Red-Faced Canadians: New Zealand!

Hello friends,

We have left the northern hemisphere, and are happily sunning ourselves in Christchurch, NZ for the next 5 months, beginning the second phase of our sabbatical year. We arrived earlier this week, after a 48 hour trek across the planet that started with a flight from Halifax to Toronto, followed by a flight from Toronto to Guangzhou (China) that took us due north of Toronto, over the north pole, then south through Russia, Mongolia and finally to the Western edge of China. We spent 19 hours there, exploring the region as much as we could, and then flew from Guangzhou to Christchurch over southeast Asia and Australia the following day.

Needless to say, we are a bit jet lagged, but are pretty content to be here. The home we are renting in the suburb of Somerfield is lovely, a great size for us with beautiful gardens and fruit trees everywhere. And the rental includes taking care of the 4 resident chooks (the girls just earned cash by chasing the last, and smartest, hen back into the pen with the others, an hour-long ordeal). We have been so lucky to have had wonderful places to live this year.

We have explored a bit on foot and by car in the area. Epic adventure awaits!

Christmas and New Year with the family this year was incredible, and difficult. Heather's absence is so much more noticeable when the family is together. However, not having to travel from Saskatoon to enjoy the time together with our family was nice. We feel like we struck gold with this sabbatical year.

Best wishes for the year to come for everyone. We miss you all, especially those in Saskatoon- but hey, we'll be back soon.

With so much love,

the Jardines

PS. Our local orchestra played 2 Christmas concerts with 2 local chorales, and some video and audio footage was taken by Mazel Musical Arts, (Gregg Mazel is the amazing bass clarinet player you'll see in the video). Follow this link. Enjoy.