Our first days in Christchurch...

We arrived so jet lagged and exhausted it just wasn't funny but after 24 hours we were more or less alright again. It took a couple of weeks to truly sort ourselves out, but part of that had to be that little earthquakes kept waking us up and it was suddenly Summer here so the sun didn't set until 9:30 or so! One of our first days here we went to the local beach. You can see from the photo here that although it is Summer, it is not especially warm. We had long sleeves on. The locals were in bikinis! Brrr! But man, it's beautiful here.
The kids were so excited to be at a beach and not cooped up in hotels, airports, planes, and our little rental townhouse with no yard and no carpet - just polished concrete floors. (Someone remind me later to tell the story about Maggie breaking her front tooth on that floor.) They played and dug in the sand and tried to get in the water but it was too cold for Erik and I. :)

All these photos and the next ones are from our Facebook pages so if you're on FB, some of these you may have seen before. But I had several encouraging emails from friends and family reading the blog after the last post and I thought I'd get going and just start doing a bit every day instead of all at once - which is the daunting task I can never get through. :) 

Note: I can't figure out what I did wrong to get that text along the side of the photo like that. So frustrating!

Shortly after we arrived, our realtor told us to check out a place called Willow Bank Wildlife Reserve with the kids. I'm so glad we did. We saw some great animals and beautiful scenery. We liked it so much we got a membership and have already been back once. The photos below are from Willow Bank. 

There is boardwalk to keep you on the path and get you over all the water. The green, lush vegetation was quite a change from Arizona. I'm sure I said: "It's so green!" about a thousand times on this trip.

Hmmm... Not sure what a "tame" eel is. Probably more like over-fed. But they did come when you stood at the bottom of the pier. We bought a little plastic container of raw meat - yep raw meat - to feed them. They made short work of it. The kids loved it. I, however, prefer my "tame" eel smoked and wrapped in nori.

Ben fed nearly all his "bird feed" to this hungry deer-thingy while the pigeons went begging. The antlers were fuzzy like they had been flocked!

Once again: It's so green here!

Nope, it's not a kangaroo, it's a wallaby. And they are not supposed to live here. Except some Aussie must have had one tag along because I gather they are here now.
Interesting fact: there are no mammals native to New Zealand. Think about that. Just birds and bugs and amphibians (is a lizard an amphibian?). Anyway, you get the idea. Of course the lovely Brits brought all kinds of mammals here and they got away and ate lots of the local species. Many of which are extinct now.

I had a bad experience with one of these mean buggers on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition once so I don't care for them much. Plus, one of my aunts told me they are bad luck. Caty saw it but it didn't have it's tail feathers up so I told her it only puts them up if it sees a girl-friend or if it thinks you're a bad guy. (I know, over-simplified. I'm not a biologist so I don't talk like one.) Caty's little gears were turning in her head and she ran over and roared at it. She was rewarded with this display. Maggie and Ben were thrilled! Mr Peacock, not so much.

And one last time! It's so GREEN here! 

More soon. Next post will have our trips to Arthur's Pass and Akaroa. 

Busy times...

We made it to NZ on December 30th 2011. And it's only taken me two months to get a blog post out! Oops! Honestly, I've logged on a dozen time to do it and something always comes up. Plus, we have a pretty crappy Internet connection. So I've been mostly posting to Facebook but I know not everyone can see those posts. I was going to recreate the FB posts on here but it's honestly just too much downloading and uploading and I'm paying for Internet by the MB!
So we're here and safe and sound and I'll try to post more often!

To infinity and beyond!

We're going to Disneyland! Santa put tickets under the tree for the kids and kindly got Erik and I tickets too! The kids were pretty thrilled - but Caty most of all since she's been there before. Tuesday and Wednesday we'll be at Disneyland and Wednesday night we leave LAX for NZ.

I'm pretty excited, so excited that I have almost forgotten that our crappy movers couldn't fit our bed into the container. Our wonderful, amazing, so soft, less than 2 year old bed that I love so much! Of all the items to leave for last, why would they leave the single-most expensive (and largest) furniture item we own for last when they suspected it wouldn't all fit?! But I'm much less upset now. I will just have to find another wonderful bed when we get to NZ. Sigh...

Sitting at the dining room table at my in-laws' house after a fun filled Christmas morning right now, NZ seems a long way away.

Moving Day(s)

It finally arrived! Moving day. We were unprepared even after 4 months of waiting! The last minute details were getting done the night before and morning of the move instead of the day before. The kids could feel that we were excited and busy and the little ones got pretty clingy and agitated and Caty got very jittery and excitable. None of them could settle down, even with the incenteive of popcorn and a movie - which usually turns all three into zombie-like creatures, eating and staring at the screen.

So, after we got the last kid in bed at 11 pm on the night before the move, Erik and I packed our suitcases and dashed around the house looking for stuff we needed to bring on the plane. The pile of stuff that was going air-freight (to arrive in 3 weeks or so) was supposed to be ready when the movers got there but I was still washing dishes to pack when they arrived.

Both of the guys who came to pack us up were very nice: Cruz and Mauricio. But they had these funny looks on their faces when they came in the house. Apparently they were told it was a simple job that would take them a day to pack and then load up the next day. We were told it would be three guys packing for two days and then loading the shipping container on the third day. We worked it out with them and they said they would bring another guy the next day. They also are not packing things like the international mover people had said: separating out certain things for inspection at NZ customs. We have inquired with the head office but they seem to think it's not a big deal. Things that make you go hmmm.

But, at this point, I could seriously care less. We're on our way and if we never see any of our stuff again, I'll just have to deal with it later.

The kids are really excited now that things are in boxes around the house. Maggie thinks it's a whole new world of adventure and has been peeling off shipping labels and sticking them on different boxes. Ben keeps an eye on his "backpack", which is really a rolling suitcase with a Lego motif, and periodically needs it zipped shut with his things inside so he can be ready to go to " 'Zealand". Caty wants to not do her homework this week and also to go swimming at the hotel pool and hot tub. (Sounds not so fun to me since the air temp is 54F or 12C here now, but I'll take her anyway.)

More later, Maggie just woke up!

The visas arrived - finally!

On Sunday (Monday in NZ) we heard from our immigration consultant that our case officer at the NZ consulate in LA told her on Friday that he still hadn't received anything back from the NZ medical examiner and had no idea what the status was on our visas. This was disappointing news and we continued to make plans to move to Colorado while we waited for visas.

On Monday morning we received all five of our passports with visas in them via FedEx. 

Does anyone involved in the bureaucratic immigration mess have any idea what they are doing? I very much doubt it. 

They are good for entry anytime so we have the movers coming 19-21 December. We are sick of waiting around. That's Caty's last week of school so we'll stay in a hotel and wrap up loose ends (like sell the cars, clean the house, etc...) until her last day of school on 23 Dec. That day, we'll drive to Page and spend Christmas with Sue and Sherman, Erik's parents, and then back to Phoenix to regroup before leaving for LA. We'll spend two days at Disneyland and then fly out of LAX the night of the 28th, landing in NZ on 30 Dec. 

Erik's office will be closed through 9 Jan for the holidays so we'll use the first week to learn where things are, buy a car, hang out at the beach (it's Summer there!), and generally recover from jet lag. 

This week we're just tying up loose ends and cancelling utilities, Netflix, and stuff like that. I still need to finish Christmas shopping too! I'm thinking of getting Maggie rock climbing gear...

She's getting big. That is Ben's 3T shirt from last Winter. It's baggy but it looks cute on her. Pretty soon she'll be borrowing the car! And speaking of growing up: Today Caty killed the battery in the cordless phone talking on it with her friends. Now she's using my cell phone AND the land-line in my bedroom to talk to her peeps. (And she complains that she doesn't have any friends! ha!)

Scooby News

I thought I had already posted our Scooby news. But I guess I didn't. So here it is.

Scooby is living with Erik's Aunt and Uncle in Nevada now. They came to our rescue (and Scoob's) by adopting him.

Maggie misses playing in Scooby's bed, but I bet he doesn't. He used to put up with her really well but he was not thrilled that she thought his bed was her reading nook! :)

In order to get Scooby to Val and Glen, we all piled into the van a couple weeks ago and drove to Las Vegas to meet them. They live in Northern Nevada so Vegas was as close to half-way as you get. We handed him off to them and after some tears, spent a day in Vegas with the kids alternating throwing tantrums and making demands. But the next day was better and we got to spend some time at Hoover Dam and walked on the bridge. The kids were very proud to hear that Erik had helped with the work to "build" the dam. He worked on the foundation for the part of the bridge on the AZ side.

Not too shabby. But the Phoenix Art Museum has some that are a little better by Jamey Stillings.

Erik looks so handsome in his Movember beard and mustache. 

On the dam with mom.

Cate found the compass rose on the dam and we got her picture on it. Maybe she'll be a geographer like her mom. 

The little ones were sooo tired after swimming at the hotel and walking all over the dam and bridge. However, the indefatigable Cate wouldn't be caught dead taking a nap. :)

We hear that Scooby is doing well and enjoying the snow. We miss him terribly but we are so glad he's with Val and Glen. :)

Moving on...

It's cliche, but there's good news and bad news.

The good news: We have a date for moving out of the house. The short sale nearly fell through last week but the buyer coughed up a few thousand extra and today the bank accepted the offer and set a closing date: January 12th. We will have to be moved out by then.

The bad news: Still no word on the visas. Last we heard was about 2 1/2 weeks ago the NZ consulate in Los Angeles sent our paperwork to NZ to be reviewed for what they told us was between 3 and 8 weeks. REALLY? That's a bigger window than the cable guy gets away with. How do you plan around that kind of window? So, we may be perfectly timed and be able to just make it all work. But what are the odds of that?

So, the solution was presented to us by my wonderful parents. We'll be packing up and moving into Mom and Dad's house in Colorado this January. They're very graciously moving out. They're moving into a nearby furnished apartment. That is the nicest thing! We can't believe it, we are really blessed.

So we'll be moving to Colorado until we get things finalized for NZ. Who moves to such a cold, snowy place in January? We do! It's better than moving to Phoenix in July, which is what I did years ago. :)

In the mean time, here's an interesting tidbit of information about NZ wildlife:

This is a NORMAL bug in NZ. It's called the Giant Weta and is the heaviest insect in the world! (Don't mention this to Catherine or else we'll never get her on the plane!)