Photos from our Trip

Sisters - Aunty Kimber and Sandra

The Girls - Me, Nerina, Elanor, Tiffany

Aunty Kimber, Nana, Sandra

The Family - Elanor, Tiffany, Nerina, Me, Marsden

Sebastian, Daniel, Daniel, Jon, Ben's Photo, Anton

Harry and Sandra

Happy Engaged Couple #1 - Nerina and Daniel

Jon and his new neice Sophie

Happy Engaged Couple #2 - Sebastian and Elanor

The Kids - Nephews, Nieces, Sons, Daughters, Spouses

Unexpected trip to New Zealand

It is never easy to find out about a loved one passing away. Sometimes in that loved one leaves us unexpectedly and sometimes we feel that we have been waiting for the inevitable to happen. I think either way it is tough, but the first is harder.

About a month and a half ago now, Jon and I got a phone call from his family saying that his brother's plane was missing. Jon's brother, Ben, had his pilots license for small planes and was working on getting his instructor's license. Later that day, we received a follow up phone call saying that Ben's plane was found and he did not make it. It was quite a shock. It was very unexpected.

In a rush, Jon and I packed, bought plane tickets, and rushed to the airport in hopes of making it to New Zealand before the funeral. Due to the time differences, we had to leave essentially the next day or we would not make it. When you fly to New Zealand from America, you lose a day in traveling. So what is basically a 24 hour trip with changing planes, time delays, etc, becomes a 3 day trip time wise.

Our first plane out of Houston was a nightmare at first. Our plane was an hour late getting into Houston. Once we all got loaded onto the plane, it started thundering and lightning and raining outside, so they had to call in the ground crew for a half hour and we could not leave. Then we were in line for take off for another half hour. It was an intense flight, as we did not know if we would make it onto the international flight in time. I am pretty sure the whole flight we just prayed we would make it.

In LA we barely made the plane. I think if we had been 10 or 15 more minutes late, we would not have made it. That flight was alright, we at least were able to relax, as we new that we would make it to New Zealand on time.

When we had arrived in Auckland, we were greeted by a friend of Jon's family, who graciously let us borrow his car to drive to New Plymouth. It was a miracle for us to not have to put out more money for renting a vehicle, just as it was a miracle we could even get there.

Seeing the family was wonderful. The funeral was beautiful. There were no seats in the chapel left. In fact, many stood for the service. At the grave site, the Aero Club Ben had been a part of did a fly by, which was really touching.

We celebrated Jon's birthday while we were there. Both Jon and Ben's birthday, which was a little weird to be in New Zealand and not have them both there to celebrate their birthdays.

Even with being at the funeral, sometimes it feels that it was all a crazy dream. That Ben is off flying somewhere or studying and we will hear from him soon. Or we will see him next time we visit.

Ben touched many lives. I wonder if he knew. I wonder if we know how many people watch what we do. I wonder if we know how many people we affect as we meet them, greet them, smile at them, or do something for them.

More Sunsets

Weta Workshop

For those who may not know, Weta Workshop is one of the workshops that does special effects, costuming, structures, etc for films. Their largest accomplishments being working on Lord of the Rings and King Kong, though they have done many other productions as well.

Gollum, Gollum

Scary Ork Guy

We happened to meet the actor who played the sea captain in King Kong as well...



Anyway, they have a small museum that you can go through... so we had some fun...

Cape Palliser

We took Becca to Cape Palliser, which is sort of outside of Wellington. On the drive there we noticed a Tsumani warning sign! I didn't notice that last time I was there...


Then we saw the seals at the seal colony. It is so cool you can literally go right up to them - though that is not suggested as they will attack if you get too close, but you could!






(On a side note - seals may be cute, but they sure stink!)

Next we climbed up to the Lighthouse... We all made it up.

Sunsets and Mountains

Awww... Pretty...

Earthquake!!

New Zealand lies right over a rather large fault line. This fault line cuts pretty much from top to bottom of the country and sometimes results in earthquakes. Earthquakes are a common life experience here. In my time here in New Zealand, I haven't been able to really experience one until the other night.

Now to be fair, I slept through a very small one while in Wellington and another time was in the car driving when one occurred too. Unless the earthquake is large on the rictor scale, you won't feel a thing if you are driving around. So now I am happy to report that I have felt my first earthquake.

We were at Jon's parents house where we had gone to visit, have dinner and chat for a while after church last Sunday. I had tried earlier to contact my mother to see how she had done with the Hurricane. We were in the living room talking, Jon and I about ready to leave for home when it happened.... The whole house shook - not massively though. It was a moderate earthquake. It did no damage to their house or the city and didn't shake anything off the walls. However, it did shake the house.

Never being in one before, it is just another reminder how amazing and powerful Mother Nature is. We are getting many reminders of this lately. Anyway, for those of you who are curious, the earthquake was about a 5.2. It happened on Sunday, Sept 14 2008 at apx. 9.25pm. It originated about 60 km southwest of Wanganui out in the ocean floor. We felt it around 9.30ish here in New Plymouth.

It was rather exciting for me, but I will admit that I do not think I would find a large scale earthquake all that exciting. That would be scary. (I am happy to report that it did not even scare me. Really I think I was just amazed and excited to know right away what it was.)

Inspiring Sunsets

I just wanted to post some photos... The sunset was just beautiful the other day.




You can just see the tip of the mountain in this one above. The sunset lights it up just barely.

Reminiscing in Wellington

A couple weekends ago, Jon and I went down to our beloved city of Wellington. Wellington is where it all happened for us, and in many ways we are sad that we are still not living there. (We are happy where we are at though.) We actually went down to Welly for Jason (one of Jon's brothers) to be set apart for his mission. He will be serving in Brisbane, Australia for 2 years for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This setting apart was to take place on Sunday, so we decided to take the whole weekend and meet up with friends and roam around all the places we missed.


The whole weekend was a lot of fun, but it went by way too quickly! Friday night the ward we had left was having a stake ball. We arrived late, but before the very end. This particular ball we did not have the time to get ready for, so Jon was in his suit, and I was in one of my church dresses. We did some dancing, and catching up. Some of the people in Welly thought we had already left the country, another didn't realize we had been married yet! It was funny.


It reminded us of one of our first dates. We had gotten all dressed up (myself in a stunning red formal floor length "kiss me" dress) and Jon in his suit. We danced all night long, except when I let him off to dance with someone else. (I did have to be fair, there weren't many guys.) I did get the first, last, and many in between dances. Jon also prepared a lovely meal for me beforehand, which we had by candle light, to sweet background music. I loved that night.

Jon and I from the first dance. 13 July 2007.

Saturday, we roamed around town and meet up with more good friends we had not seen. Lunch was at Satay Kingdom - one of our favourite cheaper places to eat - with some of my past co-workers that still keep in touch. The lunch time dessert call was at the waterfront with ice cream from Kaffee Eis with my lovely fun dear friend and ex-flatmate. Dinner found us with another couple that had gotten married not too long before us. Dinner was at Nandos... yum...



For our roaming around on Saturday, we basically drove into town and parked at the Institute building and walked everywhere. Again memories.... That is where Jon and I first kissed and where we spent many hours practicing dance moves for the ball and a dance lesson I would be giving for Enrichment.

The Institute Building.

Even the church building on Sunday brought back memories. Jon and I first met there the first weekend that I went to church while being in New Zealand. It is where we spent many hours talking and some days we walked to town from church together.


On the way into town, we waved as we passed my old flat, where Jon proposed and where we spent many hours.... Off the Terrace, again we waved as we passed the building Jon used to live in. This was where we spent many hours as well and where we picked up the tradition of kissing in the elevator (don't worry - we only snog in the elevator if no one else is there...).


Funny story actually... We were going down from the 13th floor in this building and let me tell you, this elevator took forever to get anywhere... So we were leaning ON OPPOSITE sides of the elevator talking the whole way down. At the bottom, the door opened, and this elderly lady was waiting to get o the elevator. She looked at us and then said "The elevator is not the place for snogging." I was actually quite shocked as we had been on OPPOSITE sides of the elevator even when the door opened! Well I was having none of that, if we were going to get accused of snogging on the elevator, you can be assured the next time, we would be snogging! So here is my profound thank you to this elderly woman, who has started a nice little tradition. Our kids will hate you for it.


Another funny kissing story that involves another game... You know the whole "slug bug" game that we play? Well Jon's family always played this game with Mini's because there are a lot more Mini's here in NZ than Bug's. Anyway, Jon and I have adapted the game so that any time we see a Bug or a Mini we kiss. No hitting, because that is violent and not nice... and kissing is just fun. Well one day we were on the bus heading to the chapel, and were talking to another couple (older) who were in the church. We saw a Mini and kissed. This sister looked at us and then her husband and said "Should we be doing that too?" and then proceeded to kiss her husband. We then explained why, but it was amusing that she just jumped to kissing her husband because we had kissed for what appeared no reason at all.


Back to the other weekend though, Jason's setting apart was cool. I have never actually been around when a missionary is set apart. Apparently none are really alike, but it was nice to be included. Jason is now in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) and will be heading over to Aussie in a few weeks, I believe.


Random-ish offset to this blog... when I was little, I always heard that missionaries went to the MTC before they went off on their mission. But everyone says this and it always sounded like "Empty Sea" to me. For years growing up, I wondered why they sent these missionaries to some sea in the middle of nowhere before they went to proselyte and serve. I even vaguely wondered where it was from time to time. It just didn't make any sense. I don't think it even really dawned on me until I got to Utah! LOL. What can I say? I am blonde.

The 54 Bus to Churton Park. This is the bus that took me home to Churton Park and away from Jon while we were dating. Each night we spent in town, Jon would walk me to the bus stop and see me get on the bus before heading home himself. What a gentleman.

The Coffee Stop. My favourite hot chocolate in the city. The don't know my name there, but they know my order as soon as I walk up. Even after months of not being there.

Mostly this drive way sign amuses me....

Fergburgers

If ever you are in Queenstown, New Zealand and you are a meat eater, you have got to go get burgers from Fergburgers. I think these are hands down the best burgers ever. (And that is saying a LOT since I hail from Texas home of BBQ and Steaks.)

I was basically just going through photos of things I have done since I have come to New Zealand, and hit some tribute photos for Marianne of our trip to Queenstown. See as a wedding gift, Marianne brought us back some vouchers (gift coupons) to Fergburger since we were going to Queesntown on our honeymoon and she had recently been to Queenstown.

We wound up having Fergburger twice in the short time we were there! Queenstown is lovely all around though, and is well worth a visit.

Mount Taranaki aka. Mount Egmont

Living in New Zealand is exciting and beautiful. The countryside itself is green and there is always something to see. Geologically speaking, New Zealand is the home of all kinds of wonders all wrapped into one. Most of the country lies on a fault zone, so earth quakes are common. Volcanoes, hot spots, hot springs, rain forests, and more abound. It can be quite humbling to live around such power and beauty.

My first year here in New Zealand, I spent in Windy Wellington. Wellington can get gale force winds and freezing wind from the south at any point. (Reminder for those of you not so good with geography - the only thing south of New Zealand is the South Pole!) Wellington itself sits directly on a fault line and is known to have earthquakes. I myself have been through a few smaller ones, all of which I didn't even feel because I was in a car driving when it happened!

Now I live near glorious Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont. I have to note here though that one thing I love about Kiwi's is that they refer to all of their volcanoes as mountains. Yes, you guessed it, I am living next to a dormant volcano. This mountain/volcano is 2,518 meters or 8,261 feet high. Mount Taranaki is more specifically a stratovolcano, which means every so often there are explosions or eruptions from the mountain. St. Helen's was another stratovolcano. Some scientists think that Mt. Taranaki is overdue for an eruption and research from Massey University indicates that there is likely to be something in the next 50 years.

Mt Taranaki has two names. The Maori called the mountain Taranaki, but in the 1700's the mountain was renamed by Captain Cook after the 2nd Earl of Egmont who promoted Captain Cook's first voyage. Now the mountain is referred to as both names and is frequently marked on maps as both.

Taranaki's cylindrical cone is a thing of beauty. Because of its nearly perfect cone, the mountain was used in the Last Samari as Mt Fiji.

As all good sites, Mt. Taranaki has the following myth associated with it: Taranaki used to reside with the other volcanoes on the North Island. The beautiful Pihanga was coveted by all the mountains around and a battle broke out over her. Tongariro won this battle, inflicting wounds on Taranaki, causing him to flee. Taranaki headed south west til he hit the coast and then north and as the sun came up, he was petrified in his current location. His movements carved out the Wanganui River.

Taranaki can frequently be seen with rain clouds masking part of all of the mountain, sometimes even when there are no other clouds around. When this is true, it is said that Taranaki is crying over his lost love, and during spectacular sunsets, it is said that he is displaying himself for her.

It is said that one day Taranaki will return to his love, and for this reason many Maori will not live between the mountains.