Just getting around to posting about our final week in Christchurch. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great for doing all we’d planned. Jennie had kindly bought us tickets to go to Quail Island – you get a ferry there midmorning and another doesn’t leave from there until around 3pm. Which is great when it’s a clear day but most days at some point it was just on the verge of dumping rain on us and we didn’t want to get caught in the rain on this island with no way back. So unfortunately we didn’t ever make it there! Next time!
Henry’s class has been doing a farm unit back in Bellevue and though it was mostly on the process of growing and harvesting crops we thought a trip to a local dairy farm show would kind of fit in on the homeschooling and fun front. The boys watched them load up the cows onto this turntable and get milked and they had displays out to show kids how much grass was consumed each day and how much milk a cow produced daily. They gave out free ice creams so the boys thought it was a good day.
We also went to a sheep farm to watch a sheep dog demonstration and sheep shearing. It was a miserable rainy day and we were the only family there but it was still well worth it. I’m still always amazed at watching sheep dogs round up sheep and how they get stray ones back in the pack. They family was really nice and found out Henry was going to do a little report on sheep farms and sent us away with a patch of sheep’s wool and some leaflets. We’ve seen numerous talks on animals and visited a lot of wildlife preserves and parks over our trip and the boys have asked some really great questions about habitat and predators. When question and answer time came up Grant asked “How do you tell the difference between a girl sheep and a boy sheep?” Because it was pointed out with a few different birds and animals that the female or male will have some different markings or color Grant thought the same might be true with sheep. It was cute. I explained to him that sheep were more like people and the girls and boys just came with different parts.
Another rainy afternoon was spent at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. This is a free little museum in Christchurch down near the Arts Centre that’s being rebuilt. It was a pretty quiet afternoon in the museum and the boys had a good look around. In the museum they had a section on “Kiwiana” (traditional kiwi type stuff) and had a rebuild of this house that used to be located in Bluff, New Zealand. This couple had decided they loved Paua shells and started nailing them to their living room wall until the entire thing was filled and then opened their house up to tours every day for 27 years. It was a cute little story about this couple and they had their entire entry way and living room recreated in the museum. The place was wall to wall paua shells and weird trinkets.. everywhere. In a few more years they’d have been candidates for Hoarders. Grant walked in and looked around and said.. “This is actually really nice!” a young guy next to him smiled and said “Yes, you should have your mum decorate your house like this!” Grant thought it was a good idea, that thankfully he’s forgotten about.
Last week David and Sarah had called over and let us know that they wanted to have a Thanksgiving meal for us the night before we left which happened to be Thanksgiving. It was such a nice gesture and so thoughtful especially when you consider that David (who was preparing then entire meal) was still working and as it’s not America, he still had to work the next day as well. We had an amazing dinner that included New Zealand whitebait which the boys loved as well, some fantastic stuffing that had pistachios, roast potatoes, a beautiful turkey and an incredible apple pie with berries. David works for Moet & Hennessy so there were no shortage of really nice drinks along with the great meal. I know the amount of work that goes into preparing Thanksgiving and doing that while doing a full work day was a huge feat that was much much appreciated.
The next morning we finished packing our bags which were all amazingly NOT overweight and got to the airport midday. We’d charged every single electronic device the boys would touch and packed their backpacks with activity books and reading materials. We flew Air New Zealand from Christchurch up to Auckland (about 1hr 20 min) and then the international flight from Auckland to Vancouver (about 13 hours) and then a quick flight from Vancouver to Seattle (50 min). Air New Zealand have the seatback video screens with tons of kids movies and games. The boys didn’t even open their backpacks. Henry watched a movie and played a couple of games and then decided he was going to bed and slept for a good 8-9 hours.. possibly more. Grant slept about 2 hours max and watched endless movies the entire flight, Peter (unbeknownst to me or I’d have kicked the back of his seat endlessly for checking out when I might have needed his help) took an Ambien and slept a good part of the flight as well. Apart from a little kerfuffle with Grant leaving his backpack in the international customs baggage area and running through the airport to try and get someone to get it and get it back to us, it was pretty uneventful – thank god. Traveling to New Zealand by cruise ship is definitely my preferred method of travel but for the sake of time this wasn’t so bad.
Re-entry into the real world has been a little weird. No one is sleeping right. We had weird night where Grant woke up at 10pm whining because he thought it was morning and didn’t want to go to school because he was tired. Henry work up at 10:30pm crying because he just couldn’t sleep and came into our room and somehow lost his pants. So I had 1 kid crying with a superman top and nothing else in my room and the other in their shared room yelling that he didn’t want to be left alone. After pants were located both kids were in our bed for about 10 minutes before Grant got fed up with being kicked and poked and yelled at by Henry and went back to bed, only he needed tucked in again. Then about 20 min later Henry started whispering Christmas carols which was really creepy and sounded like some horror movie and a little later he got fed up and went back to his room only to need tucked in.. and then a tissue… and then tucked in again.. and then to go to the bathroom. This was all around 2am. They woke up around 10am the next day (totally meant to wake them at 7am to adjust for school wakeup) and Grant had somehow lost his pants (what the heck is happening to all the pants?!). They boys are out of sorts and cranky. Grant just gets naughty which I can almost deal with but Henry’s eeeeeendless whining and inability to just deal with the normal stuff in life – big tears over not being able to open a bag of chips.. “I just caaaaaaaan’t”. The drama overload is driving me nuts.. it’s funny in reflection but right now it feels endless.
Big final wrap up post with final thoughts on our trip coming up in the next few days.
