The Kiwi Journey to Down Under, Middle Earth, Aotearoa - Land of the Long White Cloud, New Zealand

Well the trip has had some fun moments so here they are. One of my talented beautiful neices Kotahi flew to NZ with us and it was fun having her. She was a fun little addition to our travel party. I kept giving my little history speech about NZ to her and Paul that just kept us alive and full of fun. I had so much luggage and between us we had 5 carry on pieces. Plus we had to take off our shoes and coats at check in and I was hammered before we even got on our first flight. We flew southwest to LAX and got our drinks and snacks and Paul managed to get us extra snacks so we were living the good life. The flight seemed quick and we were awake the whole time and landed in no time. This picture is of us on our leg from SLC to LAX (2hrs). We are still happy and having fun.



When we arrived in LAX there was tonnes of people. So we made our way to baggage claim to get our bags and make our way to Air New Zealand (ANZ). I love that at the baggage carousel your heaving and struggling trying to get your bags off and the people around you are just watching you saying "hey". We got 2 baggage carts and packed up our bags (3 on each with 2 carry bags) and made out way to Air New Zealand. ANZ is the terminal next to Southwest. Paul and I were racing our carts while my neice was laughing at us saying "Aunty you guys are so funny". We managed however to stop take a picture under the ANZ terminal sign. This is Paul and Kotahi and yes we are still having fun.



When we got to ANZ there were only 2 people in line which was awesome and we got this very nice lady that informed us as we put one bag on the scales that it was overweight (suprise). But she was awesome she checked all 3 of us in and figured how much we could have for 3 of us and then totalled the bag weight and only charged $30. All our bags had a heavy tag (our bags not us). We then made our way to our terminal and the security lines were insane. We stodd in line waiting to get through to security for about 45 mins (fun, not). I spoke with a few kiwis (people from NZ named after the bird not the fruit)while waiting in line and try to make the process a little more fun. When we boarded our flight (and we were right at the back) it was about 4 hours till we had left SLC and we are still having fun. Our flight to NZ was only 12.5 hours (usually 13). So what did we do for 13 hours you ask? Between the 3 of us we watched 6 movies, 2 tv show episodes (we each had our own TV screens) slept (well wriggled around trying to sleep), ate 2 meals (dinner and breakfast) and slept some more. I slept well as I'm used to this flight but Paul and Tahi struggled a wee bit. When we arrived (25 mins early) we were the last off the flight and took the long walk to baggage claim. It was so beautiful to see all the maori carvings on the doorway as we entered into the passport and immigration check.and here is a picture of us. We have made it to NZ!!!!

Arrived Safely In NZ

Well we arrived safely in NZ. It was so nice to travel home with people rather than just myself. The trip was as long as I remembered but the security check line in LAX was crazy. When we got to SLC airport all my bags (and Pauls cos I filled it up) were overweight and I was going to have to pay $50 per bag ($200). Luckily my borther worked his gift of spotting the polynesian and was able to get all my bags through with simply a faa fetai tele lava!! Thanks bro. It is Winter here but the days have been absolutley beautiful and the cold kicks in at night and in the morning. After living in Utah though this is nothing. The kids are running around with no shoes and t-shirt and shorts its so funny. I've eaten so much food already and we are going to see Transformers this morning (10:45 show). The big movies come out a day earlier here cos of the time difference and Paul and I are big movie fans!!!! I was up at 5am and yesterday still trying to adjust to the time difference and was in bed at 8pm last night!!!! I miss everyone but I'm loving having Paul here. He is loving everything about NZ and is such a fun person to host. This is short and sweet but I will upload pictures tonight.

Love you all Nance

BYU SPORTS

Well for those of you who do not know, BYU Rugby beat Cal in the finals to be champions for 2009. It has been a long time coming and the team definitely deserved it this year more than ever. They had a great season with great wins and tonnes of support. It was definitely their year and they pulled it off. As Wayne helps coaching the whole stake was backing them up and keeping up on the latest news. As it was our stake conference weekend the news spread fast through the stake and everyone was ecstatic. Congrats cougars, proud to be a supporter of the BYU rugby team.




I usually like to follow BYU Sports that include people that I know. For that reason I have only followed the rugby. But this semester I had a student in my class on the track team. He was from Estonia and competed in the decathlon. At the beginning of the semester he showed me his schedule where he would miss a bunch of classes due to his track meets and I didn't think he could cope with homework and keeping up with in class assignments. Well he proved my wrong! He wrote great papers, kept up with assignments, and excelled in his track events. Meelis claimed the decathlon title at his last track meet and it was his personal best performance. This performance should be good enough to qualify him for the NCAA championships. It was great to follow Meelis and his success. He is a great student, awesome athlete and has an amazing future ahead of him. Congrats Meelis!


RUGBY

Pony Express - 3rd Grade Elementary

So I help out at my friend's (Paul) classroom at Pony Express Elementary school 3rd grade class twice a week. They had been such great students and had earned a Luau party for their class and I was so excited to attend. They are a great bunch of kids and I love them. They call me Miss Nancy and they have so many great stories to tell me e.g., "Miss Nancy my sister drank from a puddle", "Miss Nancy I think I'm adopted", "Miss Nancy I think you're pretty" ...... Their little comments are never ending and so interesting I love it. Well here is a picture of the little munchkins!!



It is customary on your birthday to bring a treat to class and I decided to bring them helium balloons. When they came into class and saw the balloons they all began freakin out with excitement. I suddenly had this visual of 30 8 yr olds sucking on helium and talking like Mickey Mouse. i was then unsure of my choice of surprise. Well It all turned out great. Only 2 kids sucked the helium and they kind of sounded like Micky Mouse before sucking the helium and the rest of them just loved them. I taught them a cute little hula (Pearly Shells), we had pineapple punch with little umbrellas, brownies and cupcakes, and then did the limbo and gave out the balloons. it was such a great afternoon and man I don't know how Elementary school teachers do it. I have a lot of respect and admiration for those in this profession. I'd take my University students with the most pathetic excuses for not doing their homework any day.

Another Brithday ...

So I had a birthday in April and it was great! I spent most of the day grading final exams for my students but it was actually very restful and relaxing (A here, B there, fail this kid, pass this kid, kinda like a lucky dip!). That night I went to Tepenyaki (where they cook the food right in front of you) with my friend Paul and it was yummy.





I'm trying to eat healthier (I know it doesn't look like it from the previous pictures) but I'm loving making protein shakes, high protein dishes and low carbs. So to help me with this for my birthday I got some cool little cooking gadgets - the Magic Bullet Deluxe from Paul, and the Delonghi cooking grill from my friends Rodd and Tiff. I also woke up the next morning with all these hearts all over my door from my visiting teachers it was awesome.



Once you hit a certain age birthdays are a little overrated, however, I had a great day and was spoiled by great friends. I also got tonnes of birthday wishes from a lot of people on Facebook. Thanks everyone for making my birthday happy!!!