Bishop invited us over to dinner Tuesday night. He's the nicest guy. His wife is really sweet and quiet too. They are both pretty young with three cute little kids. It was delicious and fun to interact with some different people. Tuesday night we went over to some other BYU girls' house to sleepover. These are the other 2 girls at Ranui with Mekelle and I. We have a weekly meeting on Wednesday mornings with Joy, so we decided to sleep over at their place and have our meeting over breakfast in the morning since they live right behind Joy's house. It was cool- we made waffles at Joy's place, had our meeting, then she drove us to school.
On Thursday the 4 of us BYU girls at Ranui chaperoned the Year 5/6 kids on a field trip to the Polynesian festival that was going on all weekend long. It was a fun day, but so exhausting. I was in charge of 4 nine-year-olds, 2 boys and 2 girls. The Polynesian festival is a big thing in south Auckland where the high school-aged kids perform a variety of cultural dances. It was cool to see it all, but I was with 9-year-olds who thought the performances were boring and just wanted to plaster washable tattoos all over their arms and faces and play on the playground....not quite what I had in mind, but it was the kids' day so i catered to their wants and needs.
I came home after we got back from the Polyfest and checked my email to find out that daddio found a car for me!!!! Both Mekelle and I were screaming and jumping up and down and the news made my week! I am now the proud owner of a Saturn Vue:
It's a good motive to come back home, I guess. ;-) Thanks for finding it dad - you're the best!
On Friday our BYU group met up in downtown Auckland to go to Kelly Tarlton's - it's an Antarctic encounter/underwater world aquarium. It was pretty cool to see. We got to ride a snowcat through the penguins habitat. The huge aquarium is underground, so you walk through and see sharks and other fish swimming above and all around you. My favorite were the giant sting rays - they are so fascinating. We got to watch their feeding time; they would swim up on the girl feeding them. They are actually really fascinating creatures - very gentle and smart.
We headed back home to help prepare the food for our big umu on Saturday. There were 6 of us peeling and chopping potatoes, kumara, pumpkin, and onions as well as making stuffing and putting it in all of the chickens. It was fun to be a part of the "traditional" role that the women take on for an umu. It's a lot of food to prepare too - took us almost 2 hours.
That night we went to our 1st rugby game - the Auckland Blues were playing. Our foursome group went with some YSA boys we have gotten to know. It was hard to understand what was going on at first because I was trying to compare it to what I know about football. The boys were very nice and patient about answering our questions. Turns out, I like rugby sooo much better! We stopped at Denny's for a feed, of course, afterward.
Saturday was the umu that we as a BYU group host for our families, teachers, instructors, and those we have worked with while being here in New Zealand and at the schools. Beau's dad, La'auvea, cooked the food in a pit at his house. We had gone to a hangi before, which is the traditional Maori meal. And umu is basically the same thing except it is Tongan. It is so delicious and there was heaps of food. I can't even describe it - it's just really tasty. My classroom teacher, Pani, came as well as 2 other teachers from Ranui.
For the entertainment, some boys performed the haka for us. It was by far the best one I have seen since I have been here! I wish you could see it more close up, the facial expressions are amazing......
All of us BYUers, including our teacher (Joy) have gotten into zumba - an aerobic fitness routine where you basically are dancing to Latin music. It's a blast. There are classes 3x a week so we all usually end up going at least on of those days. The instructor is awesome and we have a lot of fun with her. She was at the umu and we all went up on stage with her and performed a couple of zumba dances for everyone. It was really random, but we all had fun with it.
Later that night we went to Spookers - a "haunted attraction scream park" that is out in the middle of nowhere at a place previously used as a mental hospital. For those of you who know me, this is totally my thing. It was awesome! We went with some YSA friends, as well as Kamaea, and did a corn maze and also went through the haunted house. The actors/actresses are so good. I didn't ever really get scared, but it was still fun to run around with everyone, peek around the dark corners, and scream because everyone is scared for their life, wondering when something was going to jump out at them. I just start laughing. I LOVE the suspense - there's something about that creepy element....
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