This entry is for the birds

New Zealand has some amazing birds.

Oyster catchers.
I love their long orange beaks.

Shags,
that we could see from our kayak in Coromandel

Wax-Eyes
at a bird refuge in Coromandel

Friendly wetas
on the Milford Track














Paradise Ducks
The ladies have white heads and the grooms wear black.








This cheeky kea
was delighted with himself for getting into somebody's garbage. I swear you could hear him chuckling, hamming it up for the camera. These alpine parrots are known for their brilliance and ability to cause havoc.








Hence, the signs that you see in the National Parks on the South Island.....

















Wood Pigeons,
the chubby pigeons with the minuscule heads. How can a bird that fat with a head that small get up on a telephone pole?











Tui!
I love these birds. They are so talkative, and laugh so hard that they start snorting. Apparently, they can learn to hold a conversation in human-speak as well, but I think we get the gist of what they are saying in bird language.

Not dumb enough?

My favorite quote of the day.... :-)

Dave and I are reading a gripping story to Isaac about the early attempts to climb Mount Everest. Last night's chapter included a frightening rescue of some of their porters-- pretty exciting. Well, we were talking about the book afterward, and I told him that maybe he could climb Mount Everest some day. His response?

"No way! I'm not dumb enough!"


I never thought about it that way, but I'll accept it. :-)

Kaying beautiful Waiheke

Here are just a few pictures of a beautiful kayak trip Dave and I took from our local beach. You can pretty easily get to some secluded bays and beaches, and the water was especially calm on this day.

Nikolas is one decade old today!

Happy happy birthday to my little monkey today. You are a perfect 10 in my book! We had a fabulous party for him with some fantastic kids. We rented the Waiheke Rec Center for a couple of hours, and the kids had a blast playing soccer and hockey, and then, get this, a new twist on the pinata. Dave taped up about 100 balloons to the wall with candy taped to the back of each of them. The kids lined up and tried blasting soccer balls (or basketballs) to hit the balloons. The balloons would (!)pop(!) and candy would fall down. It was a hit! The kids are at such a fun age. Just add balls and they have fun!









I made a chocolate cake (which Nikolas said was "brilliant"--- awwww!). We also had hokey-pokey icecream (it's a NZ thing) and home-made bread and carrots with hummus.














I'm so appreciative of the friends that our kids have made here. This group of kids are all awesome. I wish I had more pictures of the the ball sports, but I was too busy running around the gym myself. :-)























He also got some great presents this year. He got a lot of soccer gear and some great books. Grandma and Grandpa sent him a soccer outfit from Peru (which he is showing off here with Isaac's birthday Peruvian shirt as well), and a FIFA world cup soccer ball. The real thing, and HUGE hits!

All in all it was a great day. They played soccer in the morning (and by the way, despite what you may have heard, I did not commit a yellow-card foul in the pick-up game afterward! That was another mom!) And then we spent most of the day blowing up balloons and taping candy to each of them. Great day with great people! Happy birthday to Nikolas!

Jenn Britt, Fish Hunter

So I've been fishing seriously now for over a month, catching snapper in the low 30 cm range for the most part from the kayak. Today I convince Jenn that the weather is just too nice not to go for an early afternoon kayak / fishing tour on the north side. After about 45 min of paddling we find a secluded little bay and I let Jenn try some casting while I troll with the "milk jug" fishing line. I manage to catch a 22 cm youth on the milk jug with squid. Then Jenn screams that she has a "big one!". The pole is bent in a "U" and she reels in this whopper (48 cm, 5.8 lbs). It dwarfs my best effort of 29 cm, shown merely for reference (although I think he has better coloring than Jenn's giant)

P.S. pod of dolphins spotted in Surfdale on the way to yoga class!

The olive harvest

Oh, it's great fun to live in a different clime and harvest new things from our yard. Olives don't grow in Cache Valley, so where we used to pick plums and apples from our yard, this year we picked olives. We were up in the trees for about two hours, and then the boys carefully sorted them all out by size and type, each olive carefully selected, and some left for the birds to enjoy. We then took our harvest it to a local press who will turn it into olive oil for us. Yum! Can't wait!

FISH!

Turns out that fishing isn't so hard after all. The family record is a 45cm snapper caught on squid. Snapper is our new favorite food.

Orienteering

Note that this entry is also by Isaac...

In the weekend I went out of Waiheke and into Auckland! We drove and drove. Finally we were there! A wide open field and that field was big all right. And that field and that field was a.... an orienteering field! If you ask me what orienteering means it means that you split you up with people in your family. One has the compass and one has a map of the field and that map has lines that move with the compass so then you know where you are unless you are not on the path. There are numbers on the map because you have this thing you put on your middle finger and beep it on these things that have circles on the map.

More notes from his mom now.

Bryon and Pascal introduced us to this great sport and it's been a fabulous weekend family activity. It's a treasure hunt through a forest where we try to locate as many of these checkpoints as we can within 90 minutes. You get points for each control you "beep", and you lose points if you're late.

I love wandering through a forest, and searching for controls is extra incentive. We've done three of them so far. The first one was through a dense forest (pictures here). The second one was wide open fields (described above), and the third one was on very steep terrain in both forest and open areas.

This is also an athletic event. The winners are usually very fit, sprinting from control to control, gracefully leaping the electric fences, and can usually find all 30 controls within the time limit. We're not there yet, but we'll have fun in the mean time.

Jellyfish and Te Arai Point

Note that this contribution comes from Isaac.

One day I went to the beach and there were lots of jelly fish. For staers I saw one then tow then a lot. I ran to my dad to pick up the jellyfish but he only brot tow of the Big ones. I wantied him to Bring all of them so I made eros {arrows} in the sand around the jelly fish and the eros led to the jelly fish wenn I was finished macking the eros I told my dad to foleo the eroes and Pick up all the jellyfish by the eros.


Now notes from his mom..

We went to Te Arai Point a couple of weeks ago over the kids' spring break and stayed in a bach with Amy, Bryon, Pascal, Helen and Andrew. If you ever get to scheme a trip with these guys, you know you're going to have a good time and some good eating. We had a wonderful time with some fantastic food (tamales, which I hope to make into a new Easter tradition) and an Easter egg hunt. The beach was absolutely amazing, with huge waves, and obviously, I guess the jelly fish made an impression. :-)

Fortunately, most of them didn't sting (you could swish your hands through the water and grab huge handfuls of them). Nikolas did get slashed by one, though, that hurt and left parallel whelps on his leg. Fortunately Dave had a full bladder (one should always have either vinegar or a full bladder when playing in jellyfish waters). It worked and they were on their way!



Here Bryon is with the "catch of the day". A bee-a-uuu-tiful kingfish which was delicious. Talk about providing for the family (and grateful friends). Excellent!

More awesome pics with visitors

Nikolas playing with cousin Amelia. Large heads, slim bodies, and big grins. Can you see the family resemblance?

Isaac has a fast throw. Watch out!
Dave doing airplane pose with his broken foot. When you can't walk, you may as well fly.
Rachel and Amelia at the Whangerei waterfall.

The kids made some great boats that they sent into the lake.


Some photos of Tutukaka. Watch out for mermen and viking kayakers.