Kylie Day 18

Starfish

We started off the day by doing schoolwork like usual. After lunch we all got into the car and went to the beach. The first beach was way to windy. The second beach did not have any sand. We then drove to the last beach. It was windy but it worked. After building sandcastles we walked over to the rocks to catch some crabs. At almost every rock we moved twenty small crabs scattered every where. We found three starfish, one fish, and lot of shrimp and crabs. It was getting close to dinner so we headed back to the house. After we had dinner at the Boat Shed Cafe we drove home and went to sleep.

All The Stores

I got up early this morning to finish yesterdays schoolwork. Around twelve I finished and we all went to the farmers market in town. For lunch we all had sushi. We went to the toy store, the wine store, the bakery, and the antique store. We dropped Kylie and mom off at the house while dad and I went to the Hunting and Fishing store. We bought two spears, an under water flashlight, a new fishing reel, fishing lures, and a crab trap. It was getting close to dinner time so we came back to our house. After dinner dad and I went back to the tidal pools and played around a while. Today was fun.

Kylie Day 17

A Cruise

In the morning we skipped schoolwork and got in the car. We had a full day of driving ahead of us. Around five pm we arrived at our hotel. When we tried to check in they said that we never made reservations, so we had to drive to a different hotel. After we went out for dinner we got to go to a really cool playground. It was big and even had a small carousel.
The next morning we got on the road again. We arrived at Wellington at two pm and had a quick lunch. Then it was time to ride the ferry over to the Southern island. When we arrived at the ferry I thought it was a cruise ship. We watched all of the trucks and cars drive on to the lower decks while my dad checked us in. When we got on the ship I found that there were couches instead of chairs. We were lucky and got a window seat. Three hours later we arrived at the south island. Dad got us a new rental car that was gold. Then we had to drive an hour and a half on an extremely windy road (with eighteen wheelers driving on it too) to get to our house.
The next day we did schoolwork until three pm. Then we went into town to look around. After some hardcore grocery shopping we came back to our house on the beach. We had a nice dinner on our back porch. Then we got to go to the beach for a little bit. I found a lot of tidal pools with lots of crabs and mussels in them. It was fun.

No Fish by Ryan

When we got up this morning dad left to go fishing while we did our schoolwork. We finished our schoolwork rite when dad came back. He was fishing for three hours but did not get a single bite. After lunch we drove to the pipi estuary with high hopes that we would catch some crabs too. We found more than two hundred pipis and two small crabs. Dad walked down the beach and tried to fish again but still did not catch anything. We gave the pipis to the the family who owns the farm stay that we are staying at. We had hamburgers for dinner and they were delicious.

New Zealand fact of the day- Sheep have long tails before farmers cut them off.

Pipis by Ryan

This morning the boys invited me to go opossum trapping with them. We all got on their 4-wheeler and drove deep into the forest. They use small spring loaded traps to catch the opossums and flour and cinnamon to lure them in. We caught three opossums out of seventeen traps. After that I had to come back to our cottage and do schoolwork the rest of the morning. around lunch time Kylie, Dad, and I went to the beach. I searched for pipis in the water while Kylie played in the sand. Pipis are a tasty type of clam. When we were ready to go I had found about two hundred pipis. We had spaghetti for dinner. Dad had pipis with his spaghetti. Today was fun.

New Zealand fact of the day- Opossums are big pests in New Zealand because they eat the Kiwi eggs and they have no predators.

A Swim In The River

Today we got up and did schoolwork all morning and several extra hours in the afternoon. When we finished dad, mom, and Kylie all played a game of war (with a deck of cards). After Kylie won the game the boys who lived on the farm invited us to swim with them in the river. I got to jump of a Clift into the river. The boys invited me to go check their trap lines with them in the morning. In New Zealand opossums have a really nice fur (that's what the boys try to catch). Each opossum is worth six bucks. After the swim we came back to our cottage and had steak for dinner. Dad also made crepes for dessert. They were delicious.

Kylie Day 13

The Chocolate Museum by Ryan

We skipped schoolwork this morning because we needed to pack up and move on to our next stop. This time the car was so full I could barely buckle up. An hour down the road we saw a sign that said Chocolate Museum. Dad yelled out "We got to go there!" so we did. We sampled some chocolate and walked through the museum. I learned a lot. After a quick lunch at the Chocolate Cafe we got on the road again. We stopped in town to pick up some groceries and have dinner. My parents had sushi (like usual) and Kylie and I had fast food. When we arrived we unpacked and went to bed. We were tired.

A Day On The River

We started the day off by doing schoolwork like usual. Around lunch time we all got in the car and drove to the river. When we got to the river we found a really neat suspension bridge. After we set up our chairs we climbed the bridge. When we got to the middle of the bridge I shook it and Kylie freaked out. After we explored the area dad caught a Rainbow Trout and I dug a holding pen in the side of the river to put it in. We finally had enough of the bugs and decided to let the fish go and leave. When we got back the nice family who owns the farm invited us over to have a drink. The kids went swimming while the parents talked. After that we had a small dinner then went to bed.

Curvy Roads by MB (my new handle)

We are heading north to go to our, sadly, last farm stay. Yes, north....5 windy hours in the wrong direction but that is how the travel gods decided we should do it. This next place is really in the middle of nowhere with no cellphone reception. We will be offline for 4 days but the kids will continue to blog, so you will get an extra large portion of fun on Jan 27 (which might be the 26th for you).

The last place we stayed at was a wonderful, little farmhouse. There were sheep, cows and red deer raised on the 1,000 acre farm. The owners were very kind, informative and fun. Kylie and Ryan had a great time hanging out with Darcy, who is turning 13. We got to see a bit of Gary working a herd of sheep with the dogs. Learned a whole lot about sheep, steer, bulls, heifers, red deer, deer velvet and the timber industry.

Tim is no longer the cow whisperer. I would call him either the cow serenader or, more likely, the cow harasser....The first night we were there he moo'd loudly at the herd of mama and baby cows in front of our house. He thought it was great how they would all stop what they were doing and look at him. There was also an enormous bull in there. The bull was doing his "bull call" a lot, which sort of sounds like a donkey with a sore throat braying. As raspy as it is it is still loud. I think he decided to get back at Tim for bothering his babes because he sang off and on, loudly, throughout the first night. Outside our window. He could still be heard over my white noise ap played at full blast. The next 2 nights he was much quieter.

We went on a small "trek" yesterday and then to a river where Tim caught his first New Zealand trout. There was a really cool suspension bridge along with a few bugs as Kylie pointed out in her last post :)

For anyone who is interested we are at 32 proven attempts of trying to knock me (and Kylie) off.

Kylie Day 11

Kylie Day 10

Kylie Day 9

A Farm Tour

When I got up this morning my parents forced me to take my first pill. My allergies were acting up and I did not bring my medicine. They did not want to give me a full dose so they cut the pill in half. That was a big mistake. It tasted disgusting! We waited to do our schoolwork in the afternoon because the lady that lives on the farm was going to give us a tour in the morning. I learned a lot. Did you know that you can put a wire in a pig's nose to keep it from digging around in the soil? After the tour we decided to have a quick lunch then go down by the river. When we got there dad walked off fishing and I explored the area. We had no nets so we could not catch anything. It was pretty boring. The rest of the afternoon dad went fishing at a river while we did schoolwork. While dad was gone Kylie, Mom, and I went on an excursion to see the deer. They were very curious of our car. Around eight thirty dad came home and it was almost time to go to bed.

A Heard Of Ducks

My parents spent the whole morning packing so I did not have to do schoolwork. While they were packing we were feeding the ducks by the lake. We started out just feeding three ducks but by the end we were being chased by about fifty ducks, seven ducklings, and four black swans. Around lunch time we got on the road. The next place we were going to was another farm stay, except this farm stay had a lot of animals. When we arrived we discovered that there were hundreds of sheep and cows and a little bit of deer. A nice girl showed us around a little bit. They even have chickens. Dad cooked delicious steak for dinner too. Before we went to bed dad mooed at some cows. Today was fun

Glow Worms

After another morning of schoolwork we left to go to the geothermal park. We hiked from the gift shop to several hot springs (one of the hot springs was one of the biggest in the world) and then to a nearby lake. It was really cool except the rotten egg smell. The next place we went to was a luge track. It was very expensive but worth it. We also went on a bungee swing. After a quick dinner we went back to our farm stay and made a fire with Jacque's family. It was pretty fun.
This morning we got a break of doing schoolwork and left early so we could stop at the glow worm cave. When we got there we got our tickets and waited for the next tour to start. Our tour guide took us down through the cave and showed us the glow worms. At the end we went on a boat ride through the cave and saw a lot of glow worms. When it was over we got on the road again. We finally arrived at our hotel then went out to dinner. It was delicious.

Kylie Day 8

What I Know So Far.....by mama bear

Well we are settling in and are no longer jet lagged. We had a double dose - we thought it would be perfect to stay 2 nights in Australia to sort of ease our way into it but then had another 3 hours slapped on from our flight from Brisbane to Auckland. How can you loose 3 more hours covering just under 1,000 miles?!

Once in Auckland we were the proud renters of our own car! Tim likes to come check on me when he goes to get in the car.....by that I mean he likes to come over to the "driver's side", which is where I sit, open the door to say "hi" then walk back over to where the real driver's side is. Another fun game "we" have is to count how often he drifts into the shoulder (or other lane) on the left side - I like it when we are on a road with the grooves so that I have proof that he has done it. He was denying it a lot the first 30 minutes as I felt like he was trying to get rid of me! I think we are at 18 proven times now. We have also backed into another car which had parked next to us at such an angle that the back end was directly behind our car. Fortunately there wasn't much damage to her car (I think ours has some new scratches and dings) and hers was already banged up.....hmmm I wonder why?! As we were trying to figure out just what to do she came out of the restaurant, jumped in her car and left so I guess that took care of that?!

Oh, and if you are ever getting a rental car and they tell you it will fit 3 large bags and 2 small ones it will actually fit 4 large bags, 1 medium bag and several small. And 2 chilly bins! Does anyone out there know what a chilly bin is? We picked up 2 - Tim and an Auckland salesgirl had a fun time trying to figure out what the other was meaning. He may have offended her right off the bat.....

Let's see, what else have I learned? Auckland is loud and not so great but the rest of the country is wonderful. Grocery stores are not at all like what we have back home. There is hardly any diet related anything - you have to eat "real" food. There is no asparagus to be found and I'm too scared to try the stuff in a can. They don't sell canned pumpkin. Oh yeah, and everything costs a bloody fortune! A sit down meal out runs 100-125 easy which is $80-$100 US. Lunch runs about $35 US. I can understand why Erin and Matt are shopping non-stop while they are visiting Judy!!!

We are having such memorable experiences already. I'm sure the "build your own hot tub" will be something the kids remember forever! It was so neat - when the tide is low (about 4 hours total) you can dig a hole out on the beach. There is a limited area where the hot spring seeps up so everyone packs in and claims their spot. By the end we had made many new friends and may even be visiting one of the families on our visit to the South Island next month. Duanne has offered to take Tim fishing so we know what that means! Speaking of fishing, Tim saw the biggest trout he has ever seen in the stream here on the farm where we are staying. The trout are so huge he thinks that if he were even able to get one on (which he says is next to impossible) there is no way he could get it in without breaking the line.

I guess that's about it for now. I'm off to bed to dream about the sushi in Australia!!!!

Kylie Day 7

Tumbledown Hill

After loads of schoolwork I got to hang out with my new friend Jacque. He is the boy my age who lives on the farm. Jacque moved here from South Africa when he was three. We went swimming, hiking, and we played Minecraft together. One thing we did was hike to Tumbledown Hill. My dad and Kylie came with us too. Instead of tumbling down the hill we went sledding down the hill with cardboard. After that we drove to a market in town. We had dinner there and then went out to the grocery store. I left my toothbrush and toothpaste at the last place so I had to buy a new one. We came home and went to bed. Today was fun.