Catching up...

This seems to be the title of more blog posts than I care to admit to...but here I am again, so far behind that I don't know if I'll be able to catch up on everything or remember everything quite right, but I'll do my very best! I'm sorry that I have gotten so far behind but I was a little behind to begin with and then around the 25th or 26th of January my computer decided to fight with me and then id decided to break! It wasn't very nice of it! Anyway that happened right before we left on our trip for the south island so I decided to ask another host dad who is really good with computers if he would mind looking at it and trying to fix it. He took it for the time that we were on the south island and said he couldn't find anything wrong with it. He brought it back to me and tried to turn it on at our house and the same problems happened, so he decided to look at it again. After further inspection he decided that it was something wrong with my audio card and he would have to look at it a little longer. He took it to some guys at his work and they decided the best plan would be to turn off the audio drive completely and then it would go a little faster when it was turning on and I should be able to use it pretty normally except that I can no longer listen to music on it or watch videos on it or Skype on it because there is no sound...all of which is a big pain, but I can do my school work which I suppose is most important! Sadly with the turning off of the sound drive my usb drives and my SD reader have also been affected so I can't get pictures off of them...it also means that I can't get all of the pictures from my friends that they have on their cameras. So I'll do what I can, but I don't know how many pictures I'll be able to put up for a while so I'll just work on getting the words all up and then you can read and I'll add pictures as soon as I can! I'm sorry for the slow speed, but with being so far behind + starting practicum, working on my online class, and traveling and having a social life (you know searching for that perfect New Zealander husband) I've got a lot on my plate so I'm not sure when I'll be all caught up...thanks for your patience and continued love and support...I always look forward to messages from home as well...I've noticed I haven't gotten many updates since I left so it's not all my fault...love yous!

Omaha Beach

 Our second Saturday in New Zealand, Erin was kind enough to take us to the beach with him. We first drove up by Orewa Beach where we spent our first Saturday, but then we continued up the road a bit to Omaha Beach, and it was so worth the wait! It was raining in Auckland that day, big surprise since that was like the only weather we seemed to see for the first few weeks, and sometimes still. But at Omaha it was beautiful! (as you can see in the pictures below.) While at the beach Erin agreed to give us our first surfing lesson. Sarah went first while Micah and I watched the girls on the shore. After Sarah gave it a try and did pretty well, it was my turn...or so I thought, I headed out to where Erin was waiting but he wasn't quite ready to share his board yet. Instead of starting soon after I ended up waiting out in the water for about an hour and finally...the waves died down enough that Erin decided I could handle them and he didn't need to keep taking the waves he saw coming! I didn't quite make it to my feet, but I got up to my knees...next time I get a chance to go I will hopefully be able to make it up to my feet, but it is really hard to do! It was so amazing though! After I tried Micah went out and tried with Erin's help for a little bit and then after a while we got our own boards and tried to do it on our own...I only caught one wave successfully on my own and I rode it for a while but I couldn't get up. It was so much fun though and I think if I ever live close to a beach I will become a beach bum and forget about work altogether! Now, this post has a lot of pictures because we decided to take a ton of pictures that day, but there won't be many more with pictures because I can't get access to my pictures from my computer any more :( So don't hate me because this is so long!

I love this picture of Sizzle because I just think she looks so cute! Who knows what she is doing, I just like it!

 Some beautiful pictures of the beach. I think this is what I imagined New Zealand to look like everywhere.

This is one of my attempts at surfing...working my way up!








From the look of this picture I am about to fall over because I am leaning to one side, but still working on it!






After my first try at surfing I got out to let Micah have a turn, and Sarah told me about this figure just up the beach a little and up some stairs so I decided to go and take a picture with it because I thought it was kind of cool...it had a mermaid tail...

And then one with the beach behind me! It was so beautiful! I seriously could live at the beach every day for the rest of my life and not complain...well maybe complain a little bit because of all of the sand, but it would still be amazing!








Before we left the beach we wanted to take some more pictures because we hadn't taken very many the first day at the beach due to the rain. So we started with some jumping pictures obviously because those are the best ones!!
We also decided to do a pyramid picture because it is a classic fun picture...Sizzle was scared to be on top, but she was brave and she did it anyway!
Then we got the babies into some jumping pictures...just ignore the black dot in the middle of the picture...there was something on Micah's camera.

Then we had the piggy back picture because the girls refused to walk back to where Erin was waiting because they wanted a piggy back instead.









And before we left Erin took one jumping picture of all of us together, the babies didn't quite make it up, but they got close and the rest of us were up so we just went with that one!










Then we took one regular one of all 5 of us and it turned out so cute!











And as we were leaving we caught one picture of the three roommates all together with the beautiful beach behind us!










After a lovely day at the beach we were all tired out! Sizzle could barely make it to the car before falling asleep! But no matter how tired we were were were still awake enough to stop and enjoy a treat which included a Luxury Flake bar which was amazing! As well as some chips and Pineapple lumps which have quickly become a staple in my diet it seems! It was a much better day at the beach than our last attempt and we were so happy that Erin was willing to take us along and give us a go on the board, even though it took away from his own chances to catch some waves!