February Snapshots

February was a beautiful month here in Christchurch. The kids are settling into school and life here so well. I think this first picture, of their Saturday morning fort on February 2nd, sums up how at home they feel here. The other picture is of the gardens we get to walk through every day to get to school!

  

February 2 to 15 — Terry visits

Chris’ mother, Terry, flew over to visit us for a couple weeks. We had many fun adventures, and many enjoyably slow paced days too. The first day she was here we took the bus to the Botanical Gardens and walked an awful long way for a Bacon Brother’s burger.

  

Wednesday, February 6th was a school holiday, Waitangi Day, celebrating the treaty between the Maori and British. It was too chilly to go to the beach, so we took the bus through the mountain to Lyttleton harbor, then a ferry out to Quail Island. It reminded me of my first vacation to Rock Island off the tip of Door County, Wisconsin, when I was 6 years old. Except that we didn’t camp. But the island was an uninhabited park where only hiking and camping were allowed. The hike was beautiful. Terry found two Christchurch rocks and Chris found a huge peek a boo tree!

    

That Saturday it warmed up enough and we finally got Terry to the beach. I was inspired by how game Terry was to go into the waves. We Midwesterners have so few chances. Chris and I really enjoyed the boys, running their MarioKart tracks, burying them in sand, and jumping the waves. There’s also an exceptional splash pad at New Brighton Pier for rinsing off.

    

Terry treated Chris and Twill and I to a great day at Willowbank Nature Reserve on the 12th, when the older boys were in school. It was so fun to see Chris feeding all the birds and animals with more enthusiasm than most kids. The eels were pretty aggressive though. We even had lunch with the deer.

    

February 16 to 19 — Mom and Dad return

Mom and Dad came back from their tour around the South Island with beautiful stories and pictures, and many great laughs about Squeaky, their camper van. They rented a large van that would seat 8 people for a couple days so they could drive us around our area more. Sunday we spent the day hiking around the point between New Brighton and Lyttleton harbors. It was a beautiful day, full of dramatic clouds, a bit of sun, and many sheep.

  

We also made it to the famous Margaret Mahy playground that we’d been wanting to see since we got here. It’s the largest playground I’ve ever seen, one of the many improvements from the big earthquakes that destroyed much of the city center. I didn’t get many good pictures, we’ll have to go back.

  

The last day we had the van we tried driving out towards the Banks Peninsula where Mom and Dad had camped, but we had a couple sick boys so we turned back and let them rest at home. I think the kids kind of reached their breaking point of going breakneck pace to get the most out of our time shared here. But we were so thankful to get to share this beautiful place with our parents and hope that more friends and family will take the opportunity to come see us. We have a huge guest room with separate entrance that’s sitting empty!

  

February 20 to March 6 — Teresa welcomes us to Christchurch

The day Mom and Dad flew out I met Teresa, a friend of our friends from Eau Claire who visit here regularly. She was preparing to leave for their sabbatical, back to their home country of Germany, in just two weeks. But she still took me and Twill under her wing, on top of all she had to do in preparing to leave, and welcomed us to Christchurch in very meaningful and practical ways. That Friday, the 22nd, she took us to Nature Play, a Christchurch group that explores the outdoors with kids. We went to the mud flats and played in the mud. I built a turtle and platypus family for Twill. We were the last ones there, along with Teresa’s friend, Hiromi, from Japan. At the end we were all working together to dam the stream, and we noticed how neat it was that a German, American, and Japanese woman were working together in New Zealand. It was a very magical moment for me. I told them I am very thankful that they can see me as a person, not just an American.

   

That night we also saw them at the school Family Fun Night, but sadly I didn’t get any pictures, only videos. The following week Teresa took Twill and I to the Wednesday music class that she enjoys. It was delightful, and Twill enjoyed it more than I anticipated he would. Afterward, we drove to the mall where Teresa got a haircut and I played with the kids at the mall playground. It was so refreshing to spend time with Teresa’s girls, who truly know how to play. I credit her lack of a smartphone quite a bit. I don’t think they are inherently bad, but they create a lot of angst in preschool children in my house, and I haven’t figured out how to manage this well yet.

  

That Friday, March 1st, Teresa took us again to Nature Play, this time at the Botanical Gardens. I am learning about parenting from these new friends, Teresa and Hiromi. Twill has been in an understandable phase of resisting all these new social engagements, but enjoying them in the end. It’s been exhausting challenging both of us to push through this resistance, but also very rewarding. At the gardens, Twill really wanted to go to the playground, because he’d been there before, but Teresa and Hiromi showed us a beautiful world inside this huge tree, then proceeded to set an example for the kids by climbing the tree themselves. It helped me to remember how much I love climbing trees, and how much Twill needs to see me having fun too. Afterwards, we enjoyed the playground with Teresa and Hiromi and their kids.

Sunday Hiromi invited us to Japan Day, so we met her there and enjoyed learning a bit more about her and her culture. She also introduced us to another couple from Malaysia. Both couples are living their dream here in New Zealand where the culture is more laid back and slow paced. Their husbands work hard making food for people every day. But they are not locked into a career track for decades. New Zealand seems to be a place of freedom for those willing to take risks. The kids enjoyed this simple fishing for balloons game.

  

Then Wednesday, March 6, Hiromi and I dropped Teresa and her family off at the airport for their sabbatical. I am incredibly sad to see them go after only two weeks. They are generously letting us use their car, even insuring us on their insurance, while they are gone. Teresa gave me lots of driving practice last week too. Their attitude about the whole thing, “It’s just a car, it should be used!” is so humbling and revealing of how foreign this is to our culture. I feel like in America we have an unhealthy attachment to our things, and we are seeing some very stark contrasts here. Today, Friday, Hiromi came over for the day with her son, Kuni, because it was too cold and rainy for Nature Play when I have a cold. Kuni and Twill really bonded, playing kitties in a blanket fort. I am so thankful for Teresa’s investment in us, with all she had going on. We are settling in to life here, and slowly figuring out what our new normal might be.