The adventure continues

Hello friends,

It's been a few busy weeks here at 115 Roker Street. Summer holidays have just wound up for New Zealand students, and everyone is just finishing up their first or second week of school now. Originally we had hoped to have our children enrolled in school here, but upon further investigation of our current visa allowances, we can't send them without paying international fees, which we're not willing to do at this point. C'est la vie. Thankfully I had hounded both teachers in Saskatoon and Nova Scotia for curriculum over the past year, and the option of doing school at home has always been in our back pocket. I don't think any of us were keen on the idea originally, but I thrive with a good, well defined, short-term challenge (especially if I think other people don't think I can do it). It is working out well for all of us. 

Silent reading time has never been so cozy!

The first thing we decided once we sorted out the schooling business was to enrol the girls in surfing lessons. Seems to me a pretty NZ kind of skill to pick up, and without the confines of a normal 8-3 school day, we have heaps of time to get it in. The kids are fabulous, by the way. Both were up on their boards within 2 tries. They have 8 more weeks to go, and I can't wait to see what they'll get up to on surf boards during that time.

They surf on Tuesdays, and for the rest of the week, if the weather stacks up we hit the local beaches for boogie boarding, once we're done our school work, of course. Our typical weekday looks like this: wake up (whenever...), grab some breakfast, check on the chooks, get some real-people clothes on and head to the 'school room'. There, we tackle math (or 'maths' as they call it here), and some french writing for 1.5-2 hrs. After that it's pretty free-style. We have 2 great libraries nearby so we hit those up pretty frequently, and our house is full of books. So we take on what's interesting to us.

Boogie boarding at Pegasus Beach

Swimming at New Brighton Beach

The kids spotted an albino House Sparrow, leading in to a short lesson on genetics

Feeding giraffes at Orana Wildlife Park

Kea bird, Orana Wildlife Park

Orana Wildlife Park

Tibetan Musk Oxen, Orana Wildlife Park

At Orana you can get up close to the lions, thankfully my children were not keen.

We're building a model solar system, we explore through geo-caching, the kids have both been cooking, and we've been learning all about NZ cicadas, including how to catch them, as they are fabulously interesting and we really want to get our hands on some. We haven't caught any yet, but we're still trying. We also have a trampoline, and a great park nearby, so that covers P.E. Brian Fry (super intelligent retired stable isotope scientist, and all around great human) will be visiting us next week, I'm hoping he can be a guest lecturer in our school room.

New Zealand's Chorus Cicada

Cicada nymph

This is a 'temporary' display honouring the 185 victims of the 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch. It has been on display since 2012. We stumbled upon it on a geo-cache hunt.

We have been exploring lots in the area. Because we're so transient this year, we opted not to buy Christmas presents for the kids or ourselves, but rather spend money on special activities in NZ. A few weekends ago, Edie cashed in on her present by asking for a sailing afternoon in Akaroa harbour, where dolphin sightings are guarenteed. It was an incredible afternoon.

Akaroa Harbour

If you look closely, you'll see a Blue Penguin

Hector's Dolphins, endemic to NZ, also claimed as world's smallest dolphin 

Happy Jardines

We hope you are well, and getting through the winter. If you need a respite and have time, energy and money (ha!) we'd love to have you. This is a very easy place to spend a Canadian winter.