Hello friends!

The feijoa have ripened, and they are amazing! One fun thing that we've been able to do living with an amazing garden, is to collect fruit and share our excess through connections with the Salvation Army here in NZ. The girls and I have taken a few large bushels of apples and plums to a food kitchen not far from our house. It's been a fun way to learn about caring for a garden and harvest, and meeting the needs of those less fortunate in our community. That being said, there is no guarantee that the feijoa will make it to the less fortunate- these are disappearing fast.

We have been taking in all kinds of sights in NZ. Some close to home, and some not so close. There is a lot to discover in a pretty reasonable amount of driving time, so we've been able to take lots of day trips, like the Rakaia Gorge, Southwest of Christchurch. We took a 10ish Km hike along the gorge, and while there were complaints along the way, I think we all appreciated the view. The pictures really say it all. There are some days in NZ when we forget that the rest of the world isn't like this, and aren't awed by what we see. Isn't that crazy?

In Mid-March we drove to Nelson (North part of the South Island of NZ) to visit our amazing friends, the Davis family. They were over for a short trip from their home in Bowling Green, Ohio, on a work trip for Tim (the Davis Tim). It is always a good time when our families get together, and this trip was no exception. Heaps of hiking and general roughhousing for a few days with these guys does our family good. Brings a bit of chaos into our quiet and fairly predictable lives. Somehow, we always end up finding great playgrounds together. Our kids 'get' each other.

Amity, Joel and Celia.

Edie and Lachlan.

NZ Stick Bug.

More playground fun for this crowd.

Jardine and Davis kids at the geographical centre of NZ.

In early April, we took a trip to Kaikoura so that I could participate in a half-marathon run that took in the Kaikoura peninsula, and ended in the foothills of the nearby mountains. We were so excited to see Kaikoura- the mountains are spectacular, and the wildlife there is second to none, we were told. Unfortunately for us, it rained for most of the time we were there. The only time the rain let up was actually during the race, I had 2 hours of sunshine and Tim and the girls got a chance to find 8 geocaches. We call that a win. While I was running I got to glimpse the mountain peaks, which made things so pleasant. The first half of the race was up and over the peninsula, which was a whole lot of uphill running, which I love, and will miss back in Saskatoon. It wound through a reserve and through sheep pastures, and ended up back at the raceway where we started. The second half of the race took us through a pine forest on a mountain bike track- it was spectacular running. The half-marathon runners doubled back on this track and I'm embarrassed to say that I ended up crashing in to both the first and second place runners on their way back through. My default is to go to the right side of the path when meeting an on-coming runner, it is not the right way in NZ. Lesson learned. All told I came in 13th, with a time of 2h05. I am pretty happy with that. The same day of the race we took a drive north of Kaikoura to visit a very gregarious fur-seal colony. It was really raining at that point, so it was difficult to take it all in without freezing- it was pretty miserable out, the seals didn't seem to mind.

Kaikoura range in the background.

Freezing, and trying to enjoy watching the seals.

Look closely, there are hundreds of seals down there.

Closer to home we have been busy enjoying all that NZ has to offer. The girls finished up their 9 week surfing lessons, and did so well. They are both super confident on their boards and are able to catch their own waves. We're so proud. For the past 2 weeks the NZ kids have been on school holidays, so we have taken advantage of a 2 week holiday surf camp, and have been going out almost every day for 2 hours. I joined the kids for this and we've all been having fun. The 3 of us caught a 'party wave' together (which is surf talk for all of us catching the same wave at the same time). It was amazing. It's getting rather cold for surfing now, so this week will wrap it up for us. It's been fun.

We've been on a 20 day caching streak where we've found at least 1 geo-cache a day, with 14 caches being our biggest day. #sabbatical goals. It's been great for getting us to places around the city that we wouldn't explore otherwise. We have a few favorites- one requiring Tim to climb up a tree to retrieve a nano-cache from a tiny bird nest, and another requiring us to figure out a passcode to a birdhouse with a series of switches that needed to be flipped in a specific order in order to get to the log-book (a Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy themed cache). Edie got in to some tree nettle at one site, which turns out to be a very nasty plant, even a brush with it causes a stinging, itching reaction, and in at least 1 extreme case, death. Edie required a few days of anti-histamine. Never again will we go crashing through the bush without looking hard for tree nettle in the area.

Example of a nano-cache.

Over the few months that we've been here and home schooling, we've been looking at local insects and critters in NZ, studying life-cycles and learning about their habitats. We learned a lot about cicadas, and in the last days of the summer, we actually caught one. We built a little habitat for the guy (we could identify it as male from its tymbal covers) and when we went to look at it the next morning, it was dead. We felt kind of bad about that, but since it was the end of the season, he was bird-food anyway. He has made a fine specimen in the 'museum of death' at the School of Hard Knocks.

Once it started getting colder, we discovered that Bradford Park, which we visit practically every day, is one of the parks in the city where Monarch Butterflies overwinter. Apparently Christchurch is one of the only places where Monarchs do overwinter (in NZ, anyway), due to the temperate climate. They hang in clusters off of trees, and if it gets warm enough in the day they'll leave the trees to eat, and return at the end of the day. I have never seen so many Monarchs in one place, every night we can find their clusters. We truly live in an amazing place. One night the girls came home frantic that they had killed a Monarch when they found one under Edie's scooter helmet. I went over to check it out, and the Monarch was on the ground, alive, but not very active. Having heard that rats are a predator to these Monarch clusters, we decided to bring it home and leave it in a leaf-lined box with a cover over the top. The butterfly never really recovered. He'd (again, we could identify it as a male- two little raised bumps on their lower wings, close to the body) get a little more active in the warm sunshine, but not active enough to fly away. After 3 days, he too joined our museum.

Close up with a Monarch.

Monarch clusters.

Around the same time, the girls and I were parking the car in front of the house after a day of exploring and Celia yelled out "Stop! What's that?", looking over to where she was pointing we spotted a little hedgehog on our neighbour's driveway. We've seen these over in the park, and have even been shown how to handle them, so we carefully picked this guy up and brought him over to our yard (yes- our third male specimen). They are not very aggressive, and Celia's been itching to get closer to one, so this was our opportunity to watch one find its way around our backyard. After a few minutes of bumbling and snuffling around I noticed a few bad signs- fly larvae behind its ears, and a rank smell coming off of him. Shortly after, we noticed that he was bleeding. So, we got in touch with a hedgehog rescue group in the city and took him over. It turns out he was badly wounded by a cat (most likely), and while they treated him and cleaned him up, he didn't survive the night. So, we're 0 for 3 on keeping the critters we're observing alive. We've been so grateful to have such access to nature, but we've had some hard lessons learned.But it was cool.

Celia and 'Merle'.

Celia turned 8 in March. She, Edie and their friend Savreet spent a session at our city library learning stop-motion animation with lego. It was a truly Jardine party compete with fake moustaches. The libraries in this city are a real treat, and we have used them extremely well. We are going to miss them.

Having fun building sets for stop motion animation.

Celia turns 8.

We have taken in a Crusaders game and will be partaking again tomorrow night. This is Christchurch's pro Rugby Union team, and while we don't know all the rules, it's so much fun to be in a crowd that big and watch really good rugby. Fun happening the first night- Col. Sanders arrived at half time in a helicopter, and a bucket of chicken the size of a house was wheeled out on to the field. The Col. saluted us, and heaps of decked out KFC employees ran around passing out buckets of chicken. It was pretty weird. Made me feel like maybe KFC is a bigger deal here than it is in Canada? Not sure, but it was memorable. They actually used footage from the game to make this commercial. So very strange to have been part of that.

Go the Crusaders!

Big bucket of KFC on the field.

Last week we hosted my travelling cousin Lesley, who's been backpacking through Thailand and Southeast Asia since December. It's been nice to have another Sweeney in the house, and she'll be dropping back in mid-May before she flies back to Canada after exploring the south island of NZ. It's nice to have visitors, and we're looking forward to being back home.

Enjoy the pictures- Love to all!

Laura

The girls in Diamond Harbour.

Having fun with math.

Problem of the week from University of Waterloo.

Rolling in to Fall in NZ

Hello friends,

I started this post a few weeks ago, and in the meantime, the terrible attacks on the 2 local mosques in Christchurch took place. The entire city was on lockdown that afternoon, and the kids and I happened to be at the library in Cathedral Square at the time. Tim was at work at the University of Canterbury. We were all safe, and in calm environments considering what was going on outside of the doors. We are so grateful for the safety and security that we felt. Yet, feel deep grief for those people and families targeted in the attacks, who were in a place they considered safe, and sacred. In the library, I overheard a 5 year old  boy ask his mom, "mom, if there is one bad guy but a lot of good people, the good people will win, right?" I believe he is right, and good does overcome, eventually. But there are so many innocent casualties along the way. It's very hard to get your head around.

As for the older post- keep reading.

The mornings and evenings are getting cool, the leaves are starting to turn and it's harvest time! We lucked out big time when moving to 115 Roker street in that the owners (who are away temporarily, like us) are amazing gardeners. There is SO much fruit here. We have feasted on peaches, plums, grapes, apples, raspberries, both black and red currants and this week Celia found a physalis plant which is giving the most amazing little berries right now. We'd tried physalis berries in Saskatoon before, but they're so much better picked in your front yard and not shipped half way around the world. Next to come are feijoa fruits. We have been told that these are amazing, and are eagerly awaiting their ripening. There are some lemons well on their way too. Given the weather reports that we have been getting from the Saskatoon region (and the rest of Canada this winter), we're savouring the warmer weather in Christchurch, and the fruit that this climate allows.

My job this sabbatical year has been, and continues to be the generator of enthusiasm for a year-long adventure that our children had no choice in participating in. There are some trying days, but in general the kids are champs at keeping on board with the plan. We are continuing to explore and learn, and have fun, but I think it's safe to say that we're all starting to consider what going home will look like. Our tickets are purchased for June, which will put us back in NS where we'll pick up our car and head back across the country to Saskatoon. In the meantime we've got a few big trips planned and otherwise will continue our weekly school routine. An aside, Celia refers to our school as The School of Hard Knocks, which I find hilarious. I'm pretty proud of how well they are both working and adjusting to everything we're throwing at them.

Some of our latest exploring includes cave walking, and I think it's safe to say that these underground adventures have been the most memorable and exciting. Our first crack at it was at Castle Hill, where a section of river flows under a big limestone hill. The section is around 750m, which sounds like a nice easy, short walk, but it was a much larger undertaking than I'd thought before we set out, taking us almost an hour and a few tricky situations to get through on our own. We were equipped with headlamps, and in the absence of these, we would have been in trouble. We experimented a few times in turning off our headlamps underground to see what it was like, and I can only describe it as the darkest of dark. The kids were in their wetsuits, which was a good move in planning on our part, as there were parts of the underground river that were up to Celia's shoulders. Tim and Celia buddied up, and Edie and I buddied up and we made it through. The water was refreshingly cool, as it was a hot summer day, and we felt like champions when we finally made it through to the other end of the cave. Daylight has never looked so good, and this cavewalk is hands-down one of the coolest things we've ever done.

The second cave expedition was near Greymouth, NZ, which is located on the West Coast of the island. It was not nearly as epic, probably because it was not nearly as long, and we had a guide with us. The danger factor wasn't really there. The coolness factor was high though, as the cave was habitat for the New Zealand Glow Worm, and was a part of a geological deposit of gold, amongst other minerals.

Evoking fear into the negative cave spirits with our fierce faces.

Panning for gold

We were privileged to host Brian Fry for a few weeks in February. He's been part of many a Jardine adventure, and we were so happy to spend time with him again, and in a new country.

Brian and our surf-bum kids.

The Antarctic centre, felt a little like home.

We found a hanging rope over the Grey River on our trip to Greymouth with Brian.

Celia's turn...

And Mom...

And even Brian got in on the action.

Much love- we'll be home soon!

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.