The Happiest Place on Earth

Wow! I can't believe it's been so long since I've written a new post. I've been so busy doing things, I haven't even stopped to write about them. Quite frankly, I've been trying to spend my evenings NOT in front of a computer, which makes it difficult to blog. I'll try to slowly catch up on what's been going on these past few months, but will start with what's freshest in my memory; Vanuatu.

Even though it's still not yet my birthday, Vanuautu was a birthday present of sorts. We took advantage of the Queen's Birthday holiday to escape the cold New Zealand winter (yes, I've already acclimatised myself into feeling cold in these above freezing temps). I wanted to do some SCUBA diving in this part of the world, and thought of Australia's Great Barrier Reef and Vanuatu's natural reefs WWII wrecks. P was more intrigued by the WWII wrecks than reefs, so Vanuatu won. I'm so glad we went! Vanuatu has been voted the happiest place on Earth, and I can definitely say we were happy to be there and I didn't meet many people who didn't greet us with a big, genuine smile. Even their cell phone company service is called 'SMILE', so every time you turn on your phone it has the lovely message across the home screen reminding you to 'SMILE'.

On arriving, we were pleasantly surprised to see our Couch Surfing friend from Santo meet us at the airport. He generously offered us a ride to our place, which was a relief as we didn't really know for certain how to explain the directions to a taxi driver, seeing as we'd never been there ourselves (we stayed at another friend's place out of town).

Once we settled into the house, we went for a walk down the road to a nearby resort for dinner (Ripples, quite tasty food) and enjoyed the beautiful water views from the backyard. Went early to bed with the early setting sun.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

After B's Colorado graduation, I flew straight to Chicago in order to get to grandma and grandpa's house. This was a whirlwind visit- 3 nights in 3 different cities and lots of driving (through 3 different states). There's never enough time to see everyone, but I got lots of hugs from family.

It started with breakfast in Chicago, then braving the city traffic (and driving on the right side of the road) to get to Iowa in time for lunch with grandma and grandpa.

We had a great afternoon in Iowa, with shopping and art and great food. It was really cool to see some of grandma's art displayed at the public library. I'm so proud to be the granddaughter of a famous artist- I had to grab a photo with her and one of her pieces.

The next day we drove into Wisconsin for the Amish Flower Auction. I didn't quite know what to expect, but knew it would be fun. We pulled into the parking lot next to a horse drawn carriage full of flowers. I clearly hadn't done enough thinking ahead, as I was very surprised to see the horse. We had arrived a bit early, so the men were still setting up- moving the flowers around the hall and taking them off the trailers pulled by the horses. There were a few kids running around in their traditional Amish dress. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos and I'm not great with words, so you'll have to use your imagination to get an idea of what it was like.

When grandpa first told me about this, I had imagined that we would be sitting in an auditorium and they would parade the flowers up on stage for us to bid on. What actually happened probably makes much more sense. The flowers filled the hall, and we went around looking at them before the auctions started in order to pick out our favorites. You have to choose carefully, as some come in groups of 12, but some are sold in groups of 48 or more! Grandma didn't want 48 pots of flowers, so we narrowed our choices down to groups of 24 or less (she actually just needed 12, but that seemed hard to find). The auctioneer started outside (there were so many flowers they overflowed the hall) and was true to auction style- fast and hard to understand. I struggled to keep up, especially with the maths. He gave prices per pot most times, so you had to figure out what you were willing to pay per pot/flower. Going up $0.50 a pot didn't seem like much, but when you're buying 48 of them it drastically increases your total cost.

We had picked out two sets of 24 hanging pots that all of us liked and were hoping we would win the auction on one of them. They auctioned off our least favorite of the two first, and when the price got too high grandpa stopped bidding, so we lost those. It didn't take long for them to get to the second set of hanging pots (and our favorite). Luckily, this lot went for less than the others and we won the auction! It was fun to watch grandpa bid and to just take in the atmosphere. I'm so glad we won the auction. The next challenge was finding space for all the flowers. We sent some home with grandma's friend, but managed to fit the rest in the car. Grandma and I had to carry some in our laps, but it was worth it!




That evening it was back to Chicago to say a quick hello to P's parents. I was really looking forward to seeing them and getting some hugs. I was only there for less than 24-hours, so not much time for any adventures, but we had a great time catching up and looking at photos, and of course K's delicious baking and cooking. Yum!

Thank you all for having me- in Iowa, Illinois, Colorado and California. I am blessed to have so many places to call home.

Congrats Grad

The reason I picked May to visit the US was for B's graduation- what a great reason to come home and celebrate with family. And what a celebration it was! So proud of you B!

We started the weekend with a family lunch at the local watering hole. I got some foods I'd been missing- onion rings and buffalo wings. A very well balanced meal. It was nice to be back in a college town, great laid back atmosphere and really cheap prices!

The ceremony was nice and not too long (and lucky it was indoors too as it was raining outside). Can you tell B was pretty psyched to be graduating?

The whole weekend was great- got to catch up with lots of family I haven't seen in way too long. And of course it wouldn't be a family gathering without some games of pepper.

B's graduation party was beautiful- so many people came to congratulate him and it even snowed too. Not sure that the snow was loved by everyone, but Aunt K and I had a great time building little snowmen and playing briefly in the cold snow. It was fun to be back in the land of snow, even if it was May and supposed to be spring.

Mother's Day was a beautiful day as the snow melted and the mountains cleared in the distance. Farewell Colorado, Happy Mother's Day and Congrats B!!

Home is Where You Hang Your Swimming Suit

Or in Kiwi speak, 'Home is where you hang your togs'. I believe it was my youngest brother BK who coined that expression. We travelled a lot as kids- visits to Iowa to see grandma and grandpa and cousins and aunts and uncles, family vacations. Mom & Dad tried to book us in a hotel with a pool wherever possible (and reasonably priced). Whenever we were out and about for the day on one of these trips away from home, we'd often accidentally say 'let's go home, maybe just go for a dip in the pool' when mom asked us 'where to next'. In this expression, 'home' was referring to the hotel or place we were staying for the night- we didn't really want to go all the way back home. We were so good at adapting that we just made ourselves at home wherever we went, or as BK would say, wherever we hung our swimming suits.

That adaptability has stayed with me. I have called many places home, and feel like we've done a great job making a home for ourselves here in Auckland. However, leading up to my trip stateside, I kept talking about 'going home' and looking forward to 'my trip home'. It felt strange, as if by calling the states home I was somehow betraying the status of Auckland as my home. But then I remembered BK's expression 'home is where you hang your swimming suit' and realized that it's possible to have more than one home. That definitely rang true on this trip. I felt right at home in San Fran with mom, dad and J. We had a great time at the Giants game, I went to clay class with mom and made some adorable little New Zealand salt & pepper shakers, we played cards and caught up. And of course, I hung out my swimming suit after our dips in the hot tub. Most importantly, it just felt relaxed, and well, like home.