Leaving New Zealand

Yeah, here's some of our pictures.

There's Callalily on our Maori cultural weekend for the creative group. We learned how to weave flowers traditionally. I was pretty fast, though not meticulous about getting a tight weave. It's pretty fun. Once you use a knife to soften or cut the reed (total brain lapse, I cant' remember the type of stalk!), you cant' use it for anything else. You also may not sit or stand on the grass while you're working on it.



The next picture is our treehouse project. BearHunter was assigned to replace any rotten boards or fix unsafe conditions in the multilevel treehouse at our school. He chose me for his helper. We did quite well and hauled large 10x7cm support beams all the way to the top level.

Feijou are these green fruits here. We get them by the bowlfull from the friendly neighbors. You eat them by rolling them on the table to soften (sweeten) them first. THen cut it in half and suck each half to get the juice and pulp out. As a child in California, these fruit grew in our backyard and we were told they were pineapple guava, but never really ate them. But here in New Zealand we eat them tons! THey are nicely sweet.

Then there's a picture of me doing my gardening work last week,carrying leaves to clear.

The final photo is from the zipline experience which was part of our last creative weekend as well. We stayed at a christian campground for one night and enjoyed their ropes course in the morning.

In two days we fly out for 2 months in Thailand. We expect to have good internet access there, but wont' be bringing our computer to download photos with. So we may not have new pictures on the blog until August. But we'll see.

By the way, thanks for all the craft ideas you've posted and emailed to us. :)