The Coolest Boys Ever!

...you can contact me through my blog, my personal email, via facebook, or at mobilemarypoppins@gmail.com. Thank you all for your support so far!!

WEEK 5

Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,

This week I went to stay with the coolest three brothers I have ever met. Their mom is from New Zealand and their dad is from America and they live in Singapore. Their grandma, who they call GG, has a big house in the middle of the countryside near Hawkes Bay on the East Coast of the North Island, and they have a house at the bottom of GG’s drive.

They were here on vacation from Singapore and they were camping on a lake called Lake Rotoiti. They invited me to come camping with them for a couple of days.

On Saturday morning I left Aidan and Luke’s house and traveled by bus to a town called Rotorua, which is famous for its geysers. These are hot springs that spurt steaming water and gas up from under the earth’s surface. This creates mud pools and springs, and some of them are very smelly because they contain lots of sulphur. I could smell the sulphur as soon as I arrived; it smells like rotten eggs!

When I got off the bus I met Fynn (who is 6¾), Archie (who is 5¾) and Charlie (who is 3½) and their mom and dad and GG. Then we drove back to the bach where they were camping. A bach is what the Kiwis call a very basic little holiday home.

It is usually made of wood and sometimes doesn’t even have electricity, although this one did. The boys and their parents were sleeping outside in a tent and GG and I were sleeping inside the bach. They needed a huge tent for all of them. It looked like a space ship and had four separate rooms!

The boys’ dad has got loads of tattoos all over his body and told me stories about every single one. That took up most of the first evening. Some of them are really cool, like the stars he has on his leg, one for each of his boys, but some are a little scary, like the demon mask on his back, which looks like the kind of thing Scooby Doo would run a mile from!

I loved seeing the beautiful lake where they were staying, and the black swans that live on the lake; I had only ever seen white ones before.

I slept really well in the bach (mostly because sweet Archie had given me his pillow to sleep on) and the next day we got picked up in a friend’s speedboat and taken to some hot springs on the other side of the lake.

Riding in the boat was so much fun. I had to wear a lifejacket because, like the law about wearing seatbelts in cars, there is a law in New Zealand that says you have to wear a lifejacket on a boat.

We had a great time at the hot pools, and the boys did huge jumps off the jetty into the lake.

On the way back I had fun riding on the “biscuit” which is an inflatable ring that they pull behind the speedboat.

I went so fast, I flew out of the water at one point! Just near the bach we saw some kids climbing onto the rocks and jumping into the water. Some of them were so brave they were doing somersaults, forwards ones and backwards ones. Kiwis are very brave, even the kids!

That night we all went out for dinner at a local restaurant where there was an outside toilet, a tree in a boat, and a hutch containing two guinea pigs.

The boys met a couple of guys (one from New Zealand and one from Brazil) who were enjoying a quiet beer until three curious little brothers got chatting to them!

After dinner we got taken to a redwood park to see some huge trout that were swimming in the river.

The walk through the huge redwood trees as the sun set was really magical. On the way back to the car I saw the funniest thing.

I thought I saw a black and white bird on a fence, but when I got closer I realized it was a jandal (what the Kiwis call flip flops.) The boys told me that Kiwis like to hang their shoes on fences and drive off and leave them. They do some pretty weird stuff, the Kiwis!

The next day we got up early to play in the local park. The boys loved showing me how good they are at rugby.

Then we had to head back to the boys’ house in the countryside. It was quite a long drive but the boys kept me entertained by singing Iron Maiden songs. They are little rockers! When we got to their country house, they couldn’t wait to show me all the cool things they have.

They have a wooden clubhouse, and they made me the first girl member of their club (I had to sign a contract to become a member!)

They also introduced me to their donkeys and sheep.

The donkeys are called Rosie, Hugo and Amy and, get this... the sheep is called Donkey! I couldn’t stop laughing when they told me that. A sheep called Donkey! That’s about the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! But that’s the kind of kids these boys are; super funny.

That day, they were wearing T-shirts that tell you a lot about them. Fynn is quite boisterous (his T-shirt says, “Robots attack!”), Archie is a great peacemaker (his T-shirt says “DON’T START WARS”), and Charlie is full of surprises (his T-shirt says, “The Future Is Unwritten.”)

Another funny thing about the boys is that they called me Mary Poppins the whole time. Although they know my name is Susie their mom told them I am like the current Mary Poppins (like the one from the movie) so that’s what they decided to call me. On my last night, when Archie was being put to bed, I overheard him say to his mom, “I want Mary Poppins to stay with us for 200 years!”

The boys had a great time showing me all around GG’s house and beautiful yard. She has an orchard with fig trees and feijoa trees.

The feijoa is a soft fruit that I had never heard of before I came to New Zealand.

We also discovered a caterpillar in GG’s vegetable garden. It was the caterpillar for the Monarch Striped Butterfly, which has beautiful black and yellow stripes, and it looked very hungry! I got a great photo of it.

I stayed one more night with the boys before I had to leave to fly down to the South Island to stay with my next two families. I will miss those boys so much; they became good friends of mine in a very short time. I felt like I’d always known them. Luckily I will be seeing them again in a couple of months when I go and stay with them in Singapore, and I’ll tell you lots more stories about them then, but camping with them in New Zealand was a fantastic way to start 2011!

Next week I’ll tell you all about life in the South Island, including how two children live on a farm that is miles and miles from anywhere. It’s so far away in the middle of the mountains that it takes them an hour to drive to the nearest shop!

Lots and lots of love to you all, and big hugs and kisses,

Susie

xxxx

A Kiwi Kind of Christmas

...you can contact me through my blog, my personal email, via facebook, or at mobilemarypoppins@gmail.com. Thank you all for your support so far!!

WEEK 4

Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that Santa brought you some great gifts! I was at Aidan and Luke’s house for Christmas. They hung up their stockings before they went to bed and because they’ve been good this year, Santa filled them up with presents. Luke left a note and a drink and a snack and Santa even signed it and wrote, “Thank you, it was delicious,” on it!

The boys both got scooters and pocket knives, but I think Aidan’s favorite present was Rock Band 3 for his Wii. He spent most of the day practicing songs!

The boys gave me cards that they had made in school. Aidan’s showed a picture of their school mascot (a camel) and Luke’s was a very interesting bird. I’m not sure if it’s a kiwi bird or a turkey, or a mx of both! We had a great Christmas day and the boys went swimming in the neighbor’s pool because it was a hot summer’s day.

A few days before Christmas, Aidan and Luke had their final Beach Series day of the year. Beach Series is a big group of people, moms, dads, and kids, who all meet at the beach to do races.

They do running races along the beach (the moms and dads run 4km and the kids run 2km), swimming races (the moms and dads do 1km and the kids do 300m) and boat races (just the moms and dads) – both stand-up paddle boarding and kayaking.

There is so much going on, it’s noisy and crazy but everyone is having an amazing time. Most of the moms and dads who do the swimming races wear wetsuits as they have to go out so far into the ocean where it’s pretty cold.

Everybody who is racing has to wear a microchip around their ankle. This has their name on it and it tells the computer when they start and when they cross the finish line so the computer works out their race time. Swimmers have a special "beach series" swim cap they have to wear.

The day I saw their races, it was their Christmas party, so everyone had dressed up. That’s how I saw an elf paddling a raft! Luke dressed up as an elf and came third in his running race.

On the way home from Beach Series, Aidan and Luke pointed out the Kiwi Christmas Tree. It’s not a real Christmas Tree, it’s a native tree of New Zealand and it’s called a pohutukawa tree (I’m still learning to say that!)

The pohutukawa trees are so special, they are protected, and no one is allowed to chop them down, even when they grow so big they are almost falling over. People just put harnesses around them to help hold them up.

They have beautiful red flowers that come out in December. People say that if the flowers come out before Christmas then it’s going to be a “long, hot summer,” which is a kind of joke because the flowers always come out before Christmas, so it’s always going to be a “long, hot summer!” They are pretty funny, the Kiwis, they all seem to have a great sense of humor!

After Christmas, Aidan and Luke went with their mom and dad to their grandparents bach (that’s what Kiwis call their holiday home) on the west coast of the north island. I stayed behind to look after their cats, Cody and Jazz, who are brother and sister.

They love chasing bugs and insects. They catch moths and cockroaches and skinks. I had never seen a skink before. It is like a little lizard.

Skinks are very clever. If a cat catches it by its tail, the skink can cut off its tail and run away, leaving its tail behind, and then grow a new one! It can even do that with its legs as well! Can you imagine cutting off your leg and growing a new one back?! Weird, huh!

When the boys came back it was Aidan’s 11^th birthday. I helped Aidan’s mom make a birthday cake for him.We made a chocolate cake, put sliced strawberries around the edge, and then wrote Happy Birthday Aidan on it.

Then we had a party to celebrate his birthday and New Year’s Eve, so Aidan’s friends came early at 5pm for pizza and cake, and then all the moms and dads came later and we had dancing and games until midnight when we saw in the new year and watched fireworks outside and on the TV.

I met lots of new kids at the party, like Zo-Zo, who had pink hair! I had a great time with all of them, and did lots of dancing.

Because New Zealand is one of the first countries over the International Date Line, it was 2011 here before anywhere else. So when it was 2011 in New Zealand, it was still 2010 for another day in California, so we were in a different year for a little while!

I tried not to drink too much Champagne though, because I had to get up early the next morning to go camping with some new kids before heading down to the South Island. I will tell you all about that next week. Happy 2011!

Missing you all and sending you loads of hugs and kisses.

Lots and lots of love,

Susie xxxx