A Christmas Fit for a Princess

I finished work on Friday, 19 December, and I don't go back to work until Monday, 19 January, because this is summer/Christmas break. So... a whole month of holiday, and I decided it was time for some fun.

My friend Kirsten is house-sitting this amazing mansion on Durie Hill, which is the biggest hill in Whanganui, overlooking the whole city. We decided that I should go and stay with her when I got done with work, and we could be princesses in the mansion. Sounds like a good way to relax after a wonderful but exhausting December of Kindergarten Christmas events.

This is a painting of Durie Hill, including the two towers, and directly to the right of the red one, the boxy house that appears to be (because it is) all windows... that's the mansion! The painting is by Sarah Platt, who is an internationally respected NZ artist. 

Now there are two amazing things about this; 1) that this beautiful painting includes our mansion, and 2) that the original of this painting famous painting is actually hanging in the entryway of said mansion!

When you walk into the mansion, you see this lovely, huge lounge with very comfy couches and chairs, but your eye is drawn right past them to the entire wall of windows and the most amazing view!

This is the view from the patio.

Looking a little to the right, for a better view of the Whanganui River, which J misses so much!

And looking to the left, you can see the ocean! (Pictures always seem to decrease the impression of the sea on the horizon, but I promise that in person you can definitely appreciate the ocean).

Upstairs, in the spacious third bedroom where I stayed, the windows and the view are equally impressive! 

This is my view out my bedroom windows at night! If I hadn't been so exhausted from busy days of princessing, I would have had a hard time ever closing my eyes!

So, it was in this magical setting that I passed the first four days of my holiday, and it was a wonderful time!

The first night, Kirsten and I put on pretty princess dresses and assembled and decorated the Christmas tree.

Naturally, I broke off several branches in the process, but I also managed to figure out the strange way that they were held on, and to repair them. Yay for princess skills!

Princess Kirsten fixing the top of the tree.

Princess Emma was in charge of lights.

A lovely princess by her lovely tree.

Princess Emma practicing her curtsey (or possibly asking the tree to dance).

Fluffy the mansion cat approved of our decision to make a tree skirt out of tinsel, and because we are very gracious and kind princesses, we let him relax on it.

This was the view of the sunset from my balcony on my first night as a princess in the mansion. Who could ask for more?

Waterskiing!

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while (again). I had a very busy last week of work, and then left straight from work on Friday to Whanganui, where I stayed with my friend Kirsten for a wonderful whirlwind four days of fun and adventure. Not only was I too busy to think, there was also no Internet where I was staying, so... no blog posts. But now I'm home (for today, before heading back to Whanganui for Christmas day with Jonny's family tomorrow).

On Saturday morning, Kirsten and her friend Simon took me waterskiing! I have never been before, but since I love all water sports, and especially speedy ones, I was sure I would love it. I was less sure that I would be good at it, but I tend to do okay with sports that involve balance, so I was optimistic. Kirsten made me a bit nervous before we went, because she said that the last friend she brought for Simon to teach was absolutely terrible and could never get up out of the water on the skis, and that Simon has never let her hear the end of it! She said she wanted me to be good so that she could regain her good name and have a comeback when Simon brings up the person who couldn't do it. Talk about pressure!

Then we got to the lake, and another lady was trying for the first time, and she fell a lot but still said that it was tons of fun, so I decided to just have it and not worry about anything!

Look at this beautiful setting! How could you worry about anything here?

I got all decked out in my brand new wetsuit that Mom got me for Christmas - perfect timing, Mom! They made fun of me for having a full-body wetsuit when it's summer and not actually cold, but I was glad to have it, because I get cold so easily and being cold is no fun at all!

After several ungainly minutes trying to figure out how to get into the proper position in the water with two huge skis that wanted to float strapped to my feet, I was ready. Simon revved up the engine and I had no idea what to expect, but I kept my arms straight and my knees bent like he told me to, and... I shot right up out of the water and onto the skis! Yay!

Look at me! I'm waterskiing!

So, I think that I picked up waterskiing faster than any sport I've ever tried, and it was wonderful! I loved flying around the lake, feeling the waves and the water and the wind! I fell the first time he made a sharp curve to turn around, but I got right back up, and then I didn't fall again as we zipped around and around the lake! 

After my turn, some people who had been waterskiing for a long time had turns, and I saw that instead of staying straight behind the boat, they zig-zagged from side to side, even kind of coming up next to the boat sometimes. I decided to try it, so on my next turn, I asked Simon how to turn, and he said that you push down with the opposite leg to the direction you want to turn. Seemed easy enough, so I tried it, and I could do it! The hardest thing is that when you get really far to one side, you end up closer to the boat, and so then the rope goes slack for a moment, and you have to work to resist the reflex to yank the handle towards you to get the tension back, because if you do, you lose your balance and fall. Oops! 

Kirsten took a video of me zig-zagging, but it's too big to upload to Blogger, so I've put it on Facebook, and set it so that you can click on the link and see it even if you're not on Facebook or we're not Facebook friends. So check it out!

If you watch, you can see one time that I got to the edge and yanked the rope towards me when it went slack, and I almost fell, but managed to (not-so-gracefully) stay up. It's hard to fight reflexes!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152929881124395&set=vb.514814394&type=2&theater

The quality is a bit lousy on Facebook, but you get the idea, I think. It was so fun!

Kindergarten Christmas Addition - Decorated Tree

As promised, here is the picture of our enormous tree after we decorated it. I'm not saying that it's classy or stylish, but the children and I did it, and we love it, and it's perfect. 

Kindergarten Christmas

Wondering why I haven't posted in a week and a half? Well, wonder no more. Check out the totally adorable Christmas tree ornaments in this picture!

Due to a misunderstanding about when family Christmas gifts were handed out, I spent every waking moment between last Thursday and today (Thursday) getting 48 of these gorgeous little ornaments done, so that 48 adorable children could swing off of 48 Christmas trees, starting today. Well, I am ferociously proud of how wonderful they are, but they took a staggering amount of time to do!

Note: I'm not sure why, but I took this picture before this set was finished - they all ended up like the one on the far left with the little red bar that makes it look more like a trapeze (except the ones holding on to one loop, because that would have been silly).

Anyway, no time for blogging while these were in progress, but they're all done now, and I'm feeling free and happy!

Also, I made one of me as an example for the kids, which is currently swinging on the kindergarten Christmas tree.

Speaking of kindergarten Christmas trees, have you seen ours? It is over 15 feet tall and very fluffy and wonderful, and the whole place smells of pine. As one of the kids said when he walked in this morning, "Emma, wow! Look at that biggest Christmas tree I ever seen! It is HUGE!"

In a shocking lack of blogging skill, I forgot to take a picture of it after the children and I spent all day decorating it. I will get one tomorrow and post it soon.

Also, while we're on the subject of Christmas, here are some pictures of our truck/float in the Bell Block Christmas parade! We went with an Enviroschools theme, so we made tripods with bean and pea vines growing up them, and we had hay bales, a worm farm, and several real plants on it as well. It was a lot of fun to make everything with the children. We teachers added pictures of the kids having fun at kindergarten, and the whole thing looked great.

Getting ready to go.

I was Santa, as was one of my kindergarteners' little brother. Big Santa, Little Santa!

I would like to share that, although I have never actually been Santa before, I will hazard a guess that it would be more fun to wear velvet (even fake stuff) in a place where Christmas is in winter. Just a thought.

On this particular Christmas, Santa and Snow Queen Elsa made friends, which we think is good, because she can make sure that there is plenty of snow for Santa's reindeer to land on, although she'll have her work cut out for her during the warm NZ summer.

The children got to dress up as whatever they wanted, which meant that we had a lot of Spidermen. Which worked out well, given that they were still Christmasy red.

J came and watched the parade, and after spending the whole time looking for the children's families along the road to make sure that they were in time to see their child and give a special wave, I was rather unreasonably excited to see the person who wanted to give me a special wave!

Hard to tell in the picture (J took pictures with his phone, which doesn't have a very nice camera), but the bit that says Puketapu Kindergarten at the back is a big, long worm. You know, for helping the gardens grow.

The Christmas parade, like the ornaments, was a lot of work and a lot of fun. We also had our End of Year party during kindergarten today, and now that that's all over, and we have one more week of kindergarten before the Christmas/summer holiday, I'm glad that we're on the downhill slope. Now, off to bed for a well-deserved good night's sleep.

We Made Sushi!

Did you know that you can make sushi at home? I didn't, until I moved to Taranaki, where I've learned that not only is it possible, it's easy and quite common. Now, I am not sure whether home-made sushi is less popular in the States, or if my rather limited cooking experience had simply not included it, but suffice it to say that the discovery that I could make my own sushi was rather a shocking one for me.

I deeply doubt that sushi-making would typically fall under the category of "Kiwi Adventures," but for us it did, so here you have the story of J and I making sushi. 

I don't really know what this mix is, but it seems to include some powdered form of vinegar, and it made the rice a bit stickier as well.

Pickles, carrots, and cucumber. We also had shrimp, but I didn't like it as much. I think next time we'll try smoked salmon, and we will definitely get some avocado. I though about postponing the sushi-making when I discovered the lack of avocados in the supermarket, except that I was just fooling myself because in reality I was too excited to wait.

You get this sushi mat and some seaweed wraps, and you smooth the rice all over, leaving gaps at the top and bottom.

Then you put whatever ingredients you want in the middle. In case you can't tell by the picture, I think we overstuffed ours. Then you just roll up the whole mat and push the rice-less ends together.

Then you end up with this long sushi log, which you put on the cutting board with the seem-side down, so that the moister soaks through and makes it stick (J pulled this piece of knowledge out of who-knows-where, and I thought he was making it up, but it worked very well). After a few minutes, you can cut it into pieces, and it doesn't fall apart (mostly).

And... voila! Our very own, home-made sushi! I am not going to say that it was anywhere near as good as Sushi Ninja (our new favourite sushi restaurant), but it was yummy, and I think we'll get better with practice. My co-teacher Maree makes sushi with her kids, and I think she mixes some spices in with the rice, so I'll have to talk to her about how to make ours even more delicious.

Side-note: If you make the full pot of rice that the packet is measured for, you end up with over 60 pieces of sushi, which means that you better be happy to eat sushi for every meal for several days. Fortunately, I was thrilled to do so!

Hamilton Zoo

After a quiet weekend of rest, I am feeling almost completely better during the day, and if I could stop keeping myself (and J) up at night with my coughing, all would be well. Last night was better, so I'm optimistic. 

This is the last post of pictures from Hamilton. I know that it is not nearly as entertaining to see pictures of animals in zoos as it is to actually see them, so I've selected (mostly) animals that might be new to my northern hemisphere readers, in the hopes that that will make it interesting.

This is a Himalayan Monal. 

This is an Agouti. I got very excited when I read the sign, because it says that it has five toes in the front and three in the back. For some reason, I thought it meant on each foot, and I was excited to think that an animals could have 32 toes. Fortunately (or unfortunately), J was there to set me straight.

I realize that this will be no one's first introduction to red pandas, but this one gets a picture because they're my very favourite animal!

Also, thanks to Madagascar, you all know ring-tailed lemurs, but look how cute they are, hanging out with their tails.

This is a Fishing Cat. Neither J nor I had ever heard of it. They live in Southeast Asia. We think that its face looks a lot like a seal, which makes sense, given that they both hunt fish in the water. Must be a good shape for that.

This is a Cape Barren Goose, which lives on islands off the coast of Australia. This particular one desperately wanted to jump off this bank and into the water, but couldn't seem to convince itself that that was a good idea, so the poor thing paced back and forth for several minutes before running around the other way.

I love the soft, brown feathers, and then the bright red and black legs.

This is a Brolga, and I think that it's so cool, because it looks like it's wearing wrestling headgear, complete with the bulge for the ear protectors!

I think that these Painted Hunting Dogs were my favourite new discovery of the day. They are from Africa, and really should have been in the Lion King, because they are so beautiful and interesting-looking!

This baby American Bison must have known that we were from its homeland, because it followed us around as we walked by its enclosure, and stood and watched us as we left. So sweet!

This is one of the White Rhinos that the Hamilton Zoo is famous for. There are a shockingly small number left in the whole world, and this zoo has 7, so it's a big part of the global program to protect them. Interestingly, White Rhinos actually have black skin, but they constantly coat themselves in mud, so they always look very light tan, like the dirt around them.

This is a Ruru, a native New Zealand owl. (Sorry for the blurriness, but it was dark in their enclosure). The European settlers named them Morepork, because that's what their call sounds like. Well, it sounds like moh-pok, but that's how they say it here, given their aversion to 'r's. Anyway, you can often hear them in the evenings, and it's quite a nice little call.

This is a North Island Kaka, which is a native New Zealand parrot. These particular ones were very fun, because they will fly right up to people and land on them. Apparently, they like to rub themselves against women who are wearing perfume, and then rub the good smell all through their feathers. This means that they very rudely snubbed J and I. Had I known, I would have bought some perfume!

Well, there's your introduction to the Hamilton Zoo, and the conclusion of our trip to Hamilton. It was a good time!

Baby Birds at Lake Rotoroa

I originally named this post "Lake Rotoroa (and Baby Birds)", but then I uploaded the pictures and realized that seven out of nine of them are of birds, one is of bugs, and only one is actually of Lake Rotoroa, so... I renamed it more appropriately.

When J and I were in Hamilton, we made the mistake of checking out of the hotel early, thinking to have a nice breakfast somewhere before heading to the zoo. I am totally obsessed with the way Kiwis make French toast, but they pretty much don't have all day breakfasts, so I was excited for the opportunity. The mistake part came in when we realized that not a single restaurant was open at 7:30am Sunday morning. Oops. We ended up (to my chagrin and J's excitement) at McDonald's. Fortunately, they had chai and pancakes, which made me less upset about breaking my no-McDonald's rule, and we actually had a nice time chatting over breakfast.

When we finished eating, we still had time before the zoo opened, so we went and walked around Lake Rotoroa (not to be confused with Rotorua, where we went several months ago, with all the geothermal activity), which is a pretty little lake in the middle of Hamilton.

It was a cloudy day, but not cold or windy, and we had a really nice walk, mostly thanks to it being spring and there being so many happy little fowl families waddling about.

Just look at this lovely mother with her brood! They were cuddled up so tightly underneath her that every once in a while, a baby would get crowded out, and it would have to scuttle around and nuzzle back in.

This is a coot, which is my second favourite bird after pūkeko. Apprently, the feeling is mutual, because this one swam right over to us and followed us along the shore for a minute. I think it expected food, but we didn't have any, so it left disappointed.

This is a mum pūkeko with her baby. We were walking on a raised boardwalk, and this mother pūkeko charged us when she saw us, just to make sure we weren't coming to threaten her baby.

Later, we found some even younger pūkeko chicks. By this time, we were off the raised boardwalk and on a part of the path that was considerably closer to the lake. Just after I took this picture, as I was assuring this mum that I meant no harm to her chicks, she charged me so rapidly and unexpectedly that I screamed and ran away, much to J's amusement (although I didn't see him getting any closer to her).

I feel that I should mention the one downside to our charming little walk - the bugs. Notice how the sky is FULL of them? You'd think that that picture would be an exaggeration, but it is not. J says that they are attracted to carbon dioxide, so they hover in clouds above the walking trail. I don't understand how the carbon dioxide would stay concentrated enough to make that happen, but they were in this long funnel about six inches over our head along the whole entire trail, so it must be true. You can see in the picture how there are the most in a strip right across the middle, with less at the top and bottom - that's how clearly concentrated they were.

 Fortunately, they had no interest in biting us or landing on us, so as long as we managed not to breathe them in, we were okay. But it was a bit unfortunate.

On the bright side, we learned that coot chicks have these crazy red and yellow heads, and are amazingly adorable! I think that grown-up pūkeko are my favourite, but baby coots beat baby pūkeko any day!

And, bonus, none of the coot mums or dads scared us. They just took very good care of their colourful babies.

Here is the only picture I managed to take of the actual lake, which is a bit of a pity, because it really was beautiful. 

In conclusion, and giving the coots yet another bonus, we learned that they stand on one leg like flamingos. Or at least, I learned that. J maintains that we've seen them like that before, but apparently I wasn't paying attention.

I am currently home sick from work, as I have finally caught the nasty sore throat that has been going around for weeks. Oh well. I am doing better, and think I will be back to work tomorrow.

I'll post the last installment of our Hamilton trip (the zoo) sometime soon.