Our New Zealand second home

We met so many amazing people on this trip. We have been blessed beyond what words can even describe by the people in all the countries we visited. Grant and Glenda will be friends forever. We met them on our last visit to NZ. They heard about us from the YWAM base that we were staying at. They asked us over for tea (dinner) and our friendship started. Grant is an avid hunter. Of course that was a huge connection for Dean and Colton. Grant took them possum hunting on our first visit and our guys fell in love. Glenda is my NZ best friend. She is the most amazingly giving, selfless person I have ever met. I'm sure there has never been a negative word spoken about her. Ok, she will hate that I just wrote that. But to bad, she is just so terrific.

 When we told them that we were returning to NZ, they immediately invited us to come visit and offered not only that we could use their home as a home base, but that Colton could stay on after we left and live with them as he explored the area. They treated him like he was one of their own and Glenda was nice enough to send me little mom updates!! Not once did I worry about Colton. How could I when he was in such an amazing place. Colton and Grant spent lots of time on the farm. Colton learning all about sheep farming. He misses them and his time there and will often say "I miss Grant and Glenda. We all do. 

Glenda and I got to spend some time together. We drove up to see her grandson Jamie for the day. 

Grant and Glenda

 Feeding the pigeons in the park.

Miranda and I went for a few hikes in Grants sheep paddock. Up and down the hills. watching the sheep grazing in the distance.

Grant offered to give us a sheep shearing demo!!

                                                              our NZ home base

We had lots of fun learning all sorts of different recipes from Glenda

We all just took over the kitchen and cooked together sometimes

We also taught them about some of our favourite foods. Like watermelon and Rollkuchen

 After we left for Asia, Colton stayed with Grand and Glenda for a few more months. He and Jamie got to spend some time together. Colton is terrific with kids and I think Jamie missed him when he left.

                                             Colton's pet bird. Till the dogs saw it ; /

                                                                   Hanging out

                                                   Colton helping out with dinner

                                      I learnt how to make a very satisfying cuppa coffee.
                                     There is nothing better than a freshly brewed latte!!

Colton found a friend from the YWAM base. Jesse and Colton spent time camping in the car on the beach and lots of time surfing in the cold NZ waters

More Jamie and Colton time :)

colton learning to be a better surfer. Lots of falling down. Lots of water in the face. But eventually, he did get much better.

Northern NZ adventures

We have been moving around the north end of New Zealand the last couple of weeks. Meeting new people, hiking, helping on an acreage, scuba diving, driving, surfing and more. 

We spent a weekend with a wonderful couple up on their mountain home. Again, some of the most hospitable people ever. They shared their home, their cooking skills on a wood fired oven and lovely conversation over wine. We felt very spoiled as we went for a soak in the hot tub overlooking the ocean after a long hike. Eating wood fired pizza on their outside kitchen island and sleeping in their cute little cabin high up on the hill overlooking whale bay. 

We drove up to visit our Couchsurfing mountain friends up in Opanoni. It was nice to catch up over a cuppa after 3 years. 

We spent the week with a lady that made us feel like we were with family. We were helping on the farm doing yard work. She made us the most amazing dinners every night and made us all feel taken care of after a hard days work. We can't wait to see her again one day and hope her husband will be in town, so we can meet him too. 

We were welcomed into the home of another family who was friends with our YWAM friends. They took us out scuba diving and fishing. What a treat. Though we didn't catch much, we had a great time! To bad we didn't get Scott in the group picture. 

We dove along the Bay of islands coast. Stopping in every harbour for and ice cream or a walk around to see the sailboats. 

Now we are back "home". To our northern New Zealand home base. Where we can regroup, reorganize and get ready to say "see you later" to Colton as he will continue his adventure here in NZ. While the rest of us take off for a little r n r in Asia. 

We are not sure what that will look like yet. But we know that we are leaving our firstborn with some amazing people who will love him and treat him like their own as we head off. 

Our Philippians view today

https://www.facebook.com/OurFamilyTravels/videos/1034446596640595/

Here is a quick link to Facebook. There are pictures and stories of our last few weeks. 

Kids camp volunteering week

We have had a crazy busy, fun, tiring, wild week.
We have been volunteering at a kids camp all week through people we know from YWAM. It has been a blast! They have such an amazing program. It's all on a farm out in the bush. The kids are all bussed in from surrounding communities. There were 190 kids ages 6-12. Plus all the teen leaders and YWAM DTS students. 
The kids spend every morning building a bush hut. Each team builds a hut in the bush alongside a creek using whatever they could find. They used bamboo, branches, cedar trees and this natural rope tying stuff called flax.  

Then they build a fire and cooked their hot dog lunch. Each team had to start a fire and each kid cooked their own hot dog. The bush huts were pretty amazing! They all had fun trying to make their huts better and better. 


After lunch they all go in  teams and do different electives.. Miranda helped with horse back riding, 

Dean helped with a water slide into a pond, Colton was with the raft building group, I was helping with first aid. The other electives were sheep shearing, crafts, dam building, shooting and a bunch more that I can't think of right now. Today we had a big awards program and bbq at the end of it. They gave out awards for the best and most creative bush huts. Deans team won most creative. 

We are staying with a family (Grant and Glenda) we met through volunteering 3 years ago at the YWAM base. We love being here. It will b hard to leave this weekend. 



We all hung out with great people that we will never forget and hope to meet up again along the way. 

New Zealand week 2

We have done a lot of exploring and hiking on the north island. We started in Welington, where we spent 2 nights with family of the people we stayed with in Perth. Once again, we were treated like family, fed really good food, had great conversations and learnt so much about the area. It's always  hard to leave good people. It was again this time. 

We visited the BEST museum ever! It was pretty amazing!  It kept our interest all afternoon. 

We drove past the town of Rotarua. We went there 6 years ago and I really wanted to see the thermal area again. 

In Tauranga  we had to go climb up another mountain. Just because. It was a great view of the bay and Miranda seems to find hiking a little better. 

            

We drove up the coast to the coramandal peninsula. It is an amazing, somewhat scary ride through very winding , mountainous, narrow roads with no guard rails. The view was continuously more and more beautiful. We ended up at an area called cathedral cove. We hiked along the mountain for about 1/2 an hour to the cove. It was very cool. The tide was low, so we were able to walk through it.

Then we went to hot water beach We dug holes into the sand and the hot water bubbled up into the holes. The water, with a temperature as hot as 64°C, filters up from two underground fissures to the surface where the beach meets the Ocean. The natural springs are only found in 2 small areas. So you have to go look for the area when the tide is low. As the tide comes back in, the holes are washed away until the next low tide. We could have spent way longer there, but there were to many people for Colton, and Miranda forgot her bathing suit. 

Today we returned to the other side of the coramandal. We came to do some rock collecting and tomorrow some fishing. We are staying in our first hotel since the hostel in South Africa. It will be nice to just relax and do our own thing tonight. 

We found this little gem on Air B&B.