Kiwi Sabbatical 2018

It seems we are having too many adventures to keep up with the blogging! In this post, we show some pics of two adventures from late October, early November: the boulder bank and mountain police. Boulder Bank: Mathieu's kindergarden group took a bus trip to the boulder bank in Sept. The boulder bank is...well a boulder bank established to protect Nelson harbour from rough seas. It is at least 10km long.    Long brown line is the boulder bank. Nelson Harbour is in lower left corner. We visited the top part of the boulder bank. The kids had been learning about the Maori legend of Kupe and how the boulder bank was created and the school decided to have their regular Kapa Haka lesson down at the boulder bank so the kids could see the site and learn more about this legend. Mathieu (and I!) had a great time but Nico was curious about the boulder bank as he did not get to go (too young). So we decided to show Nico the boulder bank. The boys really enjoyed wa...

Had a busy and lovely weekend! We attended the Nelson Agricultural & Pastoral show on Saturday (Nov. 24) and the Santa Parade on Sunday (Nov. 25). Nelson A & P show Richmond Park Showgrounds (~ 15 min walk from our house) hosted this large fair. Plenty of animals, strength competitions (e.g., wood cutting), bouncy castles, games, etc. Nico was a bit under the weather but he enjoyed the animals. Mathieu spent a lot of time in the bouncy castle area and enjoyed watching wood cutting. Mathieu running around the bouncy castles. Mathieu and Nico had a ride in the large spheres!!! Santa Parade Santa paid a visit to Queen St. in Richmond this Sunday. Was a beautiful day with 22C and sunny periods. The boys enjoyed the people dressed as Star Wars figures, elmo, and of course, Santa. Waiting for Santa!  I see him!!! The big guy in red.

We have now been here for 2 months, so I am going to write a post to evaluate how kiwi we have become. Kiwi is slang for a New Zealander and it refers to the bird. Nico Nico refuses to wear shoes. I'll say 'lets put on your shoes' and he says 'go barefeet?'. He has once stepped in poop. Nico lives outdoors: he'll be eating his dinner and then literally run out the door. Nico also really likes to play in the creek (as does Mathieu). Once a week, Nico rides a horse called Stan. Nico is also the only one of us to have been bitten by sandflies, because he likes to play outside after dinner and before bath. At dinner today, Nico screamed 'I love pies!!!' (meat pies; eating pies is pretty kiwi, imo), although he actually didn't eat any of his pie. (Some of this stuff, like playing in the creek and riding a horse, is not exclusively kiwi, but I put it in there because it has some kiwi element to it). Mathieu One way that Mathieu has become a little bi...

Richmond is a very nice place to run, cycle, and swim. Our house is about a 10 min run to access points for running in the Richmond Ranges . These are not for the faint of heart. kms of mountain biking, running, and hiking trails in steep and challenging terrain. Malcolm has a favorite run route with a hill he named "the gut buster" - I have yet to run it since we arrived because it is too hard 😀 I hope to tackle it in a month or so when I am fitter. My favorite run is up a mountain bike trail called "the escalator". About 28 minutes up (~500m elevation gain) and 25 min down! Here are three pics from one run up the escalator.   About 1/3 of the way up looking Northeast towards Richmond Range.   Nearly to the top of my run looking North over the estuary and Tasman Mountains on the other side.   This is where this run ends for now as there is active tree felling. Cycling is also very nice with plenty of mountain biking options and road/trail ridin...

Our house backs onto this park. It's huge, contains a cricket field, and reminds me of the huge field we live next to in St. John's. This is right before Mathieu threw the nest into the creek - he didn't seem to know what to make of it. Gettin' 'er done It's only been 1 week, but we got most of the final stuff done to be fully settled: we bought a car (2006 Toyota Corolla hatchback with ~ 100K). Our car is a Japanese import (this is a very common thing in New Zealand) and when we start it it says something loudly in Japanese. It took me a while to notice, but every time it does this, Nico proudly says 'my car talks!'  We also moved into our house.  Here are some outdoor pics of our house.  Facing King St. Small deck with large driveway and rocky play area in front. Toyota Corolla is on left!          Facing the back. We have a garage and a yard shed. 99% of laundry gets hung up to dry here.    ...

We have arrived! Three weeks ago, in fact. We left on August 21, spent 4 days in Victoria, BC, to refresh, and arrived in Nelson, New Zealand, on August 27. At the beach in Victoria. The kids got really wet, but had a blast. Thanks to Dave and Luise for taking this photo. Getting ready: C+ Getting ready was tonnes of work, but nothing went wrong (the plus grade is for all the help we got from Nicky and Rick). Air travel: D No need to recount the exact details. Some of the time it was not awful, which is why I don't give it an F. The kids slept on Air NZ's sky couch, but Mathieu wasn't impressed when he realized he was sleeping next to Nico. Nico was running on empty in Auckland airport so we fed him chocolate. Nico's screaming got us a fast pass through customs and immigration (and an airport worker pushed one of the carts for us; we were lugging 2 diono radians and it was borderline unfeasible. In addition, a kind stranger pushed one of the radians from the ...