Fun Times with Mom

Well, hopefully all my readers are optimistic enough to think that this record 11 days of bloglessness has been due to being very busy having fun with mom, and not due to my having fallen off the earth. Otherwise you might have been worried, and we wouldn't want that. 

Mom and I have been having a lovely time together, with J joining in when he's not at work. I am on school holidays for two weeks, so I've been able to do loads of fun things with Mom without worrying about work, or any schedule at all, really. It's been great. Unfortunately, I am still struggling with nasty sinusitis, which has now decided to be unaffected by antibiotics, so I'm trying all kinds of creative ways to manage it. They're actually working fairly well, but all other remedies must be accompanied by many extra hours of sleep, which is part of the bloglessness issue as well. No time for writing when one is always either going on adventures or dead asleep.

We've spent a lot of our time in Whanganui with my friends there (Kirsten, Harry, Belinda, Jan, Paula) and with Rachel and Jonny (who came up for the weekend) in New Plymouth. These were wonderful (and often hilarious) times, but didn't yield any pictures. It is so nice for Mom to get to meet all the people I tell her about when we Skype, and of course I love spending time with all of them whenever I can.

Anyway, I will share some pictures of our adventures so far. Some are Mom's and some are mine. 

On Mom's second day in NZ (the first having been spent resting while I finished my last day of work), we went to the Palmer's Cafe, which is in their garden centre, and is lovely. Mom was particularly impressed by this unique plant, which turned out to be ornamental kale.

See? A happy mother and beautiful kale. All is well in the world.

The next day (I think) we went to Waitara (a small town 20 minutes from New Plymouth) to go to the Bin Inn to get ground anise for our peppernut recipe. Turns out that it is the only place you can buy it in New Zealand.

While we were there, we took a lovely walk on Waitara Beach.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but under the wave are tons of the smooth rocks you can see in the sand. These are pretty, but more importantly, when a particularly large wave comes in, it pushes them up a bit, and then when it goes back out, there is this surprisingly loud but quite beautiful sound of all the rocks shifting as the water pulls them towards the sea. Neither Mom nor I can think how exactly to describe it, but it was so very cool. The harsh clunking of rocks against each other, only not harsh at all because it's swept around and padded by the rushing of the water. Very impressive.

In Whanganui, I took Mom to the winter gardens, and her favourite part was this little pond with goldfish in it. It is a magical little spot.

My favourite part of the winter gardens was this new addition: Dory! Did you know they're making a Finding Dory movie? I'm very excited. This particular Dory is special because the blue fuzzy-looking bits are actually tiny flowers all put together. Very appropriate for the winter garden.

After the winter gardens, (and in the one extended period of sunshine during our entire time in Whanganui) we walked around Victoria Lake. I've posted a zillion pictures of Virginia Lake already, but bear with me while I post just one more.

This pūkeko was walking around with its wings partially spread, which I've never seen before, and is quite beautiful. Also, I love its humpback shadow behind it. Did I mention I love pūkeko?

Back in New Plymouth for the weekend, we decided to have a Pita Pit picnic on Paritutu. (Notice the fabulous, unintentional alliteration). 

Mom was particularly eager to eat at Pita Pit since that's where John (my brother) works, and J and I are always up for Pita Pit!

I have posted many pictures of the views from Paritutu as well, but Mom took this one and it is quite lovely, so here you go.

Remember Paritutu is the huge, steep rock just on the edge of the ocean, with amazing views. Perfect place for a picnic! 

We also love this one of J looking out over the ocean.

Here we are, having finished our delicious pitas, and enjoying the view. The mountain is just on the other side of Mom, but it's hidden in its shroud of clouds. In real life, you could actually see it pretty well through them, but the picture didn't manage that.

As you can imagine, I have backlogged more pictures to be posted already, but I'll get to them eventually. Tomorrow, Mom and I are heading out for a road trip through Taupo, Rotorua, the Coromandel, and Hamilton, which will be fabulous. I will do my best not to wait 11 days until the next post, but no promises.