Family Circus

Focus Family Camp

Here is the photo of most of our family camp group. We had a weekend of "Think Orange" fun, laughter, worship, and fellowship.

New Year

Happy New Year, my friends.

Uncle Jeremy, I'm going to kill you!!

I know that's probably not your normal statement during Christmas, but that's what I heard on Christmas here. We spent our holiday in Rotorua again. We drove down on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning we woke up with the kids ready to see their stockings. Emily (7), Grace (3), Orrin (1). We opened the stockings and gifts there, and Anna made us a fabulous breakfast. We then lunched at her mom's house with more gift unwrapping. After an afternoon nap, we all piled in to go the farm of Anna's brother for a BBQ. While he and his wife finished the milking there was a huge nerf gun fight. Everyone was involved (other than grandma who was busy inside). Em was the one who yelled, "Uncle Jeremy, I'm going to kill you!" It was amusing to watch everyone run around shooting each other hiding around cars and jumping into paddock to find darts.

On Sunday, we had a nice walk on a boardwalk watching black swans. We then went to Jer's favorite restaurant Cafe Ephesus. After several meltdowns by this point another nap was needed. I made some risotto for dinner and we just hung out around the house.

Monday we packed up and I drove Jer to Lake Karapiro so he could camp. He will be back on Thursday.

Christmas Presents #1

So, we decided not to open our gifts on Christmas Day as we won't be home and don't want to take them down with us to Rotorua. We exchanged one gift today.

I got a water bag (with bladder) and some Lush body wash and face soap.

Jer got a Nerf N-Strike Deploy CS-6

Naturally I've been shot a lot. No rest of the weary...

I guess I should post

it's been a while. i've not really had much to post about, hence the no posting. we've really just been busy working and doing stuff for church. we did have a nice weekend this week. we had thanksgiving dinner on saturday with our friends over in Waitakere (why-ta-kay-ray) *there are no emphasis on any syllables in Maori. so they all have the same emphasis :-) anyhow, it was a good dinner. they had invited a lot of kiwi friends, which made it fun. it was estimated we had 52 people!

yesterday, after worship, we went with dave, marie, and philip to go snorkeling at goat island marina. that was a lot of fun. i think i need to invest in a wet suit now. our friends had an extra they let me borrow. it made the water swimmable to me. it was so cold otherwise. jer didn't have one and didn't really notice too much after he got in. but it was quite fun watching him get in. we got to see a lot of fish swimming around and a lot of jellyfish too. we weren't as keen to see those! i decided it's called goat island b/c there is a lot of goat fish. the island was tiny and i didn't see any goats wandering around. it was quite forested though. :-)

Teens these days!

First there was the boy two days ago that couldn't speak in complete sentences. Seriously, how do you pass your classes!!?? How do you parents and teachers let you get by with this?

Then there's the couple who are taking their time leaving the library at closing. I see what looks like he put her hand in her skirt...but surely, i saw wrong, right? no. When she stands, she has to zip the back of her skirt. Then I saw she was keeping her phone between her legs. How do I know this? Because boy lifts her skirt to get it! I'm standing right there watching them. What are they doing!? They're in a library!! I guess the pretense of studying went out the door, even though they had all their papers and books out.

That said. I have some of the best teens in our youth group. I'm so proud of them. They are fun, energetic, and try hard. They want to be helpful and involved. They are even working on reading the Bible through in a year. (Granted, they were promised $100 if they do it, but still) It's started some great conversations between them, their parents, and us. The parents are pretty excited about too.

If you'd like so see an awesome video Jer made of our adventures sand tobogganing click here.