Long Time Coming

We know it’s a lame excuse, but it has been hard to keep up with all of the things that we want to do and write blog posts as well. During the week we are working full days for the family that we are staying with. Dylan is currently working on an ex-kindergarten school bus that is in the process of being converted into a camper along with performing other small tasks around the farm as they come up. He has been working on the plumbing, doing the finish work on drawers and putting trim up on the walls. It’s a nice project for this time of year because the rain is becoming more and more common. The local weather forecast this time of year is usually for four season in one day. It’s amazing how accurate that is because we often get heavy rain, bright sunshine, some wind and overcast skies all in the same hour. So far we have only had one day of really heavy rain and it left standing water in every flat place on the farm. By the next day it had all drained away with the assistance of some emergency ditch digging. Construction of the new rental house has not started yet because we are still waiting on the plans to be approved by the local council.

Jenni is working with the children of the couple we are staying with which means that she has early, busy mornings and hectic afternoons. During the middle of the day she works around the house or runs errands as needed. A typical day for her usually starts with making sure that the children have breakfast, clean up there rooms, do their chores and get ready for school. If their mom has other plans, Jenni will also take them to school before coming home to work around the house. When we started working for the couple their youngest child was still in kindergarten and Jenni had to pick her up at noon on some days. On Sunday, May 22nd she turned five and started regular school on the Monday after that. It seems strange to us that kids start school right when they turn five instead of starting at the beginning of the next year, but the school schedule here is very different. There is no three month summer vacation like we are used to. Summer vacation doubles as Christmas vacation and throughout the year there are two week breaks between school terms. Since all the children are going to school for the whole day, Jenni now has more time to get her other tasks done and even relax for a few hours before the children come home. After they get home, Jenni is in constant motion until they go to bed at 7:30.

When the children are all settled in bed, the adults will sit down for dinner. The couple we are staying with hosts up to four travelers at a time through the helpx website that we used to meet them, so we often have eight people around the dinner table. The discussions can get quite interesting because we have perspectives from all over the world at the table. There has been one Finnish traveler here and the rest of the guests have been from either the UK or Germany. Meeting people from different parts of Germany and the UK has made us realize how diverse even these small countries are and has made us more interested in adding a European trip onto the end of this trip.

We have weekends off, but we often spend time with the family anyway. Last weekend we helped prepare for and clean up after the youngest child’s birthday party. We also went shopping at a second hand store to pick up work clothes and went out to the Auckland Regional Council park headquarters to pick up a map for the hikes in the area. Hopefully we will have a few nice weekends that we can use to explore some of the trails to get in shape for the longer hikes that we will be doing during the summer. This weekend we enjoyed a sunny Saturday in the garden and went to the beach to collect seaweed to use as fertilizer for the garden. Today we went to a local winery and enjoyed a sunny afternoon of chocolate and wine.

Recently Jenni has been looking into purchasing a seven stop plane ticket for the rest of our travels. We will be stopping in Australia and Korea, but the rest of the stops are currently up in the air so if you have any suggestions we would love to hear them.