Away From Home

Gore Bay

October 18, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon came home for a few days a couple of weeks ago. We loved seeing him again, and spending time with the family he lives with, as well. We took them out to Gore Bay, since the weather was so lovely. I don’t think I had been out there since January! Everything was so clear and gorgeous.

One of the must-sees in Cheviot is Cathedral Lookout, above the south end of Gore Bay. I never tire of seeing this place. I couldn’t decide which perspective I liked better, so decided to use both pictures.

Gore Bay was so beautiful that day, too! This is the south end, looking toward Port Robinson. It was high tide, so we didn’t go down to the rocks at the point.

Mr. Intellectual kept busy a long time building this tower.

Does it look like Simon is happy to be with his family again?

We went to the playground, too. I felt dizzy just watching the merry-go-round!

The Road to Kaikoura

October 14, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Every time we go to Kaikoura for church, we see changes that have been made in the road since the last time. The road crews are working hard to make things safe! They are hoping to have the job finished by the end of the year. We’ll see—it looks like a lot still to be done.

This spot is where a hillside slipped into the sea in 2010. It took a week to reopen the road and railroad that time, and we called it the Big Slip. Little did we know…. See the bent and twisted posts along that wall? They used to hold up a net to catch rocks. During the earthquake in November 2016, a lot more came down and bent the posts. Those aren’t small posts, either. I took the picture, and the next few, though, because we were marveling at what was happening with the railroad. Large sections of rails and ties, fastened securely together, had been lifted aside, and diggers were smoothing the rocks in the roadbed. In the afternoon when we returned home, they were putting the sections of rails back in place.

The annual old car show in Kaikoura ended that morning, so we were enjoying watching vintage cars going south to Christchurch.

Stopping to wait our turn at the one-way stretches means we have more time to admire the beautiful scenery along the coast. This is the Kaikoura Peninsula from the south.

I don’t think I had ever seen Barney’s Rock so white as this time!

Spring 2017

October 11, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The pictures in this post were taken over the course of a month. One Sunday afternoon in September, we drove through the local domain on our way home from church. The daffodils were in full bloom, and so beautiful! Esther wanted me to take a picture of her with Little Miss, so I did. While I was doing that, Mr. Diligence took a picture of me taking the picture!

The annual Dead Boring bike hike was the second Tuesday of September. Mr. Imagination rode in it, for the first time. I drove him the first 10 km or so, and then he rode his little bike for about 7 km.

We had left after the older children who rode their bikes the entire 21 km of the route, but soon passed all of them. However, Mr. Imagination went slowly enough that a lot of them passed him up. Here is Mr. Intellectual.

I always enjoy seeing the farm signs at the gates!

These curious cows went racing to the corner of their paddock to see the children riding by.

Mr. Diligence took Little Miss in a seat on the back of his bike. You can just see her helmet sticking up. She was thrilled to get to ride in the bike hike! Just in front of Mr. Diligence, who is wearing a blue-and-black striped shirt, is Mr. Sweetie, in a white shirt with vertical stripes. They are about to pass Mr. Imagination, in his brown striped sweater. Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie stayed together the whole way.

One day, Mr. Diligence found these wild ducklings huddled together by the duck pond. No mother was in sight, so he brought them in. Soon, though, she showed up, so he put them back with her.

This is as close as Princess wants to come to water. She, like a normal cat, minces delicately around puddles. Bandit, on the other hand, races right through them without seeming to notice he’s getting wet! One day, I watched him walk deliberately into the middle of a small puddle, about an inch deep, and start batting at the ripples he created! No wonder he’s usually wet and muddy.

This has been a common sight this year. Such a contrast to the last few years!

The cat wants us to shut off the rain—but the waterfowl are loving it!

The little children are loving it, too. Because of all the rain (four inches in five days a few weeks ago, and four and a half inches in the past five days), the creek in front of our house has been running. When it’s full enough, they boat down it in a half barrel. Yesterday we had a sunny morning, so these three spent time splashing and playing. The boys were having a toe-stomping fight.

Dead Boring Concert 2017

October 1, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Today was our homeschool group’s annual concert. As always, we enjoyed the musical pieces, recitations, songs, and skits performed by the other families, and also sang a couple of songs ourselves. Here are videos of us singing both of them.

Our first song was one we learned in our house church in Michigan, a very beautiful prayer.

Oh, Heavenly Father and merciful Lord,
We come to you now in one mind and accord.
We are so undeserving to make this request,
But with your sweet spirit Lord let us be blessed.

Chorus:
Open the windows and pour out a blessing,
Shower your power upon us O Lord;
Send such a blessing we cannot contain it,
Lord open the windows of heaven today.

So often we’ve witnessed your power so strong,
But yesterday’s blessings are all past and gone.
Once again we come needy as humbly we pray,
And that’s why we lift up our voices and say:

The second was Sing Hallelujah to the Lord, which has so much repetition that I’m not going to include the lyrics.

And, for those who don’t understand the title of this post, it is not a boring group at all. Dead Boring is the name of the group, and has been for some 20-25 years. The mother who started the group told her son that she was starting a writing group, and he responded, “Oh, that’ll be dead boring.” She said, “Yes, it will!” and the name was born.

Back Home Again!

September 7, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

Yes, I know we’ve been home in New Zealand for around six weeks now. It has taken me awhile to get caught up on posting on here. I like to keep things in chronological order, because that’s just the way I am, so here we go.

This was our first evening home. We landed in Christchurch around 9:30 am, so got home around noon. We unloaded the van and I cooked lunch; in the afternoon I unpacked all the suitcases and plastic totes we had packed with books, fabric, and other treasures we brought home. We sure enjoyed the warmth of the house; a friend had come early that morning and started both fires for us. It was quite chilly outside, since it was still midwinter. We were used to the heat of midsummer in Ohio, of course, so the warm house was especially welcome. By evening, what with the difficulty sleeping sitting up on the airplane the night before, and the eight-hour time difference between the Eastern time zone of the United States and our time here, these boys fell asleep waiting for supper to be ready. We tried to wake them up to eat, but finally gave up and carried the two younger ones to bed. Mr. Diligence stayed all night on the couch. Little Miss wasn’t asleep, but she was imitating her brothers!

A couple of mornings after we got home, we were treated to a visit from this pair of Paradise Ducks in our yard!

Our first Sunday home, we went to church in Kaikoura, enjoying thoroughly the beautiful mountains. Some us us found out how much we had missed the mountains and the sea while we were gone!

Little Miss was delighted to finally get to wear this dress, which a great-aunt had given her. Because of the long sleeves, I saved it to wear here, where it’s colder, rather than in Ohio where it was so hot.

The cats were happy to be home. We picked them up on our way home from the airport, and they obviously remembered this place. We wondered if they would run away, but they were happy here right away. Esther was amused when she saw this scene one afternoon.

This was our second Sunday home; we went to Waikari for church. It poured for a couple of hours, but the skies started to clear as we left, and then we saw this brilliant double rainbow!

Looking back the other direction, this is what we saw.

We greatly enjoyed our trip to America, but there is no place like home, and no place like New Zealand!

One Last Adventure in America

September 4, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We left Ohio to come home to New Zealand on the 24th of July. Our flight didn’t leave until evening, so we had the entire morning to finish packing—and we needed it! We had our baggage allowance pretty much maxed out, with nine pieces of checked luggage (only two weren’t big enough to pack 50 pounds into), nine carry-ons and nine personal bags. Air New Zealand has a limit of 15 pounds for a carry-on, so we had to weigh all of those, too. It took the morning to juggle things from bag to bag to get the weights right, and when we finally finished, we packed everything into the van and went to a local business to weigh them on their postage scale, since I don’t totally trust bathroom scales. Thankfully, we were fine with everything, and the job was finished by lunchtime. We ate lunch, then packed our sandwiches for the evening into our backpacks, to eat while we waited for the first plane in Cincinnati. We knew Air New Zealand would feed us—but that would be after takeoff in Houston at 10:00 at night!

I took a quick picture of everyone, just in case I needed to know, for some reason, what they were wearing on the trip. Here is Mr. Intellectual, ready to go home!

We were actually running just a little early, so my father-in-law directed us along a back route that ran beside the Ohio River. We enjoyed seeing this barge going downriver, but then he had another surprise.

He remembered the Anderson Ferry which runs across the river between Ohio and Kentucky. This ferry has been running since 1817—that’s 200 years now! He asked someone if it was easy to get to the airport from the ferry, and she said it was, so he paid the $5 fee and we got to cross on a ferry instead of a bridge! This was my first time ever to ride a ferry. We all enjoyed the quick crossing; it couldn’t have taken more than about five minutes.

In no time, it seemed, we were driving off the boat into Kentucky, where the friendly woman who had assured us that it was easy to get to the airport led us right there; she said she had to go there herself. We really enjoyed this one last adventure before going home!

Creation Museum

August 31, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On our last weekend in Ohio, we went to the Creation Museum. We had been there twice before, but the children really wanted to go again. My nephew who lives in Ohio was turning six that weekend, and he wanted to go, and my sister who lives in Michigan had a birthday that weekend as well, so she and my mom came to Ohio for the weekend. Gayle’s mother and sister, and his brother and his family, also decided to go, so we had a group of around 25 people! We were thankful for people who had guest passes that they allowed us to use to get in. As always, the museum was fascinating.

We spent the morning touring the botanical gardens and the petting zoo. It was very hot and humid, but the gardens were gorgeous.

One of our nieces discussing a huge dinosaur with my mom.

Mr. Diligence with my sister.

Black-eyed Susans always make me think of my dad. They were one of his favorite flowers. He claimed it was because he knew what they were!

There was papyrus growing in the bog garden. I had never seen it before, but recognized it from pictures. Fun to see it for real!

The koi pond was beautiful.

My brother had an extra leash for their wandering toddler, so we put it on Little Miss for awhile.

The Garden of Eden.

The result of the Fall—death.

Life after the Fall—hard work, thorns and thistles to contend with.

Methuselah talked to us about life just before the Flood.

This dinosaur moved and roared!

A diorama depicting people trying to escape from the rising Flood waters.

Praising God after the Flood.

One fascinating room, new since our last visit, held an amazing collection of insects!

Just before we left, Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Intellectual got to hold a snake.

More Fun Out-and-About in Ohio

August 28, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A favorite toy while we were at Grandpa’s house was this go-cart. The boys even rode it to their aunt’s house several times! It was under the tree that nearly fell on Mr. Inventor, and got broken, but a cousin welded it together again.

There was a family gathering, for Gayle’s mother’s family, one Sunday afternoon, and they had borrowed this train. It was in use all afternoon; the children never got tired of riding. The men took turns driving!

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence clowning.

One of Gayle’s cousins invited us to swim with her children one day, and the boys loved it.

Little Miss was very cautious, but ended up all wet. She stayed on the steps.

When we went to the same cousin’s home for the evening, her husband offered to take anyone who wanted to up the grain elevator his family runs. Gayle and all the boys went. They were over a hundred feet above the ground here!

A highlight of the climb was seeing Grandpa’s place!

The house at the end of the catwalk is where we were for the evening.

On our last full day in Ohio, we had a picnic at a park in the nearby town. My mom and sister had come from Michigan for the weekend, and my brother and his family who live in Ohio had joined us. We had a lovely afternoon together, and on our way back to Grandpa’s for the evening we stopped to have a quick look at this double-barreled covered bridge.

I remember taking a class here as part of a field trip, some 20 years ago when I taught at the local Christian school. I’ve always loved the view out this window of the bridge!

An Evening With the Family

August 24, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One Saturday while we were in Ohio, almost all of Gayle’s family were together. One niece is in Africa, and a couple of other people were missing for one reason or another, but we had a good time just being together all day. In the afternoon, I let a niece use my camera, and she got some interesting pictures. I kept a number of the 100+ pictures, and then took some more in the evening myself.

This is the setup for cooking chicken for supper. They built a fire in that tire rim, and the food was put on the “table”.

Mr. Inventor with a kite.

Grandma’s flowers.

Gayle spent a lot of time that week trimming this hedge behind the house.

Apparently this sign was something Gayle helped make in Young Folks—he can’t remember what it was for. The children had fun with it.

Our old van. When we moved from Michigan to New Zealand, we drove this van to the Cincinnati airport, and Gayle’s parents drove it back to their place. At this point, it is undriveable. The back bumper actually rusted so much it fell off!

Gayle’s parents house.

Getting ready for supper.

Little Miss with a cousin.

The pinata that was the highlight of the evening for the children.

Going after the goodies! I was glad that, besides candy, there were also little toys.

More Fun in Ohio

August 20, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We enjoyed several family reunions while we were in Ohio. The one with my husband’s father’s extended family was held at a state park near Dayton. The children had a lot of fun playing around the pond. Grandpa brought a few fishing rods, but only two fish were caught.

I enjoyed seeing the plants around the trails. This was teasel, just about to bloom.

Mr. Inventor climbed around in the trees, getting bobbers and lures that had been lost by other fishermen.

What he didn’t realize was that there was poison ivy on the trees! He spent the next week, until the day we left, quite miserable with poison ivy all over his arms and legs. I treated him with oatmeal a few times, and we also tried many other remedies. We were very thankful that it dried up the day before we left for home; we were worried that if the Immigration officials saw it when we arrived in New Zealand that he would be turned back. We thought about getting a doctor’s statement as to what it was, but thankfully, because it dried up, he was able to wear a long-sleeved shirt and hide it.

The shelter house at the park, where we had the reunion. It was good to see many cousins, aunts and uncles again!

The pond, which will always be remembered by our family as the the place where Mr. Inventor got poison ivy! It was really beautiful.