such a glorious last week of summer...

Looking north from Kiritehere toward Marikopa

We took a road trip up our own coastline - freedom camping.

Kids in front of our tent, waiting for dinner to cook

Highlights...

Boogie boarding,

Sage learning

Eating raw kina from a Maori guy on the beach

Driftwood fires at night.

A beautiful waterfall - Marikopa Falls - with a rainbow that encircles you as you approach.

Oak and Mercy

Playing on the beach.

Mercy

Noah missed it all, as he was in Germany with friends having his own adventures.

Thank you, Familie Schmitt!

He came home to our new manu platform and a daytime job at the YMCA.  School starts next week for him.

We ended the week by going with Mike to a speaking assignment in the Manaia branch, and meeting a small group of happy, solid saints.

I know it looks like our life is a lark, and it mostly is, but writing this update definitely makes our life look more easy and glamorous than it really is.  I could let that stop me from writing, but I decide to continue.  Good times are interspersed and underlined with responsibilities for the upcoming school year, decisions to make, concerns about kids' schooling and physical and spiritual well-being, as well as the many sand fly bites on our ankles.  

Book of the Week:

Interesting, but didn't live up to Ann Patchett's recommendation on NPR, in my opinion.

How to Pop a Manu and The Great Divorce

Epic 5-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River 

Traveling companions: Sue and Jamie, their two boys (Cory and Calum), and a friend named Jack.

Whew! Sue and Jamie are fast paddlers

Traveling companions from our family were Mike, our 3 boys, and Mercy.

(Sage and Joy stayed home with Hannah.)  

just missing Oak

Mike sterned my canoe and proved especially good at getting us dumped in the rapids, on the first day in particular.

He learned quickly

Stopping to explore a cave - not the mud cave yet

We paddled 145 kilometers total, which is a lot of paddling, but somehow the boys and Mercy still seemed to spend half their time poppin' manu's...

or jumping off high places in one way or another.

There are 16 different definitions of "manu" in Wikipedia, but none of them is the definition used by teenage boys (and Mercy) in New Zealand.  

planning the manu

on the way to...

a mean splash

A good manu has a certain ker-BOOM sound and a very high splash.  Supposedly, one must break the water with one's heel, then quickly lay back quickly on the water to create a kind of vacuum.  

The manu is the gourmet version of the water bomb and takes practice.

After all that paddling, I came home feeling like this-

wish I looked like this, too

Oak said, "I feel like my shoulders grew two sizes this week!"

Book of the Week:  "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis

Our neighbours told us that they almost got a divorce going over the first rapids on the Whanganui, but that doesn't have anything to do with this book.  It's about the divorce between heaven and hell, joy and misery.

My copy was published in 1946

Here's a picture of the newest edition, with its unfortunate cover art-

I re-read this book every year over Christmas holidays.  It's my all-time favorite book, hands down, despite the unfortunate cover.  

Christmas in NZ

Christmas in New Zealand feels a lot like the 4th of July.

"Christmas at the Bowl" - Christmas songs and fireworks

The other day I drove Danny home from a friend's house at 10PM.  It was a 15 minute drive through town - and I saw only TWO houses with Christmas lights.

Pohutukawa trees, the iconic Kiwi Christmas tree,.
The hydrangeas are also in full bloom.  

Besides the lack of Christmas lights, I also notice (and appreciate) the lack of Christmas advertising and billboards.

Elder Hammar came back for a visit!

To me, Christmas in NZ feels very simple, family-oriented, relaxing, and non-materialistic.

Even though it is summer, we still cut snowflakes and sang all the "snowy" Christmas carols at our annual sing-along.

Sugar cookies, thanks to Oak

 At the temple with some great gals - Sophia, Hannah, Jess and Tiffany.  Nigel drove with us from Taranaki.

Hannah (in gray) has her mission call to Auckland.
Tiffany (in blue) received her mission call to Ogden, UT.

Before my first NZ student recital

Book of the Week:

From page 269:

"Rather than concede idealization [of your partner] to the foolishly hormonal-or the psychologically immature, like Freud did - we might better regard it as 'a process of bringing alive features of the other that are hidden and masked in ordinary, everyday interaction.'"

Christmas Prank and Christmas Volleyball

Christmas afternoon 2014

Danny goes for a big splash

It's nice that it doesn't get dark until 9:30PM during the holidays, especially when you like to play volleyball in your backyard with your family.  We have been playing a lot lately, and enjoyed an extended, epic set of games on Christmas evening.  

Our kids have always felt frustrated that Mike and I don't wake up earlier on Christmas Day!  

22 alarms on 7 devices

 This year the boys set 22 alarms ring at random intervals between 7AM and 8AM in the master bedroom on Christmas morning.  Alarms hidden under our bed and around the room.  Phones and iPods set with multiple alarms, and even alarms that would power up the phone once it had been shut down.   Since Mike and I had been awake until 2AM the night before, we stumbled around in a muddled state trying to deal with one alarm after another, falling asleep in each little interval.  

By 7:30AM, there was no going back to sleep.  

Besides the obvious reasons, one reason that this prank was funny to me is that we require the boys to leave all their devices and phones on our bedroom dresser at night.  

Books of the Week:

Annual read-aloud for the entire family.  

Read-aloud for the girls.
I love the chapter about the babies, "John and Barbara's Story."

Last Week of School

We are enjoying the lack of Christmas stress here in New Zealand.  

Going to the beach   

Mercy and I filled in for Oak in the percussion section of the youth orchestra.  Exciting for us both-

 We played for two elementary schools in the area.

view from the percussion section

A special baptism in our branch on Saturday.

I'm not saying a played a special role - because I didn't - but I just enjoyed being here for it.

Danny and friends

For me, the most interesting part about having Danny's friends over this week was discussion about boys who call girls b****, in jest or otherwise, and Cameron's upcoming trip to Nepal.

Last Christmas...

Last Christmas

Last Christmas was the last year that our kids go littlest to biggest.  This year Danny and Noah are the exact same height.  Next year will it be all 3 boys?  

As we decide to stay here for enough years to get Oak through high school, we have taken a vote from all our kids about what they would prefer to do, if they got to choose.  They all voted to stay here, except Oak who said he'd be fine to stay here but would also love to move some other interesting place like Fiji, Madagascar or Singapore.

Book of the Week:

It's easy to see who is being taken advantage of, and who is taking advantage, but who lives and dies the happiest?