What A Week

The only way to start this post is by saying, wow that was probably one of the best weeks of my life. 

We left our host families Wednesday morning and it was extremely sad. It was like

we made little families for a week and then our hearts got ripped out when we said goodbye.

Tuesday night most of the hosts made us each a traditional Kiwi (that's what we call New Zealanders) dish, roast lamb with vegetables and for dessert, Pavlova. Probably one of the

most delicious things I've ever put in my mouth.

Christina and I played Ticket to Ride with our family and got a tiki tour of the other side

of the bay in Wellington. It was a sweet night with Kim and Ricki, our gracious hosts.

Wednesday morning all the kids ran after our vans when we drove away, and that just about killed us.

So how do you cure a broken heart, do you ask? On this trip, the answer is skydiving! yuupp that's right, immediately after we left Wellington we drove to Taupo Lake and went skydiving. 16 out of the 20 of us went, and it was probably one of the coolest things we could have done as a team.

Now if you know me pretty well, you probably would have guessed that I would be one of the 4 that stepped out. But guess what...I did it! One of the theme words the Lord has been challenging me with over the past few months is "fearless" and somebody who is fearless obviously has to be able to jump out of planes. I actually first heard the idea from my soccer coach Jon, and he was just talking about how you play on the field, and I don't think he even knows that his pep talk has stayed with me this long and had this much impact. Anyway, I digress.

Not gonna lie, I was panicking the whole flight up, they don't give you any time to back out once you sign the paper so a minute later I was suited up and in the plane strapped to my "tandem master". It would have been extremely scary, but my guy was Australian and extremely attractive, so regardless of the fact that he was the "new guy", I felt pretty safe :)

I couldn't breath the first 30 seconds out of the plane, and now even looking back at what I did, I myself can't believe I jumped out of a plane. Once the free fall was over and the parachute opened it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Everybody should jump out of a plane one day, preferably with a chute. And even though I was nauseous the rest of the day because of my weak stomach, I don't regret it for a second.

The past few days we've stayed at different hostiles in Rotorua and Ranglan. In Rotorua we went to a really cool Maori center to learn more about their culture and history. We even got to watch some of their old cultural dances and songs and some of team got involved and learned them. 

We ate lunch in a beautiful forest that looked like the Redwoods and got to take a small hike. We did some shopping and I bought a SWEET coffee mug with sheep on it. There are sheep EVERYWHERE here and maybe you knew that was New Zealand's thing but I had no idea. There are like 100 million sheep on this island. Wool everywhere. Sheep by the droves. And since I buy mugs from everywhere I travel, I thought it was fitting to have sheep on mine.

That night we went luging! If you don't know what that is, no worries, I had no clue either. All I knew is that someone died doing it in the olympics last year. Basically you fly down a huge mountain on a plastic board thing with handles and you try to maneuver it around the curves with breaks that barely work. It's like go-carts on steroids. Everyone was flying around me and I was taking my sweet time. I definitely got made fun of for being a grandma, but I'm still alive, so I'm okay with it.

A funny thing about New Zealand is you can't sue people, so if I had gotten hurt luging, there would be no repercussions for them, so they didn't give us any training or warnings or make us sign anything. I'm surprised I was given a helmet to be honest. It was the same way with skydiving. You've just got to roll with it and hope for the best.

Then we got ice cream. Obvs. We are like children.

Friday morning we drove to HOBBITON!!!!!!Yes, I've been on the same set as Peter Jackson, walked on the same paths as Gandalf, breathed the same air as Bilbo Baggins, and drank (ginger) beer at the same pub as Sam Gamge. It was probably one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Having grown up loving and knowing the ins-and-outs of the Lord of the Rings getting to see part of the set and being in the land where it was all filmed was overwhelming and heart filling. The only thing that would have made it better was if Seth Ury was there freaking out with me and pointing to each thing saying "oh this is that part when! Do you remember this scene? I know exactly what happened here! Errmerrgeeersh!" with me. He's my little wealth of knowledge/other half and I miss him dearly. One day we'll go back.

The next day we drove to Ranglan and stayed in a super sweet hostile with a bunch of hippies/surfers/foreigners/people way too cool for us. All the rooms were stacked up on a hill with paths intertwining all the way up with trees and plants surrounding it. There was a bunch of art on the walls and pretty signs. Everybody was smoking and chilling and being surf bums and I was like, I want your life. Summer if you ever read this, you would have fit in perfectly.

The next morning we woke up and went surfing! Three other students and I took lessons in the morning cause we really wanted to learn, and I can now say, I have huge respect for surfers. As if I didn't already. That junk is hard! I was really scared about sharks, but thankfully we didn't see any. I got to wear a legit wet suit which was pretty neat, I felt like I belonged out their with all the serious surfers. I wouldn't say I'll be in the next Blue Crush sequel, but I got up a couple times. I would probably do better if so many people weren't watching.

We spent the rest of the day on the beach frying our foreign skin, but it was so relaxing. New Zealand beaches are the best.

At night we drove out to a beautiful cliff and had a worship service while we watched the sunset. It was a great night for our team. I love hearing what the Lord is doing in other student's lives at the same as He is working in mine.

This morning we had pancakes!!!!!!Perfect ending to a wonderful week for me!!

We drove home (Laidlaw) so I finally have internet access again.

First thing we did was play netball. Figures with this group.

Chinese starts back up and I'm afraid I'll be stuck in my room all day tomorrow trying to prepare. I guess no school for a week will really get you behind. No complaints here though.

Missing and thinking of everyone back home! Hope you're not all freezing :) I've got a nice sunburn.