Happy Thanksgiving!

My Thanksgiving hasn't been too traditional..I dropped Libby and Reuben at school this morning, made a trip to the post office, and got a break light replaced in the car.  I had a chat with home to say Happy Thanksgiving since I won't be around on their actual celebration day, and then I made some pumpkin pies just so it could feel a bit like Turkey Day here!  I'll be at yoga during dinner time, so no feast for me, plus Julia won't be cooking a whole bird anytime soon!  The baking process was difficult, converting measurements and especially temperatures and trying to judge the size of the glass dishes I was using and how long to keep them in the oven for...also had to improvise (using Dad's suggestion) and use a wine bottle as a rolling pin!  It actually worked very well to roll out the crust!  I haven't done a taste test yet, but I'm hoping they taste as good as Grandma's! 

Tomorrow, Friday morning, bright and early, myself and 10 others are off to Waitomo to go black water rafting through the glow worm caves and then off to Taupo in the evening.  Saturday morning most of us are doing a 15,000ft skydive!! Eeek!  And then white water rafting down the Tongariro River.  Sunday we're going to Rotorua and checking out the mud pools and possibly ZORBing and whatever else we can fit in!

Neck healing process

A bit overdone....hard to find the right temp on a Celsius oven...also with smaller dishes hopefully just as tastey!

Random Week

So far this week has not been a normal schedule at all!!  Today it was different again!  Libby and Reuben and a Rugby tournament type thing at school and Julia volunteered to go on the bus with them to the games, which took most of the school day.  She drove them to school and then brought Libby home with her in the afternoon and left Reuben at school for the rest of the day.  Tessa was home with me, although we had to go meet John at the mechanic's where he was leaving his car for some repairs and then drive him back to work.  Tessa was quite confused being left at home with me this morning, did not like watching Mom drive off with Reuben and Libby at all!  Tonight I made chicken fajitas to contribute to the dinner, mostly just for John and I, but well worth it because I thoroughly enjoyed them.  The kids had their wraps with mince and Julia had hers with last night's schnitzel so everyone had their preferred meat filling!

Also, the official photos and video are up from the harbor crossing swim.  You have to pay for the good quality ones and videos as well, coming up the ramp and then through the finish line!
Photos and Video around my finish time!

Swimming with Libby

This morning I drove Libby to school and then brought Tessa to the supermarket and then to the park for a bit before it got windy and a little rainy.  We came home to meet John and Reuben, returning from the doctor to get Reuben's sore tummy checked out.  He was home for the day and Julia came home early to be with him too and finish work from home.  I went to pick up Libby and ask if she wanted to go for a swim with me.  She was pretty excited about the idea, which was good because she's been going back and forth with the extremes of really wanting to learn how to swim and absolutely hating swim lessons!  She doesn't have much confidence in the water at all, but really wants to learn how and is determined to do it.  Luckily, she was ready to give it a try again today, but was hesitant to get in the big pool because she couldn't touch the bottom.  Then she wasn't happy with the kick board we'd asked to use, she wanted "a safer floaty".  So the lifeguard was nice enough to steal us a noodle out of the swim school's supplies and then she used that in addition to the kick board.  She wants to feel safe without any help from me, which in a way is good, she wants to be in the water by herself and wants me to let go, but she won't get in with JUST me an no floaty so I can't give her a sense of how much she is actually holding herself up.  She did do pretty well with the kicking and even tried using her arms a bit as well and listened to a few pointers I gave her.  She really likes to figure things out on her own so hopefully soon she'll be comfortable enough with some sort of flotation device to give swimming without one a try, or even floating without one! 

I also realized I missed the 2 month mark of my being here!  It's all going way too fast! I also can't believe Thanksgiving is this Thursday!  I'll be tubing through a glow worm cave in Waitomo during the day Friday (when everyone back home is sitting eating turkey...not your typical Thanksgiving activity) I better start listening to some Christmas music soon to remind myself that it's the Holidays!  With summer approaching all the Christmasy decorations are more confusing than anything else!

Harbor Crossing Results!

I survived the swim across the Auckland Harbor and also managed to stay awake the entire day after waking up at 5:30am for it!  Sunday morning at 7:05am the first wave of speedy swimmers (wearing red caps) began their swim, then 1 min after the next wave (wearing pink caps), 1 min after the next wave (wearing yellow caps), and finally 1 min after the final wave, my wave (wearing white caps).  I entered myself with a seed time of 1.5hr-1.75hr (the cutoff) because I really didn't expect to do much better than that, seeing as I haven't swam really in 3 years or done any training for the event.  It was kind of a gross morning, rainy and windy and not so warm out.  The water was pretty choppy once entering the open harbor coming out of the bay from behind the marina, but it was pretty cool to be able to see the other side waaaaayyyy across the water, I'm glad I can say I've swam across now!  My official time, just posted online today was 1hr 11min and 34sec.  The timing chip didn't stop timing you though until you'd climbed up the ladder, gone up a ramp, then went through the inflatable finish line once up on the platform.  The average time for people who completed it before the cutoff was 1hr 4min and 54sec.  Only 984 people finished the race out of 1145 people who entered.  I don't think all swam too slowly, I'm sure some people just decided on the day not to swim it, either not happy wiht the weather or didn't feel ready or something.  Hopefully the photos will be up soon!  In the mean time, here's some photos of what the wetsuit did to my neck...super chaffing and super painful!  This was right after the swim, but today it's even worse cause it's drying out and getting tighter!

Sunday afternoon I went to check out the Devonport Christmas market with some of the girls.  There were some craft stalls and some yummy gourmet cupcakes.  Right outside there was a sign reading "Does this turtle belong to you?" and an arrow pointing down to a lost property box with some water and rocks and HUGE painted turtle in it!  I wanted to claim him! He looked just like a grown up Terrance!  Who loses a turtle anyway??  After exploring the market we decided to go up to the top of Mt. Victoria in Devonport just to check out the view since it had turned out to be a pretty nice day, just SUPER windy up there!

The harbor I swam across viewed from the top of Mt. Victoria

Painful wetsuit chaffing...

and it goes ALL the way around :(

Bayswater peninsula to the far right and Te Wero island in the Viaduct where we finished the race on the far left

On top of Mt. Victoria with Rangitoto in the background

Mt. Victoria used to be a war bunker