Hard to believe yet another huge, devestating earthquake on this side of the world. Right after the quake, there was some concern a tsunami could hit NZ, but would have likely been well north and west of us. (Closer to Auckland). They cancelled a few events located out there, but no tsunami hit NZ. I read that the earthquake in Japan was **8,000** times the magnitude as the one that hit here in Christchurch a month ago. That is just incredibly sad. I hear the only 'good' thing is that Japan has very stringent building codes, and many of the large skyscrapers did not fall/did not suffer large amounts of damage due to this. I think most of the damage in some areas was from the tsunami which hit Japan. Thanks again to friends and family who checked in with us to make sure we were safe.
Well, Thursday the 10th of March, Gillie had her third Young Mariners meeting, and they went out in kayaks instead of sailboats. Gillie got to kayak during her time at school camp early February, and she really likes it! Mom is glad for this, as I enjoy kayaking as well and now I can have a buddy. We'll have to go up to Ashland this summer and try kayaking on Lake Superior. Gillie said she likes ocean kayaking, and I think Lake Superior is about as close as we can get to that ;o)
Friday, we played an all boys team from Otomotei Intermediate, which have the reputation as being "the best" in most of the school sports, including volleyball. They were outserving us for most of the game. However, we rallied towards the end, and almost pulled off an upset! We lost 56 to 50, but I think if we had 5-10 more minutes, we would have won. Kids were still overall pretty happy they did not get trounced. We'll have to work more on serving at practice, which I have found is something they don't like to spend a lot of time on. Unfortunately, that shows when it comes to game time.
Saturday Gillie and I traveled about an hour to Waihi to go on a scenic train ride. This was an old gold mining town and the railroad grew up around it. Now only about 8km of the rail remains, and you travel between Waihi and the other small town of Waikino, along the Ohinemuri River and through some pretty country in the foothills of the Kaimai Mountain range. We had a great time! We had lunch in the railroad cafe in Waikino, and got to sit in an open air railroad car, enjoying all the countryside and the beautiful sunny day.
After we left Waihi, we went over to Caroline and Delilah's home, and after a walk in the park near their home, we got Domino's pizza and a DVD and spend a relaxing evening hanging out with friends. Caroline runs the playgroup at Gillie's school, and is very social and she has helped me meet a lot more parents at the school. Lila is in G's class and they get along well.
They moved here from England about 6 years ago, and are deciding what to do when Lila is done in December 2012 with the Steiner school here in Tauranga. They may choose to go back to England, which they miss, but are also thinking about the Steiner college (high school) in Vancouver, Canada. Delila and her mom really enjoy the Laura Ingalls story, and want to take a tour of where she lived. They were surprised to hear we live only a few hours from Pepin, Wisconsin, where Laura was born. Gillie and I hope to be able to host Delila and Caroline on a trip to see the sights!
Sunday the 13th we just hung out and took it easy.
Here are some pics from Thursday at the Young Mariners meeting, and our train trip in Waihi.
Will work on getting more videos up on You Tube this week, including some from the train trip. The conductor was very nice, and you can hear some good Kiwi accents from him and the other passengers!
Don't forget to comment :o) We love to hear from you!
--Tracy and Gillie
5 comments:
what are you drinking in that 1 picture? were u on a train? you must be xcited 2 come home. Annika
hay gillian it looiks like you are haveing so so so much fun I really wish I was there. I can not wait till you get back to school.I know that you like it there but I really need you here. miss you so so so much.
Mallory
What was the funnest thing u did in New Zealand?yet. the snow is finally melting and it's warm enough to wear a sweat shirt.soon we will be able to were shorts!May 1st.at school. but at home much earlier.mallory placed a bet with logan and levi that on the first day you come back you guys can't talk to each other all day. and they shook on it too!
cool that is so cool hpe u have fun i was wondering where u were in theses pics besides new zeland
ash
Gillie and Tracy,
Thanks for being so active with your blog. Many of Gillie's classmates check it out on their free time as well as our weekly Thursday check during computer time. It is a great learning experience for the class to find out what is happening on the other side of the world. I try to remind them to blog back, but only a few do on their own. Of course, they all still miss Gillie and her name still comes up a lot in class discussions and whenever we make a new seating chart, even though they know we have her seat moved to the side for now. The class is a little disappointed that we had to cancel our Madison trip due to safety issues, but then a few thought that it was ok becuase Gillian wouldn't have been able to go anyway.
The kids were pretty excited today when the Leprechan visited our classroom while we were at church. They completely emptied Logan and Maddy's desks and told them to CLEAN. His name was, he left it on the board. Therefore, after church we were very busy cleaning our classroom up.
Glad to hear you guys are safe, see you soon!
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