Pics of the Week

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Return with Honor

We have been in a celebratory mode every since Noah came home!

Mike and I picked up all the kids from school about an hour early to go to our local airport.
Luckily, Noah's flight was delayed. If he'd landed on time, there would have been no one to greet him!
We were waiting in the wrong terminal.

Now in the correct terminal. Waiting another hour.

Riding home in the back of MAVY. It felt like we had a celebrity in the car -
someone we'd only seen on TV or in pictures for the last 2 years!!!

It didn't take long for Joycie to make herself at home, although when I tucked her in bed that night, she said something about Oak and "that guy who's kind of like Oak..." We had dinner on the porch with Danny on Skype.

Next morning, all seven of us drove the 3 hours to Hamilton.. Noah was released by Pres Cummings,
we ate doner kebabs for lunch, and then we went to the temple.

We ran into Hirschis and Sutcliffs at the mission offices. They kindly offered to take the girls shopping while we were in the temple, which was especially generous as it was Sister Hirschi's last day in New Zealand. The drive was beautiful and we talked and talked the whole way there and back. A flat tire on the way to Cory's house, and then Noah spent the evening at Sutherland's.

Saturday afternoon, Noah finished unpacking and brought down a big bin full of random items from Bulgaria. We spent delightful and memorable 4 hours listening to stories as Noah showed us the precious miscellany of his mission.

On Sunday, Noah started his talk in sacrament meeting by talking about the green-ness, the flowers, he fields, the mountains and the sea in Bulgaria, the hospitality of the people. Then he read a funny list of Bulgarian words that sounded similar but had very different meanings, as a way of introducing the language. In this picture, Noah is holding a cake that Trina Seu made for him.

Sunday afternoon open house

And then it was Monday, and time to jump back into regular life. When Mike was at work and kids all at school, Noah brought his computer to the kitchen where I was working. I heard all the exclamations and back-stories as he started to connect with people from his mission and from his long journey home.

For FHE, we all went to the Monday-night Orienteering sprint.

Noah showing Joyce and Sage how to make biscuits and gravy,
which was a standard missionary meal for Noah and his companions.

As Noah was explaining biscuits and gravy, he started a sentence by saying, "Back home...I mean, in Bulgaria, when I made this..." That was a couple of weeks after he arrived here in New Zealand. :)
Three weeks in NZ, and Noah is still shaking his head "no" when he means "yes."

Academic Tiger Jacket for Oak

Pouakai Traverse with Mercy (Oak is missing because he broke his toe.)

Amanda Hewlett's art show opening.

Noah's enjoyed talking on the phone with friends in Bulgarian or with a former companions.

My impressions of Noah...

He rarely interrupts. He doesn't raise his voice. He laughs easily. He has a happy look in his eye. He listens closely. He doesn't rush. He enjoys conversation. He loved his mission.

Books of the week:

Thanks for the recommendation, Mike

Monday, February 12, 2018

Classic Quotes from our South Island Holiday

"What were some of your favourite parts of our trip?"
Joyce: "I liked everything except when the policeman pulled Oak over and made him stop driving."
-Mike and I were both in the front seat with Oak and hadn't noticed any indiscretions - are we that oblivious? Another driver had called the police hotline because they had seen our van crossing the middle line. Multiple times.

Me: "You don't need to take a full bag of apples and a full bag of oranges in your pack. We'll never eat all those."
Oak: "Training."

Do you need that big pack for a day hike?

Mike to Joyce: "Do you want to go back?"
Joyce: "NO!"
- I caught my breath when Mike asked Joyce this question, and could hardly believe Joyce's emphatic response. Joyce, in a rare show, was having a serious meltdown 1.5 km into our Mueller Hut hike. She got determined, however, and there weren't any more tears. We got back to our car about 9 hours later, and she was asleep before we'd even left the parking lot.

Holly: "Let's ask every hiker that we pass one of the questions from the UnGame."
-my idea didn't get any traction among the rest of the family, unfortunately.

Skiing on Oak's arm - Joyce's favorite part of the Mueller Hut hike

hiker: "I got pranked so bad!!!!"
-at the treeline on the Mt. Alfred hike, there is an intimidating sign stating that the mountaintop is accessible only with guides from a certain private company. On the way down the trail, Mike pretended to be a guide from this company when he passed 2 hikers from Aussie going up. I heard the yelling and laughing from a distance, and when I passed the hikers a little later, I asked what happened.

Mike to Mercy at the top of the Routeburn trail: "You don't need to run further with Oak, it's totally up to you, we are absolutely not putting on pressure for you to go if you don't want to."
Oak: "Strava puts on pressure."
-gotta love Strava

Oak, when he saw this picture: "No wonder I am so fast."

"No wonder I am so fast."

DoC Ranger, originally from Tasmania, at the hut on Routeburn: "You'd love Tasmania. The mountains are about half as high as they are here, and they're not nearly as easy to get to, and you got to watch out for poisonous critters as you go....but you'd love it!"
-maybe so, but New Zealand is sounding better every minute.

One idea from the NZ Frenzy that didn't work out so well. We found a beautiful swimming hole, though!

Joyce: "How long more of driving?"

"How long more of driving?"

Mike at dinner: "Just so you know how neurotic about fishing I am, I've thought about getting up in the middle of the night when you are all sleeping to go and fish the lake down the road because the brown trout feed at night. I won't do it, but I've thought about it."
-is this supposed to be comforting?

Oak, near the end of our vacation: "I feel like my friends are all going to be so much more fit than me when I get home from this holiday."
-Mike and I gave each other a look, since we were feeling much MORE fit than usual after our 2-week holiday. Tired and stiff, even.

Local Maori kids: "Where you from, boy?"
Oak: "New Plymouth"
Kids: "No wonder. They pop some good ones up there."
-Oak looks like a foreign tourist until he pops a manu jumping into the Pelorus gorge, last stop before getting on the ferry.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Top 20 Photos from the South Island

I limited myself to choosing photos on my phone, since the choice would have been too difficult if I'd included Mike's, Oak's, and Mercy's photos as well.

Mt Robert, Nelson Lakes National Park

Nelson Lakes, looking at eels

Hokatika Gorge

Castle Hill, Arthur's Pass

Lake Pukaki, Mt Cook National Park

Mueller Hut hike, Mt Cook National Park

Mt Alfred, Glenorchy

church, Sylvan Lakes campground near Glenorchy

mailboxes and a signpost to some amazing places

Kinloch, near Glenorchy

Routeburn trail

swimming hole, Routeburn trail

skipping rocks, Routeburn trail

Is this for real? near Sylvan Lakes campground, Glenorchy

Roaring Billy Falls, Haast Pass

driving the West Coast of South Island near glaciers

Graffiti in the old tin hut along Roberts Ridge hike, Franz Josef

Roberts Point hike, Franz Josef Glacier

last dinner on the road

8 Travel Tips: How to road trip when you have the Travel Bug but not the Planning Bug

Once we took a 2-week road trip from our house in Germany through Italy. We basically had the time and a travel budget, but nothing else planned. As we drove off, Mike and I kicked ourselves for getting to that point without doing better planning. However, the trip worked out great, and afterwards we felt like an itinerary and reservations would have slowed us down.

Mike and I have the travel bug but not the planning bug. Luckily we are both quite flexible and enjoy the serendipity that can happen when you travel without a firm itinerary.

We had 2 weeks planned for a trip to the South Island, and always meant to get it planned, but it never quite happened, at least not very precisely. Here are the key ingredients for our successful road trip..

1. NZ Frenzy guidebook - suits our style

In Europe, we liked Rick Steves guide books. In NZ, we like Scott Cook. It's important to find a guidebook with a travel style similar to ours - not just any random guide book.

2. 10 Best Day Hikes on the South Island of New Zealand

We used this list as a loose guide for our entire trip.

3. Audiobooks

Audiobooks for all the hours in the car, especially since you may not know at the beginning of the day how long you'll be in the car. I included a list of our audiobooks from this South Island trip at the end of this post.

4. MAVY - our family road trip vehicle

In Europe we had our Toyota Sienna, which worked great, too.

lots of storage space

Since we don't have the Planning Bug, we don't plan menus. We stopped at a grocery store when the supplies in our boxes started to dwindle. Our food wasn't fancy, but it tasted great when we were hungry and didn't take too much time away from doing things we liked.

Breakfast Box and Dinner Box

The way we do a Breakfast Box is to throw breakfast possibilities into a large box: Wheatbix, muesli, boxed milk, canned peaches, apples, bananas, Up-n-Go's, Milo, bowls and spoons, etc.

Dinner Box contained food such as:
pasta, canned chicken, canned tuna, canned soup, rice, sauce packets, cucumbers.
Lunch: trail mix, apples, oranges, green beans, canned meat, bagels, peanut butter and jelly

5. DoC

Mike and I have discussed leaving our estate to New Zealand's DoC (Department of Conservation) when we die. We love their little bare-bones campgrounds, all their backcountry huts, their well-maintained trails that make the backcountry in New Zealand accessible.

one example of DoC trail engineering - Roberts Point Track near Franz Josef glacier

6. Lakes and rivers for bathing

This didn't work in Europe, but in NZ there are lots of warm-ish rivers and lakes for washing up after long hikes. Two weeks would have been a long time without a shower.

7. Sugar for Kids

In Europe, we motivated the boys to walk through castles and art museums by promising them a gelato when we finished. At the time, one scoop was 80 euro cents, or sometimes 1 euro. If it was an especially long day, we'd even get gelato TWICE to keep us going.

On our long hikes on the South Island, we used lollies every 'k' (km) of the steep parts to keep Sage and Joyce going. Mercy's and Oak's sport watches told us when it was time.

8. Doomsday Weather Forecaster (Mike)

I asked Mercy if she thought I'd left anything off of this list, and she mentioned lollies (which I added after she mentioned it) and Dad's weather forecasting. Mercy: "Having Dad forecasting such terrible weather, we felt really happy with the little rain that we got."

One of our top serendipitous experiences was finding this spot to free camp for two nights...