Our family's life in New Zealand
Our second full day at Cass was rainy most of the day, but toward evening it cleared. We decided to walk the mile to Lake Sarah. The scenery was spectacular. Little Miss was being particular about who carried her or held her hand; she wanted Mommy or no one. Of course, she didn’t get her way all the way,although we did let her walk by herself some.
Little Miss in front of broom.
Lake Sarah
Gorse
Late in the afternoon of our first full day in Cass, we went up to Arthur’s Pass to try to find a walk that we’d been told about. Here we are paralleling the Waimakariri River.
A mountain near the pass.
After learning about some local walks in the visitor’s center, we decided all we really had time for was a 10-minute walk to a waterfall near the center. We couldn’t find the right trail to it for a long time, but the boys finally located it. So beautiful! Here is Mr. Intellectual in front of the lower fall.
Grandma and Mr. Sweetie at the viewing platform for the upper fall.
Some of the boys found a semblance of a trail to the upper fall, and of course they had to explore that.
The bridge from which we viewed the lower fall.
Gayle has been wanting to explore Cave Stream ever since a week or so after we moved to New Zealand, in 2009. He finally had the chance to do it! The first day we were in the cabin at Cass, he took Mr. Inventor, Mr. Intellectual, and Mr. Diligence to Cave Stream, while the rest of us stayed at the cabin and read, wrote, cooked lunch, or played. The younger two boys weren’t excited about going through the cave and getting soaked in icy water, so just Gayle and Mr. Inventor went through. The cave is over 500 meters long, with a creek flowing through it. In places, the water was waist deep on Gayle, and in other places they had to scramble up waterfalls. It was pitch black in the cave, so they were glad for their headlamps. The other boys carried their shoes around to the end of the cave for them, and explored the trails on the surface.
The adventurers enter the cave!
You can see the cave entrance at the base of the cliff, just on the right side of the river.
This is the exit to the cave. A ladder comes up at the left end of the crack; the water starts plunging down a 3-meter waterfall here. After climbing the ladder, you crawl along the ledge above the water, holding on to a chain.
They have emerged from the cave!
We stopped on our way to Cass to eat a late lunch at Castle Hill and explore the rocks. The boys had a lot of fun! This is the view down the valley as we walked out to the hill.
Looking the other direction from the trail.
We were heading toward those huge rocks directly ahead of us. There were a lot of tourists, mostly Oriental, there when we arrived, and then a busload of them arrived as we started walking.
This rock is out in the paddock by itself.
We were amused, watching the tourists. This pose seemed to be the favorite of the day. Most of the people from the bus just walked out here, took pictures all around, and headed right back to the bus. One or two, though went up into the rocks, then had to run back before they got left behind.
Our boys wasted no time climbing up into the rocks. There are all four of them, at least a hundred feet up. It was a lot easier climbing the backside of this rock than it looks from this side!
Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual had great fun practicing their rock-climbing skills.
Mr. Sweetie had fun finding caves.
Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie did some climbing, too, but in slightly tamer places than their big brothers.
The valley behind the rocks is quite different from the front.
Castle Hill Station
Mr. Imagination called this rock a rabbit.
We got to spend three nights in a cottage in Cass, near Arthur’s Pass, owned by some friends of ours. What a lovely place to spend time relaxing and being together as a family!
Some of the mountains we saw on our way there. This first one is leading up to Porter’s Pass.
The cottage we stayed in.
A mountain in front of the cottage. There is a row of trees directly in front, but if you go around them, this is the view.
The red building is the Cass Railway Station. We enjoyed watching the trains going by at all hours. Except for the daily passenger train that goes from Christchurch to the West Coast and back, all we saw were coal trains carrying coal from the West Coast to Christchurch, and presumably, empty cars going back. I didn’t get any pictures of the trains while we were there, but saw this one after we were out of the mountains, going home.
We roasted sausages and marshmallows our second evening there.
One of the days we were there, it rained all day, so we stayed inside and played games.
That evening, I allowed the boys to roast a few marshmallows in the stove.
Mr. Inventor built this trailer for a friend, who was then not able to take it. He’s trying to sell it now.
These chicks were hatched a few days after the funeral. So cute!
The cat found a lovely soft, warm place to rest on Mr. Diligence.
Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence with their aunt in our garden.
Mr. Imagination drew this picture.
This silly cat slept like this for an hour or so—back end twisted one way and front end twisted the other way.
A friend spent a week with us, and one evening the boys made a bunch of crowns. He had fun being a king, while Mr. Sweetie had fun giving him rabbit ears!
One day, the boys found a couple of newly-hatched chicks. I sent them to get hay for a bed for them. Instead, they came back in with eight new turkeys! I sent them back out. Mr. Diligence came back with another baby turkey! They finally did get the hay and made a home for all the babies. A few days later, Mr. Intellectual got these two pictures. I love how the turkeys woke up and were so curious in the second picture.
Gayle’s aunt cut out new dresses for all three of us while she was here, and got the ones for Esther and I mostly finished. The next week, I was able to get them done and make the one for Little Miss. It’s fun to have new, matching dresses!
My apologies to those who read this as well as my weekly newsletter; I decided to copy and paste, to save time. We’ve had quite the shaky day. Last night when we were about to go to bed, the cat was acting very strange. He was grabbing us and biting for no apparent reason, and being extremely playful. In fact, Gayle yelled at him from his bed to stop what he was doing! Mr. Inventor had given him a golf ball to distract him from biting, and Leif was playing with the ball in the hallway outside our door. Gayle thought it was one of the boys and got quite irritated when he wouldn’t quit! Another strange thing last night was that I got a terrible stress headache right after going to bed. It got so bad that at midnight I got up and took aspirin, then used the toilet, got a drink and went back to bed.
Immediately after I went to bed, I heard a roaring outside. I thought, “That’s an awfully strong wind. Strange that it’s coming up so fast.” Then, the house started rocking–ah, an earthquake. Then it got stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and then added an up-and-down motion to the rocking and rolling motions. Things started crashing in the house, and it seemed to take forever to quiet down. After about two minutes it finally settled down, although for two hours there was nearly constant shaking at some level.
I found my headlamp in my purse and we started through the house to assess the damage. The jars of jam in the hallway had fallen off the shelves, although only a couple had broken. The kitchen was a shambles; a stack of my nicest, biggest crockery serving bowls fell off the shelf and shattered, and most of the teacups fell off their hooks. The fridge in the laundry room came open and a 5-liter jar of milk broke. Then, we went out to the garage where we keep the jars of fruit, etc. What a mess! Gayle got a shovel and started scooping out the broken jars. He filled a wheelbarrow. We took all the good jars off the shelves and set them on the floor. 
We spent about an hour cleaning up, then went back to bed. About that time, the neighbors came over to tell us there was a tsunami warning. Thankfully, that didn’t end up being a problem! The shaking was still nearly constant, with occasionally a big shock. We could hear a lot of them coming, with a dull roar. Gayle got up around 3:30 as usual; sometime after that I was finally able to sleep a little. All the children who usually sleep outside had moved into the house. When something like that happens, they like to be close to the family!
The power came on soon after I got up, about 6:30. We were able to get online after a little while, and learned that it had been a 7.5 quake, which started about 20-30 miles from us and triggered one in Kaikoura. Kaikoura was taking a real pounding; they had had about 3 aftershocks already of magnitude 6 or so, and were cut off from everyone else. The power went off again at 7:00, and didn’t come back till 11:30. Around 10:30, we went to Cheviot to get chicken feed. The feed store was, I believe, the only business open in town. They couldn’t ring up the sale, since the power was out, so they wrote it up in their book and I’ll go in and pay another time. We saw a digger heading north, to start cleaning up the road, but there was a road block preventing anyone else from going north. The road to Kaikoura has been wiped out so badly it will be weeks, if not months, till we go there again.
Mr. Inventor’s baby turkeys and ducks fared pretty well. We were worried about them in the night, as they’re so little they need their heat light still. Gayle and Mr. Inventor rigged up a battery-powered light in the night, but one turkey had already died. When the power came back on, Mr. Inventor turned on the electric lights; only one duckling had died in the meantime. Later, he gave the turkeys a couple of buckets of hot water to cuddle up to. They all did well, including two new ones that hatched during the night!
Mr. Inventor had to work on the water tank this morning. After the quake, we had water in the hot water taps in the house, but not the cold water taps. This morning he looked into the problem and figured out that there was too much debris in the tap coming out of the tank. He hooked up a hose to it and used the foot pump to blow it out.
We learned, sometime today, what likely caused that headache I had last night. There was a light seen over Wellington during the quake; it was also seen during the Christchurch quakes a few years ago. Apparently, electricity builds up in the earth before a quake, and then releases into the air. I’m guessing I felt the effects of that, and so did the cat.
We’ve felt aftershocks off and on all day. Most were minor, but two were strong enough that we went outside. The worst was at 1:30. We were all in the kitchen, and headed out to the lawn. I was losing my balance, so sat down, and everyone else followed suit. We could feel the ground rolling under us, and hear the water splashing from end to end of the underground cistern. It had done that during the night, too, and a river came out a crack in one end and flowed across the yard. Also, during the night, the septic tank had sloshed enough that the smell came out of the cracks in the top and it smelled pretty bad for awhile.
Little Miss slept through all the excitement last night (she was the only one who did). When she got up this morning, she saw the jam jars on the floor in the hallway. She turned to me, and pointing to the jars, said, “Boys. Mess.” She’s loved seeing the helicopters who have been refueling across the road from us all day while they help with rescue and relief in Kaikoura. She gets all excited about the “coppers!” The boys have spent most of the day over there watching the choppers land and take off. They have counted about 40 that landed, although a lot of them were repeats. Some came five or six times.
The Sunday after the funeral, we went to Kaikoura for church as usual, and took the two aunts (one of my sisters and one of Gayle’s) along. Both babies at church fell asleep during the afternoon meeting!
After we left church, we took our sisters to the Aquarium. The little ones loved the touch tank.
The Aquarium is in a building on the New Wharf. When we came out, there was a fishing boat tying up to the wharf, and we watched it unloading. Then, it went out into the bay to anchor for the night.
We went out to the Peninsula, where my sister let Mr. Imagination take some pictures. We saw seals, ducks, and seagulls.
We climbed the steep path to the top of the Peninsula. The tide was high that afternoon, and the colors were amazing. This picture doesn’t even come close to doing the beauty justice!
I was amused, when we came back down and Gayle was bringing the van to where we were, to see these seagulls catching a ride!
A friend at church paid for a plane ride for our sisters, and there was room in the small plane for Esther and Mr. Diligence to go, too. They had amazing views of the mountains and the Peninsula.
Several local men came to help make the coffin. Our boys were happy to be able to do one last thing for their brother.
Two ladies came to be with me the day before the funeral, when Gayle and the two oldest boys went to pick up the body, and Esther and her cousin went to pick up two aunts from the airport. One of the ladies brought her son, at Mr. Diligence’s request. The boys had a picnic in the yard.
One of the bouquets that was given to us.
The finished coffin, in place for the funeral.
While their friend was here, the boys made this mask, called “Random Face.” This is Mr. Diligence.
Putting together a collage of pictures of Seth’s life for the funeral.
One aunt fixed up the cover of a book for people to write their memories in.
Edited to say: As of December 21, this set is no longer available. If you want to read these books, they are still available individually.
I really enjoy being an advance reader. Not only do I get to read books for free, I get to read them before they are published—and tell people about them! The latest one I got as an advance reader copy is the boxed set Christmas Lights. I’m not sure why it’s called a “boxed set” when it’s on Kindle, but I guess it just means you get four books together, in this case. Here is my review of the set, which is no longer available on Amazon. All the books can be purchased individually, however; follow the link to find them.
Christmas Lights is a collection of four Christmas novellas. They are all very clean, as far as romance and language go. I enjoyed the opportunity to read this book in advance of publication, although due to family circumstances I was not able to write my review in time.
The first book in the collection is The Heart of Joy by Vikki Kestell. Apparently, it is a addendum to a series titled A Prairie Heritage. Maybe it would have meant more to me if I had read that series; as it is, I wasn’t very impressed. It struck me as pretty much just romance, with nothing else to add value. Like I said, though, if I had read the series it would probably have been fine. Basically, Joy, a young widow, must decide if she can allow another man to capture her heart several years after her husband’s death—or if anyone she loves will inevitably be hurt.
The second book is Snow Angels by Cathe Swanson. I really enjoyed that one. The main character is another young widow, dealing with guilt from her husband’s death. She starts a project to help a homeless man find a job and get some self-respect, only to discover that everything she believes about him needs to be rethought. I loved the thoughts about not allowing grief to overshadow your entire life, and I loved the humor towards the end of the story.
Trip the Light Fantastic by April Hayman is the third book. I’m sorry, but I didn’t get a lot out of it. I thought that was because I had just started reading the book when my son suddenly died, and that maybe that was why the story didn’t make sense. When my daughter had the same reaction, though, and I read about someone else who also thought the same thing, I decided maybe something needs to be clarified in the story. I’m not sure what, though. As far as I can tell, the main character, an FBI man who desperately wants to make one more arrest for the year, is set up in a situation to force him to take a break. I couldn’t quite get the point of the story, though.
The last book is Christmas Stalkings by Chautona Havig. Anything by her is sure to be great, and I was not disappointed by this one. The main character is another widow, this time middle-aged—that makes three out of four novellas in this collection with a widow as the main character! Wendy is also rather crazy about her seven cats, and one of her obsessions is putting up a Christmas tree each year for each cat. This year, however, mysterious things start happening when she does; someone is entering her house and moving things. The police can’t solve the mystery; will Wendy be able to?
I also have longer reviews of two of the books, which will be available as stand-alone books after the collection is no longer around.
When Cathe Swanson asked for advance readers for the novella she wrote for the Christmas Lights collection, it sounded interesting. I was not disappointed! I found Snow Angels very funny at times, heart-breaking at others, and Lisa Marsh all-too-familiar at still other times.
Lisa was roped, unwillingly, into helping serve Thanksgiving dinner at the local community center in Chicago. Dealing with crowds of people was difficult for her at the best of times, but when Pete, a scruffy man with a horribly-looking beard accosted her, asking for potatoes, when she was serving turkey, she couldn’t handle it.
Read my full review here.
Christmas Stalkings is purely a fun book! I enjoyed reading quotes from it as Ms. Havig was writing it, and hoping I’d get a chance to be an advance reader. I wasn’t disappointed! As with all of Chautona’s other books that I’ve read, the action starts right away and the characters seem very real.
Wendy Nabity is known in Fairbury as the crazy cat lady. She has seven cats in her house! And not only that, but she puts up a Christmas tree for each cat every year.
If you like light Christmas fiction, try out Christmas Stalkings. You won’t be disappointed. It’s a short book, too, more like a novella than a full-length book. This was a fun, easy read. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel, New Year’s Revolutions, when it’s finished.
Read my full review here.
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