Friday night I drove out to Waimauku (which is still Auckland) to stay at Jenny's house for the night. It was very much countryside out there. She lives on a dirt road and has chickens and a goat and a little pond, very pretty but not nearly as developed as here. Her house is pretty cool though and family was even cooler! Four of us went to hang out and stay the night and then two German guys that were working on Caitlin's farm for free bed and food came to hang out with us as well. We ended up playing cranium in two teams with Jenny's "mom" while her "dad" played bartender and DJ and made us drinks all night and danced to their large assortment of music (lots of trance-like club beats) on their database. Saturday morning we had chocolate chip pancakes (finally! first time since camp) and then headed down to Muriwai beach for our surfing lesson. The rain actually went away for the morning and was replaced by a little sunshine and some beautiful surfing weather! I managed to catch quite a few waves and stand up. It was a lot of fun and they said the conditions were perfect for us! The surf wasn't too high but some were big enough to get dumped off. In the afternoon (in my 2nd lesson of the day) it had started pouring rain again, but once we were in the water it didn't make too much difference. The waves were a bit higher and apparently when I was going a little more "advanced" according to one of the teachers, I did a late drop or something trying to catch a wave that hadn't broken yet but I was clearly not ready (and late) and it was pretty steep and it just threw me forward and I tumbled around. He said it looked pretty gnarly...haha surfer language in universal I guess...but I was fine didn't hurt a bit. Underwater flips are much softer than on the surface of the water (like when barefooting)!
After surfing we went back to Jenny's to get ready for Astrid's birthday party up the road in Kumeu. Everyone had to dress as something beginning with "A" and I decided to go as an All Black, a member of the NZ rugby team. It went over quite well, especially in town after the party, lots of high-fives and "go All Blacks" thrown my way!
Sunday, about 10 of us met at Laura's house, because the rain is continuing to fall, for our picnic/xmas gift exchange! It was a nice little afternoon eating, chatting and relaxing and opening some small gifts and swapping them around if we chose to.
Today, I took Libby and Reuben to the pool in Takapuna where they spent over 2 hours! The smaller kids pool it super heated so they don't get cold and were just having so much fun playing. Libby was so determined to learn to swim on her own. This time now that her feet could touch the bottom she was trying over and over again on her own and making good progress. I had to get out after awhile to avoid completely shriveling up, but they continued to play on the foam floats and things with some of the other kids in the pool. They were pretty tired after that when we came home to have lunch. Reuben hopped straight on the computer and Libby and I went on the trampoline for awhile, but she quickly got tired of bouncing, then running around in circles. She wanted to go on the swings for a little but that was probably too much work as well. We spend awhile digging in the sand to the rock down by the water and scratching drawings into the ground. I taught her how to play tic-tac-toe drawing on the rocks. Couldn't believe she'd never heard of it before!
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| Christmas at Laura's |
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| apple tree, athlete, address book, Ali G, asian school girl, airline pilot, All Black, Aphrodite, archer |
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