Tag: new zealand
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More visitors!
Near the end of March, Auntie Phoebe, Uncle Dave, and my cousin Katy came to visit us as part of their trip around New Zealand. They stayed on board with us for 5 nights. It was their first time on a sailboat, and I thought — how brave of them! They were so easy to…
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Homeschooling part 2
After Ma left, we got back into a regular home schooling routine. We stayed in the marina for two weeks, and Riki worked hard every day on boat projects, replacing the lower diagonal shrouds, re-bedding cleats and chainplate covers, taking the gooseneck off so it could be adjusted by the riggers, replacing it again, re-running…
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Cruising with Po Po
We spent a week with my mom cruising in the Bay of Islands. We visited Motorohia, Moturua, and Waewaetorea islands. We went for morning skinny dips in clear blue water, hiked around Moturua and saw a new bird (a tomtit), snorkeled, and went paddle boarding. We played mah jong and Wizard cards. We had friends…
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Road trippin’ with Po Po
My mom (aka Po Po, or grandmother on your mother’s side in Cantonese) arrived on January 28th to visit us for 5 weeks! Yay! She brought us 2 full duffel bags full of goodies. We went on a 3 week road trip to the South Island in our old Toyota minivan. The van did great…
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Tomu turns 10!
We drove to Whangarei (one hour drive) on Friday January 26th to celebrate Tomu’s birthday at an indoor trampoline place, then we had a picnic with friends at a park.
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Homeschooling
Well, it’s going pretty well so far AND it’s a lot of work! It’s pretty exhausting. We got a printer in Whangarei, so now I can print out math worksheets, rather than making them myself each day. I do most of the homeschooling, and Riki helps out. It is freeing and exciting, on one hand…
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Surf Camp
Tomu and Jade had surf camp for one week, from 9 am to noon each day. Our dear friend Melva lent us her only car for the week so we could transport the kids to surf camp and back each day (a 15-minute drive up the coast). We also drove to Whangarei to go to…
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Cruising
Since we haven’t had to be in Paihia for school, we have been exploring around for the past month. Our friend Hilton said a few things about cruising that really rang true for me: Anyways…. First we went north to the Cavalli islands and then further north to Whangaroa. Then we went south to Whangamumu,…
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Brown kiwi (and other wildlife)
The New Zealand national bird is a kiwi, and New Zealanders themselves are also called kiwis. You see road signs here that say “Be a tidy kiwi, keep it in the car”. Our kids learnt about native birds in school, and started drawing kiwis within our first month in NZ. I never thought we would…
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Prizegiving and Report Cards
On Monday 18th December Paihia School had the end-of-year celebration, called a Prizegiving. The whole student body (180 students if all are present) was assembled in the Whare. Each teacher presented awards for their class, and between the awards the students performed kapa haka. There were also some New Zealand Christmas carols thrown in. It…
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