Gillie's Blog: April 2011

Week 9 of school saw me and Gillie getting ready to come back home to the States.
Rained a ton the weekend of March 26-27, and Gillie came down with a fever and cough
after school/during the volleyball game 25th March.   We won the game, the team we played did even worse on serves than we did.   Just not a very exciting game.

Monday the 28th, Gillie was in school, and we just hung out at the library after school.
Had our last volleyball practice with the team on the 29th, and again I found that M&M's motivate
the team. However, the boys motivate better for chocolate, so they won most of the skill challenges (actually, they won all of them) so they got the most chocolate. The girls protested but hey, fair is fair!

Wednesday the 30th, Gillie was still feeling a bit punky, and I decided to keep her from school
and instead drive 45 minutes to Rotarua, a favorite tourist destination near us. We went to Te Puia, a Maori cultural center, and went on a guided tour. I enjoyed hearing the history of the Maori people, and how they came to New Zealand. (Basically, about 1000 years ago from Polynesia and other islands in the South Pacific, and more recently, they see links back to Thailand.)   The Maori name for New Zealand is "Aotearoa", or, the Land of the Long White Cloud. Pretty cool name, I think! Gillie and I both enjoyed seeing 2 live Kiwi birds. They are quite endangered, so your chance of seeing them in the wild is limited. They are also nocturnal, can't fly, and sleep for about 20 hours a day. (No wonder why they are endangered!) The habitat they were in was dark, and then at night they put the lights up...so that the birds are active in the 'fake' night and sleep during the 'fake' day. I was surprised to see they are about as big as a large chicken. I thought they were smaller. They are very shy, and move fast. They can run about 25 miles a hour! We also saw the Pohutu Geyser erupt, and saw bubbling hot mud 'ponds'....if you fall in, it is like almost boiling hot quicksand...you sink in and "cook" as you die! (Eew, but that is what the guide said.)   We stayed away from those. Rotarua has many areas that smell strongly of sulfur, due to all the geothermal activity (geysers, hot mud) close to the surface. We had a good time, and drove back to Welcome Bay in time to have a few hours at the Hot Pools, where we first stayed when we got to Tauranga.

Thursday, Gillie had her last Young Mariners meeting. It was too strong of winds to sail again, but in honor of Gillie's last night, they got to take the kayaks out after doing some rigging practice on the sailboats on land.   Gillie really likes kayaking!

On Friday the 1st, the kids played a prank on their teacher Fran, where they moved desks around and generally had fun.   We also had our last volleyball game with me as coach (they have one last practice and game the week of the 4th). We lost that one to Bethlehem College, which is really a high school, and this was an all girls' team. They beat us pretty well, 73 to 41. However, we had fun! We had some snacks after the game and took a team picture...with more than 1/2 my team up in a tree. They really like to climb trees in NZ!

Saturday the 2nd, Gillie's teacher, Fran, and Shelby's mom Rhonda had organized a going away party for us, up at Summerhill. Summerhill is a tramping and mountain biking 'park', which is cared for by Karl, another dad from Gillie's class. (Maddie's dad). Some of us adults had a nice tramp while some of the kids biked up to the summit of Papamoa Hills, walking or biking around the beef cow herd, and under or over the electric fence ;o) It was another rainy weekend, but the rain held off for most of our time at Summerhill. After Summerhill, Gillie and I went to Abigail's house to say goodbye to her and her parents, Mike and Whitney. We had a nice dinner and chat together. The 3 of them had made it much easier for us to get our bearings, and we never really said "goodbye", more like "see you later".   Whitney and Abigail get to the States usually at least once a year, so we hope to meet up with them.

Sunday the 3rd, Delilah and her mom Caroline, Delilah's friend Lucy from Class 7 (and our volleyball team), Shelby and her mom Rhonda, came over for a last walk on the beach and lunch. Once again, it was more of a "see you later" than "goodbye".

Monday the 4th, I spent wrapping up the last of the packing, giving away things we were not taking back, cleaning, and then one last hour of knitting with the students in Gillie's class. (Did I not mention my new-found knitting skills?? I am very excited to be bringing back this new skill!)
Gillie finished her knit hat in the last 10 minutes of school, and I also learned a new knitting stitch, the "purl stitch". The other moms who know how to knit I think were grinning at my excitement... (Hey, sometimes it is the little things that make you happy!)   Then came the hard goodbyes, some tears from mom, and again hopes to see our friends again. Gillie and Shelby enjoyed one last swing on the tree rope swing back in the bamboo forest, and Rhona and Shelby drove us home.

Tuesday the 5th, we took one last walk to the beach, and 4 Square to get our last free ice cream Trumpet (ask Gillie about the 5 or 6 free Trumpets she won!), and mail a few last letters.   Our plane left at 2:55pm, our landlord Neville drove us to the airport.

We saw our first rainbow in NZ, just as our plane was taxiing down the runway. The rainbow's end was just over the Welcome Bay hills, where Gillie's school is. School lets out at 3:00pm, so it was like our friends there were wishing us a good trip and saying goodbye :o)

I will post more pics on Shutterfly in the next week or so, and maybe do a bit of blogging about what the trip meant to both of us.

We are very excited to be home, and see our friends and family.   We missed you much!

:o) Tracy and Gillie