A New Dog and a Loose Tooth

This is Rico!!!! He arrived on Wednesday to much celebrating and fanfare.
Rico is a nine-month old golden retriever puppy. He is so good, he has a lot of training already and Meggie has been working hard with him the past two days to help him in his transition from farm to city life.

Mere minutes after the breeder arrived with Rico to drop him off Meggie discovered a rather large gap in what used to be our completely fenced yard. It seems our neighbor is doing work and took down a sizeable portion of their fence that borders our property. This discovery sent me into a panic as Rico is/was not very road-wise having come from a farm and we are right on a fairly busy street.

This is Willow upon meeting Rico - she immediately scampered up the nearest tree.

Anyway, something had to be done about the gap in the fence. First we simply shut Rico up in the cottage (calling our home a house sounds a wee bit too expansive). Immediate doggie aroma ensued. I decided this wasn't going to work for long so the girls, Rico and I walked to the hardware store about 1 kilometer away. It was a nerve-racking walk for me. Meggie pushed Ellie in the stroller while I held the dog on the lead trying to keep him from either running into the street or snuggling up to every person who walked by, he is a very friendly pup.

We made it though, only to find the local store didn't have the fencing Dugald had suggested to me over the phone. The man was extremely kind though, a dog owner himself, and after spending lots of time talking to Rico he pointed me in the direction of some sturdy chicken wire that could serve as a temporary fix. He also recommended a good dog trainer, the same one the vet had recommended that morning when I took Willow in for shots, so I stored the info and we started home. The journey back was even more challenging than the one to the store because now we had added a big roll of chicken wire to the things we were carting back.

Eventually we made it and that night Dugald nailed up the chicken-wire and thankfully Rico hasn't even tried to escape since we've had him. He is such a good dog - so far no digging and very little barking. He also has restrained himself in regards to the cat and now they will be in the same room and fairly close to each other without any hissing or arching of the back on the part of the cat. Poor Willow had a really tough day on Wednesday - her first trip to the vet, shots included, and then the arrival of the dog. We're all just grateful she didn't decide she'd had enough and run away.

All the girls have been very good with the dog - we even bathed him yesterday in the hopes of getting rid of some of the smell. It helped somewhat. Meggie has been extraordinarily good - spending lots of time playing with him, walking him and even cleaning up his messes. She was holding him outside the grocery store while I ran in yesterday and a lady came up to admire him and told us she had a 14-year-old golden retriever. I told Meggie if Rico lived to 14 he would be in our home even after she left! Hard to imagine.

In other news Katie has a loose front tooth. I am affectionately calling her "snaggletooth" because remarkably it has been hanging on for weeks.

It bothers me that it hasn't come out. I put Josie to work to try and pull it out, but so far Katie still has her tooth.

Hope all is well in your world - we love emails so write when you can. The dog trainer comes on Monday to train the whole family, yay! Right now Rico is more well-behaved than Ellie, maybe she(the trainer) can help me with that too :). By the by, we had talked about naming the dog Tex, but then we decided that he already responds to Rico so maybe we should just leave it at that. However, "Rico" sounds alot like "Willow" in the animal kingdom, so we may have to change it anyway. . .we'll keep you posted!!

Makara Beach

There is a beach near us called Makara Beach and we went for a visit one day while Sarah was still here just to have a look. It is on the southwest coast of the north island and just a short drive from Karori. The drive feels a bit treacherous however as you wind your way up and over a mountain, or hill I guess. I think we're surrounded by mountains but I've been told they are just hills.

Anyway, the beach was very rocky and it was an extremely windy day. Standing there and looking out over the water it felt like I was on the edge of the world. There is a little cafe in the town but that's about it besides some very hardy people who live there year-round.

The water was cold but of course the girls had to dip their toes in, and their knees, and eventually their shorts. . .you know how it goes!

Not exactly the beach I grew up on! This one is much more rugged and untamed. I hear that people come here in the summer to surf, fish and dive.

You can also walk for miles but we didn't do that this time, maybe as the children get older. I think this will be a great place to bring Rico (our dog, arriving tomorrow) for a swim every once in awhile.

I'll post more soon with pictures of the dog. We are still in the unpacking process and don't have our main computer set up, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to upload pictures or not. Sarah is a whiz on the computer and had an external hard drive so she was able to transfer her pics from her laptop to ours, but I need to do it the old fashioned way and I haven't yet found our USB cord.

Hope you all had a beautiful Easter!

Just a few of the differences between here and there. . .

Yesterday we went to church and afterwards they were having a barbeque lunch for new people so we joined them. I was astonished at how many people wanted to talk about American politics with me! I laughed at their assumptions about my political opinions and affiliations without giving too much away, but I finally said to one of the ladies that has become a friend that we simply don't talk about such things in the States, at least not in the South and certainly not at church. She laughed and told me Kiwis talk about politics all the time! It's definitely not taboo, in fact it's talked about as much as the weather. I'm not sure this girl can adapt but we'll see - I have no shortage of opinions but it does sometimes seem bad form to air them all!

We went to Palmerston North on Saturday to see Hugh and Margaret and on the way stopped to meet Rico, an 8-month-old golden retriever to see if he might fit with our family. He is a beautiful dog and the girls fell in love and to my surprise even Dugald is quite fond of him. So, against the advice of some of our nearest and dearest, we adopted him. He isn't living with us yet, we weren't quite prepared to take him home that day, but he is being delivered to us by his very sweet owner on the Weds following Easter! I honestly can't wait. Call me crazy. . .

But back to the differences between here and there . . . no one here has air-conditioning. It's not really needed - the weather is pretty mild and the windows can be open without an invasion of mosquitos or other pests so it's quite nice. Except for the dust. There is a lot of dust without the a/c to filter it and I am having to learn some coping mechanisms (like don't look too closely at the floor you JUST vacuumed).

Another notable difference - whenever you see children out and about they have on hats. Definately something we need to look into as New Zealand lacks ozone and therefore is even less protected from the sun than the white fluffy sand of Clearwater Beach. I have been trying to slather the girls in sunscreen whenever we are going out, but even so they got a bit pink today on our walk to and from ballet.

I also mentioned with the car shopping the lack of selection. I will say that I like a lot of the Kiwi products better than what they have at home (cheese, bread, fresh produce, lamb, coffee, wine, definately wine) but there is less selection and availability. I had to run in to the grocery store on the way home from Palmerston minutes before it closed at 10 pm and the produce was gone. Seriously, like two apples were left and they looked like they may have been there awhile. But, and this is fun, I also bought some soap that same night and it somehow didn't make it into my bag (horrors, I was using plastic). Anyway, today the girls and I popped back in to get some produce and other bits and pieces and I mentioned the soap incident to my cashier who was NOT the same cashier from the previous night, but being a small town she said "Oh yes, right, I have it for you" and went and got it, no questions asked. I think I would have gotten the soap in Walmart too but it would have taken a lot longer, receipts would have to have been produced and they might even think I was lying. So that was nice.

We are coping quite well with just one bathroom between us all - it helps that the toilet is in a seperate room, not just area, from the shower and bath. I went to an open house down the road on Sunday and they had the same set up. Makes sense and I am so glad they thought of that! Sunday I decided check out one of the millions of open houses they have every weekend. They seem to make much more use of them here than at home. They also don't really price the houses, at least not that I can tell, that are for sale. Some are for sale by tender, others have a rateable value on them which I guess is a suggested price/tax assessment price, and others go by auction. It's a bit confusing but I'm not really looking to buy anyway, I'm just checking out other people's homes to see what's out there.

Gas is priced by the litre (yep, they spell it litre, not liter) so that's different. And, and this is terrible, no pay at the pump!!!!! Gas is expensive here but we have a car that uses less of it than the suburban so we haven't had to make too many adjustments to the budget on that one. Oh yeah, and we drive a lot less and we only have one car, which brings me to another difference, public transport. The bus system here is great (only say nice things when talking about something your brother-in-law owns). Seriously it's been nice to not have two cars to pay for and look after and it only takes Dugald about 10 minutes to get to work on the bus and they are safe, clean and reliable and run frequently.

The girls are involved in many of the same activities here as they were in Texas - but if we wanted to we could sign them up for cricket, rugby, netball, field hockey, water polo and a few other sports not seen so much at home. We're sticking with what we know at the moment but give them time . . .

Of course the school calendar year is completely different - the Kiwis just began their new grade levels and school year in February. Since we are homeschooling I think I will just keep plugging away on our current school year schedule with breaks thrown in here and there when we do something like, I don't know, move across the planet. Tomorrow our container arrives (yippee, happy dance). I'm giving myself a few days of grace to unload the beast but then we are back to our full curriculum for the first time since Christmas.

Laundry is way different - for starters I can only get half as much in the washing machine as I could in Texas. Then I hang all my stuff out to dry in the back garden (yard). I hate using the dryer, there is one, because it is tiny and slow. I avoid it at all costs because I can also see the electricity meter in my minds eye and it is going ballistic. We pay a lot more for electric and natural gas here than we did, but thankfully like the petrol (gasoline) we don't seem to use as much. Now that may change soon as winter approaches because though we lack a/c we DO have central heat and we need it! I wouldn't mind having it on now in the mornings, there is an amazing amount of fluctuation in the temperature between day and night here.

If you come visit us here and you are from America a good thing to remember is that along with driving on the left people also walk on the left-hand side of the sidewalk, they walk to the left as they enter a store, pretty much everything is "to the left, to the left" (ode to Beyonce). That has taken some getting used to. Oh and when someone invites you over, and you ask three times if you can bring anything and they say no, no, no at least three times - don't believe them.

All in all there are things to be grateful for every day and we are glad to be here but it is fun to notice the things we like better in America and the things we like better here. So far this has been a grand adventure!

Forever Friends

We've been praying for friends for the girls here, but I have to say I am so grateful that they are sweet friends to each other! They have squabbles every now and again like all siblings, but really they play together quite well and I know that having each other has made the move easier. When I had four kids under 5 1/2 years old I thought I'd probably lost my mind to have them so close together, but now life is getting easier and I can see what a blessing they are to each other and I'm grateful that they are close in age.

Thanks for the great photos Sarah!!!!! This entry is really just an excuse to show them off :).

I simply remember my favorite things. . .

and then I don't feel so sad!

One of the things I do to help the girls and myself if we are having a moment of homesickness is to ask, "What is something that is better here than it is at home?". It usually helps us to see that if we left here today there are already things that we would miss. So, something we've noticed is that New Zealand is big on parks, and the parks ROCK! I guess since they aren't busy suing each other they can still have toys that are actually fun to play on if you are kid.

The thing I love about this next picture is Josie in the background cheering Ellie on.

Below is a cool maze. . .

All of the above pictures were taken (by Sarah) in parks that are within walking distance of our house here in Karori. Below are some more park pictures from Palmerston North where Dugald's parents live and from Auckland where his sister lives.

A Sad Goodbye

So Miss Sarah left today. . .

And we are all very sad.

We love you Miss Sarah - thanks for being the best babysitter/nanny EVER!!!

Meggie loves you for tickling and giving treats - mommy translation - bringing her joy and encouraging her through the use of positive incentives.

Katie loves you for being so nice - mommy translation - patient, kind, encouraging, fun, generous of spirit.

Josie loves you for loving her and for tickling her and for giving her lots of hugs. No translation necessary!

Ellie loves you for teaching her how to be a supermodel, for patiently changing a million pull-ups and for letting her hold a weta.

We miss you already - thank you for blessing and enriching our lives with your joy and friendship and lots of amazing photos. You are our sunshine.