Happy Moment and Kiwi Quirks cont.

I'm not sure anyone can quite understand the way I felt when I found these long-lost friends again... ;)

And just to prove my point that New Zealand bathrooms are messed up, our "water closet" has two identical light switches for the same light, one on each side of the door. One for turning it on, and a different one for turning it off???

This is the Place

On September 6th 2013, exactly one month after leaving their home in Utah Valley, the Jones family arrived at 12A Horne Street in a large blue wagon. Father Jones walked down the driveway, opened the front door, set his foot inside, and declared, "This is the place!" And from thenceforth it has been an unorganized mess...

My favorite part of the day was setting up the room my brothers and I share.

We live in a room with huge windows that is connected to the rest of the house by a tiny (and very treacherous) staircase. However this means that anything that gets in the way...

...simply gets thrown out on the roof!!! :)

We have a few other amenities that still make me feel like we're living in resort condo, not our own house...

 

... but over-all I'd say we've settled in really well :)

A huge thanks to Geoff (Jeff), our landlord, for the beautiful new home, and to President and Sister Gaastra for all their wisdom and help moving in!!!

Passion for Paritutu

Our family has found a new passion: Paritutu Rock. 

Its a huge rock that juts straight up out of the coast above our city. We were introduced to it by the Ellingtons, a family that we have made good friends with through my dad's work. The first time we hiked the quarter-mile, vertical trail to the top was with them last Saturday.

 

 After enjoying the awesome view from the top we ran back down the trail, and then worked our way around a very forbidding fence down to the beach. We found seals!

 Those of us that went up enjoyed it so much that we decided to do it again for family home evening, and to take dad with us.

This time we made sure we were on top for the sunset, and it was so pretty!

I was Sagey's buddy on the way down. We had lots of fun racing the other kids, and she didn't even need my help once!

Starting School!

My siblings and I all started started school this past week, to mixed feelings...

Mercy and Sage weren't even a bit nervous, even though this is Sage's first school ever! They are both loving the very active teaching style, and Sagey especially loves that even in the middle of winter she doesn't have to wear shoes to school if she doesn't want to!

For us older boys school is very different than it was in the states: no girls, no other Latter-Day Saints, uniforms, houses, headmasters, prefects, etc, but we are getting used to everything pretty quickly. Danny is already practicing with the JV basketball team, and I've met lots of really cool kids and am already the one everyone turns to for help with math :P People are super nice and friendly, and our family is already getting into a regular school routine