Getting settled

Well, we are now in our own house with our own furniture again. The furniture won't all fit in, so some is being stored for later times (but we did get 21 of our 23 Billy bookcases in :)).

Our house in Austin sold nice and quickly with only a little bit of fuss, so we don't have to worry about that any more which is nice.

It's hard to see in the photos but it's built on a hill, so the driveway is slightly steep (the delivery truck kept grounding out trying to get up the driveway to deliver our furniture), and the ground level goes up a story between the front and the back of the house. So that deck on the upper level at the side (that you can't really see because it's behind the tree) comes out almost on the ground at the back.

The deck. You can see at the far end the open door from the lounge. In the middle is the windows in the stairwell (the one you can't see is almost to ground level). Then finally at the back is our bedroom, with another door out to the deck. And underneath the top of Kathryn's room.

The back garden - no grass to mow at all.

We have one neighbour on almost the same level as us, but everyone else is different, mostly below, so it feels reasonably private even though we're not that far away.

And inside:

The lounge which is open plan with the dining room. The top of the stairs are coming up on the right hand side, and the view is out to the deck.

This doorway is to the right of the stairs and leads to the master bedroom and upstairs bathroom. All the doors to the left are the hotwater/linen cupboard.

The narrow and sharply bent stairs - getting a fridge up there was a mission, especially since there was only one delivery guy so I had to help him.

At the bottom of the stairs looking in from the front door - that's Kathryn's bedroom straight ahead, and the downstairs bathroom to the left. Matthew's door is directly opposite Kathryn's (you could just see his windows through the lower part of the tree in the first photo). Kathryn's room is built into the hillside and under the deck and it's always cold. Upstairs gets sun all day and overheats.

And just for fun a couple of mushroom colonies growing in the backyard.

It's been a month now

And two weeks since the last post. So I really should write a bit more. But there's not really much to say. We're plodding along, sorting things out slowly, trying to find jobs and making a new list of things we'll have to do once we've done that (like find a permanent place to live). We've had word that the boat with all our stuff will arrive in NZ on the 3rd of March, not sure how long it will take to get through customs, but at least we have a getting closer date.

So I'm just going to put up some pictures of the Firth of Thames as seen from here for your enjoyment.

Our first day of Tech

Hi this is Kathryn. We've just went to our first tech lesson, I was doing cooking and Matthew was doing Hard materials. We cooked muffins from scratch, and we each made different flavours of muffins. I made first made vanilla and chocolate muffins with dried apricots inside (super yummy!) second we made double chocolate muffins (also super yummy!) third we made cheese and onion muffins (:P) I didn't eat any!

We had to take a bus to get to the other school, so we had to get to school earlier than normal. We almost missed it as we forgot about getting there early until the last minute. It had already picked up kids from the other school that go on the same day we do, and then it picked us up, and then we went to the school where we do the tech classes. Here's a picture of the result after getting them home - they got a bit squashed, especially since I had to take them out of the oven before they were fully cooked.

We rotate subjects every four lessons, so next term we'll be doing something different. Our class has three kids from the other school and three from ours. Matthew's class has eleven kids, but I'm not sure if any more people are coming in their class. We get to go swimming at the other school too, there is a morning tea and a lunch, which both have breaks after which we get to play on their enormous playground. We get to swim just before lunch.

A Small School

Yesterday was the first day of the school year (well, technically Monday was, but this region had a holiday (regional anniversary day) then, so it was Tuesday instead). We started school with a Maori welcome ceremony for the new teachers (2 of), and new students (just us yesterday, with 2 more today). Afterwards we had to shake the hands of everyone in the school - good thing it is only tiny :)

Everyone was back at school after their six weeks off for summer (and Christmas). Our school is very small with only 30-40 students over years 1 through 8 (primary (yr 1-6) plus intermediate (7-8)). Matthew is in year 8, and Kathryn is in year 7. That means high school next year for Matthew (high school is years 9-13).

To get to school we have to walk out the end of our part of the town, and past the cow paddocks, with the beach on the other side of the road, and into school.

Our school has a uniform - school shirts (which we had to buy when we got to school the first morning, and then change in the bathroom), black bottoms, and shoes are optional - except on Tech days. Every second week on a Tuesday a bus comes to the school to pick up all the year 7 and 8 students (or intermediate age) and take them to another school with tech rooms - where they will all do metalwork, woodwork, cooking, and sewing.

Our school pool wasn't quite ready for swimming in on the first day, we have to take our togs (swimsuits) every day for swimming, and the pool should be ready before the end of the week.

We are both in the same classroom - we only have two classes at school - the juniors (yr 1-4) and the seniors (yr 5-8). We start school at 8.50am, and finish at 2.50pm. We have interval/morning tea (recess) for 20 minutes in the morning, and a 40 minute lunch break where we get to eat our home-made lunches outside and then play. There is no school cafeteria.

We can spend our free time playing on the play equipment (mostly for the younger kids, the older ones tend to break it so we aren't really allowed on it). Or playing on the school fields and court (the rugby field seen over the back of the cow paddock, and the netball court in front of the swimming pool).

Starting Out

It's time for a new chapter in our lives, and so this blog was born as a way to keep all those who are interested up to date with what we're doing. I'm hoping I will get the kids to contribute some posts too.

We were happily living in Austin, Texas until the beginning of January when we were told that Phillip's company no longer had the money to pay him and so he had no job, and hence no visa, and we therefore had 2 weeks to leave the country. This cued a mad rush of sorting and packing and figuring out how we were going to manage everything that needed to be done.

We did it though, and got out and the house is now up for sale, and we're settling in here in New Zealand.

We got here at 6.30am on Sunday morning, first stop was McDonalds for breakfast which had us laughing - travel halfway across the world just to go to McDonalds.

But then we got down to Kaiaua and the beach. Swimming has featured somewhere each day since - the togs barely get time to dry. Kathryn especially loves the water, Matthew not so much. The temperature has us melting (the breezes are nice) - it may be cooler than Austin, but I think the humidity is higher, and there's no air con. The sun is stronger too - we've all managed to get pink tinges despite hats and sunblock and stuff.

{pretend there is a picture of fish and chips here - I forgot to take one - I'll try and remember (before they are eaten) next time}

Fish and Chips (with Pineapple Rings) earned the thumbs up, as did all the flavours of ice cream (although we haven't tried them all yet), and chocolate fish. L&P had a lukewarm reception, and black forest chocolate is apparently all mine - not that I mind at all :)

Kathryn has helped Grandad hang washing out on the line, and Grandma pick vegetables, Matthew has just had his nose in a book most of the time - he was interested in the strawberry plants though.

In the first week we have applied for citizenship for the kids, discovered we didn't need to apply to change a foreign drivers license to a NZ one - we just needed to renew our old NZ ones, opened a bank account, found a doctor, found our IRD numbers, and enrolled the kids in school (which starts for the year next week).

This weekend is a big fishing contest here in Kaiaua, so we're expecting a bit of traffic (this is all relative of course, a bit of traffic here is slightly different to a bit of traffic in Austin). And we get to visit some old friends.