Huia Come Home

My heart breaks for my country, and the the cares of this world often feel too much to bear. But today I have hope.  It is no accident that I finished the last two chapters of Huia Come Home when I did. It was just what I needed. It ws the hope that what appears to be a mess is actually God’s handiwork. The book is about New Zealand’s history of one country founded on two distinct cultures grounded in the same faith. Things went awry, and I won’t go into detail with the history aspect, but these snippets couldn’t be more appropriate for today wherever you find yourself. I pray that you read this with eyes willing to view something from your friend far away from my home country on an island in the Pacific, New Zealand. I pray that like me you might recognize that we have much to learn from others.

What kind of justice are you seeking?  Are you pursuing a type of justice that is restorative and mends relationship, or more of a vengeance type of justice?

If we are honest, the greatest teachers…are the headlines we read and the news we watch.  We are drip-fed sound bites of slanderous drama that news companies love to dish.  The antagonistic emotions make their way into our minds causing us to lock the door on any meaningful, honest or deep discussion around our dinner tables.

These emotions are fueling vengeance and cause us to create barriers toward any other assumptions or views.  But it is through learning from different individuals with various beliefs and ideas that we can best look and learn about our own.  It has been a joy to associate with people around the world who hold different worldviews.  I call myself a Christian, but know that my life often does not reflect that of Christ’s and the same can be said of Christianity past and present.  There are numerous wrongs that need to be corrected, powers surrendered, and apologies made. I am ready to begin the process on behalf of my faith and my country.

The United States is the most influential missionary sending country in history.  No other nation has invested more people, resources or finance into the task of sharing the story of Jesus…Most Christians in New Zealand can rattle off a long list of US preachers, theologians and worship leaders…But how many indigenous Native American church leaders do you know of?  How many of their books have you read?  How many songs do you sing?…And this is after four-hundred years of Christian missionary activity in and from the United States….The greatest missionary sending country in history does not reflect on any level an indigenous culture in their missionary activity.  The American persona of Christianity does not resemble the First Nation people of their land.Jesus said that as we go we are to make disciples of “ethne, which means “people-groups”. Jesus longs for every unique ethnic people group to follow him in their own cultural way.  Christians have blindly preached a worldview that has caused one culture to be subsumed into the other.  There is a name for this type of activity…colonization.

The Western empire is the furthest-reaching empire in all human history, from its foundation in Greece to the advance of Rome, through to a colonising Europe and Britannia.  It is now held firmly by the economic tentacles of America, yet all empires eventually come to an end.  At some point crisis removes them from their high-horse. The Bible is the story of empire after empire being divinely critiqued with the measure of justice.  Scripture reveals how God rewrites the established cultural stories and chooses the weak to challenge the dominating narratives, undoing the chokeholds of oppressive powers.

Moses and Egypt

Goliath and David

Daniel and the King

We have to admit that to critique the Western empire is also to critique the Western Church, which has unfortunately enjoyed a ride on the back of the proverbial elephant.

Western culture has become like a hormone-induced chicken, so overgrown that it can no longer support its own weight.  It’s not that the chicken has no value or shouldn’t be here, it’s just that it has become way too big, out of proportion, dominating the indigenous landscape.

We are in a radical shift from a 2000 year old cultural paradigm into something new… the new, I believe, happens to be an ancient indigenous way, a way that culturally has its presuppositions outside of the Western story.

There will be disruptions, and growing pains and many mistakes along the way, but I believe that it is good and right and not an accident.  The events that occurred in Washington DC were shocking, unimaginable until recently, but it seems that America has enjoyed prosperity, power and proportions at the expense of others. Cherokee Rod Wilson said that Jesus made so much sense to First Nation indigenous cultures, even though much of western Christianity didn’t. Perhaps it is time to get back to its rightful proportions and share the world’s stage.  Humble ourselves and acknowledge there is so much we need to learn.

The God I follow, Jesus Christ, is a man who relinquishes his rights and with joy takes the path of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. If we say that we follow Christ…we are saying that we are prepared to lose our lives for the sake of others, embrace the conflict and injustice of others, and do our part to see justice and restoration where there was once only brokenness and strife. This means critiquing our culturally constructed world and creating the Aotearoa [New Zealand] God dreamt of before time began.  Everything that calls itself “Christian” in this country needs to consider its ways and ask if it is weaving with the narrative of an indigenous Aotearoa (or American, or wherever you may be) Because if it is not, then the Church is weaving a foreign story…If we choose this humble path and learn from one another, then our kids will grow up possessing the freeflow of bicultural worldviews.  Not just educated with tedious bicultural information, but immersed in bicultural experience.

at the ends of the earth, at the bottom of the planet, God is creating a people who instinctively know how to live in and out of a Maori and Western mind and then offer creative solutions for our world…You may just find that…you have been prepared for such a time as this.

This is it guys.  This is why we are here.  This is Brian’s studies, though related to education.  And I hope that we get to be part of these creative solutions that the world needs because we have been prepared for such a time as this though how could we have known.

Oh and I would love for you to borrow the book 🙂

Thoughts on circumstances and sunflowers

I was looking at my sunflowers and the phrase “bloom where you’re planted” came to mind. I thought to myself, Rubbish! Bloom where you’re planted? Look at these sunflowers, some are majestic and tower over me but I have one that is about to bloom and I am not sure it is even a foot tall. Perhaps THRIVE where you’re planted is a way better saying. And then I kept thinking about it. Bloom and thrive, both verbs, both actions, and no doubt thriving is better. I look at my garden and I look at my friends Tom and Kylie’s garden and theirs is gorgeous, thriving. My corn is knee high currently and theirs is head high and thriving. BUT, but. Maybe blooming is enough. Thriving isn’t going to happen all the time, every year or every season. Maybe our circumstances aren’t the same as others. 2020 threw many of us some storms that could make thriving feel impossible, but if we could not give up, if we could just muster up the strength and courage and bloom. It might feel like a small accomplishment, it might feel like we are capable of so much more, it might feel insignificant even, but just bloom. Next to my tallest straightest sunflower is a smaller stalk that is on the verge of blooming. Shortly after I planted the seedling in the garden the top got eaten by a bird or a bug. I almost pulled it out and gave up on it, but despite losing its top, it didn’t seem like it was dying. To my surprise, it regenerated and grew a new top! I don’t play survival of the fittest with my flowers like I occasionally do with my veggies, and I kept it in the ground and am so glad I did. Or check out this guy who got hit by the winds and now stands in an arc. The storm hit, but it still bloomed. This may not be that profound, but may it just be a reminder that we are in a season. I don’t know how long the season is going to last, and I am not expecting things to look pre-Covid anytime soon, likely never. That’s okay. I’m going to accept the current situation and work on doing the best I can. I’m going to bloom. I will cry, I will meltdown, and I will also thrive sometimes, and I will bloom.

A few of my favorite {Advent} things

Instead of bombarding you with posts of things I like, I thought I would just put them all here.

Free Advent Devotional Journal

The kids and I started this today and it is a really great way to start the day.

Follow The Wandering Wisemen on Facebook or Instagram! Here is a post from last year. 🙂

Day 29: Their enthusiasm sometimes bordered on idolatry – but understandably so.

I always enjoy the Lent and Advent readings that Biola does. This is what I read today and it seemed like it was just what I needed.

“But now we experience this hope as those in the desert. Isaiah tells of one who will cry in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’ This is what we proclaim to one another this Advent. And we do so in the wilderness of a pandemic. ‘Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’ Whatever crooked – twisted – never getting anywhere – locked down – opened up – safe at home – when will this end – will I be safe – I couldn’t even say goodbye – path we are on as we wonder what thriving might again look like, there is hope in the progress of our God. We look forward.”

Lastly, I used to love listening to Elizabeth Mitchell, it was kids music that was easy on my ears. I just discovered The Sounding Joy, her Christmas album and we listened today on youtube. And I must mention the book, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey. My kids love this story. Me, I don’t really like reading picture books over and over, but honestly, we opened the Christmas box today and just like every year, they pulled it out and Tatum already read it.

From one teacher/homeschooler/mama to you

First day of school 2017

Same day. The excitement wore off quick.

As a teacher, I just want you to know how hard teaching is!  Forget the curriculum, it is hanging out with your kiddo who can be obnoxious that is the hard part!  Be kind to your child’s teachers.

As a homeschooler, I just want you to know that it doesn’t usually look like this.  We love learning with our friends and our kids’ friends and don’t spend our time isolated in our homes.  Many of us aren’t anti public schools, and I used to agree that homeschooling “wasn’t for everyone” but guess what?  NOW IT IS!  It isn’t school at home, it is using everything around you to teach anything.  I loved teaching and that is why I homeschool (teaching without the bureaucracy). Please, please don’t worry about them falling behind.  Have them read everyday and have them do some math worksheets occasionally.  And then, everything else is bonus.  Of course, you have to fill your days still, but it doesn’t mean sitting at the table doing work.  What are their interests?  We are spending the year studying horses, because that’s what they are into right now.  Our literature is about horses (Black Beauty and lots of Marguerite Henry books) our history is about horses (war horses, work horse, for 6000 years man has domesticated horses).  Maybe we will study horse anatomy or look at speed and velocity of different breeds for science.  Who knows?  We definitely have already spent time drawing horses and looking at famous artists who paint horses.  If they are doing something they enjoy it will be easier!

As a mother, I just want to tell you that you’v got this.  You love your kid more than anyone (remember? 😉 ).  There is a learning curve of spending this much time together all of a sudden.  Every summer when the hubby comes home and messes with our routine I feel it.  And every time the school year starts and it is back to just me and the kids, I feel it again.  It takes time, but you have the chance to get to know them in a way that you haven’t since they were babies probably.  I read today that not every day is good, but there is good in every day.  Sometimes you are going to lose it, sometimes you are going to wonder when it’s bedtime only to realize that you haven’t even had lunch yet.  But there will be some good.  It is just you and them, so play games, cook, write letters (to us!), have dance parties in the living room and give your pets extra attention.  I just sent my oldest off to high school after a whole bunch of homeschooling.  I feel like we mostly just had fun, but guess what?  She is an amazing student!  So, believe me when I tell you that they will be okay too.

Aren’t you glad you don’t work at Costco today?

Yesterday was normal.  We had an appointment in Wellington for the boy’s passport and American birth certificate, went to the mall while we were in the city, made it back in time for music lessons and to pick up Piper from practice and came home in time for dinner.  I’ve been enjoying the memes and jokes surrounding this whole coronavirus thing until this morning when it was no longer funny.  I still don’t understand the panic and feel that the real concern is the panic itself and not the virus.  Small businesses are going to be devastated by this, retirements affected.  And people are starting to really get scared.  Understandable.  It has been consuming my thoughts today as well.

Have you read the book Dry?  If not, read it.  It is very good.  This morning a friend in Southern California posted a picture of the crazy long lines at Costco (not his picture above, took that one off the internet) and a picture of an old woman whom he witnessed punch the guy who was behind her in line.  Wow!  It is like a scene straight out of Dry.  Really, same setting, Costco, only the fight was over bottled water.  Read the summary.

It is announced on the news that there is no water left in Southern California. People raid the stores to buy up the drinkable fluids; soon there is nothing left on the shelves. The parents of Alyssa, 16, and her brother Garrett, 10, fail to return after sourcing for water for their family, so the children set off in an attempt to find their parents. During their search, they befriend three other teenagers, and struggle to survive in the waterless landscape where people have become ruthless and immoral in order to survive. Because of the widespread panic and violence, the government declares martial law and forces people into evacuation encampments where there still is not enough water for everyone.

Dry explores how far humans will go to survive and how quickly society can deteriorate when basic human needs are not being met. (copied from enotes.com)

It wasn’t a virus that caused the societal mayhem in the book, it was the lack of water, but the results feel all too similar.  There are the neighbors who had known this type of thing was coming and are prepared with bunkers and all, but let me tell you something the crazy neighbors aren’t better off.  Do you know who is better off?  Those who work together in community.  I know that the book is fiction, but honestly, we know our human nature.  We know that we can turn to our animal instincts, but perhaps it is the fact that we also have a conscience and possibly it is our conscience that makes us not just look after our own wellbeing.  We can see the worst in humanity in these situations and we can also see the very best of humanity.  And the best part, we have the choice.

Remember that schools have been closed and businesses have been shut down for weeks now in Asia.

Here is an excerpt from Rebecca Franks who lives in Wuhan (read this on good ol’ Facebook):

So from the epicenter of the coronavirus, here is just SOME of the good we have been experiencing because of the lockdown: (Be warned – there is no way this post could be short.)

Our family life has never been better. Usually one weekend is long enough before I’m ready to send each of us back to school or work. But for SEVEN weeks, we’ve been home together with very little outside influences or distraction, forced to reconnect with one another, learn how to communicate better, give each other space, slow down our pace, and be a stronger family than ever before.

We’ve learned how to accept help from others. During this time, we’ve HAD to rely on others to show us how to get food and other things we need. People here are so good, and they want to help. It’s satisfying to accept the help.

Shopping is so much easier now. It comes straight to our complex, and we just pick it up. Simple.

I recently watched a 60 Minutes episode on deaths of despair and who they are causing the life expectancies of whites to drop for the first time in who knows how long.  They referred to the Roseto Study of the late 50s and early 60s that looked at the phenomenon that these individuals in Roseto, Pennsylvania were living longer than those in neighboring cities and towns.  They smoked and drank and were a town of blue collared workers. But the fact that they lived in a close-knit community with one another, it actually increased their life expectancy so much so that it is known as the Roseto effect.

This is scary.

But.

Let this bond us.  Let this cause us to rely on one another.  Let this be a time of playing games and reading books and spending time with your family.  Let this create a Roseto effect in your neighborhood.  This too shall pass and looking back you don’t want to be the person who punched someone in Costco.

 

Christmas Came Early (but let’s be honest, not early enough)

I know many of you are familiar with my last two childbirth experiences and are anxious to hear about “the boy”.  How weird is that?!  We have a boy!  Well, it is a brief story, though not uneventful.  I’m kind of a fan of baby coming when they are ready.  Well, I thought I was until this time around.  I’ve had 2 come on their due dates and my last came four days early.  Being that this was a “surprise”, I didn’t “plan” the due date.  I have said lots of things (never do this btw) like I don’t want to have a baby after 38.  I don’t want to have a baby in December.  I don’t want to be overdue.  And I don’t want to have a big baby.  Of course, during the last week, it was I don’t really want a Friday the 13th birthday.  You can see where this is going can’t you?

Early on Thanksgiving morning I called the midwife thinking that I was in labor.  The contractions were coming every 3 or 4 minutes.  They weren’t painful, but you probably already know that I’m a fan of acupuncture during the last month of pregnancy which inhibits your pain receptors.  The midwife came and I was 2 cm dilated, but that contractions stopped and labor was not imminent.  Definitely felt deflated after that, and kind of embarrassed that my 4th time around I got it wrong and had a midwife come over at 2am.  But what can you do?  A few more episodes of middle of the contractions, one where I was very very close to calling the midwife again and then I fell asleep and the contractions stopped.  Frustrating to say the least!  My Aunt Lisa’s birthday came and went, my due date came and went.  I tried every old wive’s tale you can imagine, and some not old wive’s tales like stripping membranes.  Yet I was still walking around with a baby inside me despite being very dilated.  (I’m assuming if you are reading this birth story then there is no such thing as TMI)

That brings us to Friday.  I called my midwife and said, we need to do something to get this baby out this weekend.  She asked if I wanted to try this concoction that she had heard about, well known in Europe apparently.  I said I would try anything, minus castor oil.  Well, the concoction was almond butter, pureed apricots, champagne and….castor oil.  Okay, I’ll take castor oil.  (Desperate times call for desperate measures) The almond butter supposedly helps the castor oil not go right through you.  That was my only consolation.  If it worked, I would go to bed and wake up in labor.

I went to Tatum’s school concert that night, and my midwife who also has a child at the school, made the “exchange”.  She had bought all the ingredients, and made me the special blend.  All I had to do was open the bubbly and enjoy when I got home!  I took about an hour to finish the concoction, it wasn’t bad.  Shortly after 9:30 I went to bed.  I felt a contract a contraction at 9:49.  Not unusual as they like to come on in the evening.  I told myself to go to sleep.  I was feeling warm and wondered if things were happening or if I was just hot.  But it’s summer and mosquitos are keeping me from opening my windows that don’t have screens.  Either way, I was still awake at 10:25 when something very weird happened, simultaneously, my lower stomach jolted and there was an audible pop that accompanied it.  And then a very strong contraction.  I wondered if my water broke, but couldn’t feel anything immediate.  Another contraction and I decided to go to the bathroom.  Yep, my water had broken.  These contractions were intense and I started to question the choice to take the concoction.  How crazy was this labor going to be and how long was I going to have to withstand this?

After a few minutes, I called for Brian, but he didn’t hear me.  I tried again, but he didn’t come.  So I started knocking on the wall thinking he should hear.  But nope!  The third time I called his name, it was more of a yell, okay, it was definitely a yell and I was in serious pain.  It woke up Piper as well.  The plan was that Piper and Tatum would witness the birth.  I told Brian, “I’m in a lot of pain, I need you to call the midwife and get me water.”  He came in with the phone and I told him I didn’t want to talk to her and then told him that I didn’t want the kids.  I didn’t think they should watch me in so much pain with it unknown how long it would last.  One hour?  That would be fast, but wouldn’t feel fast for me or them with this kind of pain.  I heard Brian’s conversation with the midwife and knowing my history, she said, I will leave here in 2 minutes.  It was 10:36.  I wanted to get off the toilet, and saw the mat just outside the door in our laundry room.  I made it that far and got down on my hands and knees.  Now it was obvious he was coming.  Right now.  On the laundry room floor.  Just me and Brian to catch him.  We are guessing Baby Jules entered the world around 10:40.  It is all a blur, but we do know that at 10:42 Piper called the midwife back and told her that the baby was here.  Yes, it was fast, but I didn’t get out of feeling the level 10 on the pain chart of childbirth you can rest assured.  And don’t forget, I had days leading up to this that I was experiencing labor.  But yes, when the moment arrived it was fast and furious.

All was well, and I was not nervous about an unassisted delivery.  Of course, I would have been in the past, but this is the 2nd baby Brian has caught.  Click here to read about the Tatum’s birth.  On the other hand, I read Brian’s journal written hours after the birth, and he was freaking out on the inside as the head was crowning and it looked blueish.  Good thing I didn’t know that.

So, he was born on Friday the 13th (both here and in America it was the 13th!).  He was “late” though I do understand that that is relative.  But for me, since I thought he was coming on Nov. 28th, it felt VERY late.  And he is a big boy!  This guy right here is a full 2 pounds bigger than my smallest baby and 1 lb. 3 ounces bigger than my biggest!  Jules weighed in at a whopping 9 lb. 11 ounces and I am proud to say that for the first time in all my deliveries, I did NOT need stitches.  He is everything I never wanted, and yet he is everything we ever needed.  Yes, you can comment on how big he is, but we are soaking up is littleness because he will never get any littler than he is right now and we think he is just perfect.

Fresh out of the oven

Look at him looking at his biggest sister and new roommate

Like my garage sale find vintage blocks?

Little muscle man in his muscle shirt. Gotta get in all the newborn clothes this week before they don’t fit!

 

Tired guys

It is going to be a very special Christmas indeed, as we get to celebrate the birth of two very special babies.  And while I was ready on Thanksgiving, we think Friday the 13th is just as good. 🙂

I’m a Daydream Believer

It seems that I blog A LOT about my kids and how fast they grow up and blah blah blah.  And if I am not blogging about that then it is about technology and the likes.  So I guess in keeping with the theme here I go again.

I’ve been reading this book called Solitude and now that I think about it, earlier this year I read a book called The Art of Stillness.  The thing that strikes me is the idea that we like to call in our house (thanks to a podcast Brian listens to) as “brilliantly bored”.  We underestimate the power of daydreaming.  Many big companies (i.e. Google, can’t get much bigger than that) understand the power of “free thinking” and have incorporated this idea into their work hours.  Give them time to have no task, no distraction even and that is when you will experience your lightbulb moment.

Given enough solitude and enough time, the mind…explores problems with curiosity and openness we might never choose to entertain.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”  Einstein believed that the daydreaming mind’s ability to link things is, in fact, our only path toward fresh ideas. 

The style of thinking that our schools train us to use always silences the bizarre or unpopular ideas that the daydreaming mind might try on.

And my favorite quote (so far, I’m not even halfway done yet and still I feel inspired to write what I’ve gleaned!)

True wandering requires a long leash.

-From Solitude by Michale Harris

Sometimes we pat ourselves on the back when we say, “go read a book” or “go play outside for 20 minutes, then you can play a game on the iPad”, but the very idea of do this and then you can have screen time makes the leash quite short.

You guys, I have this amazing 12 year old (and 8 and 5 year old, but not when it comes to screen time.  When it comes to screen time, only the 12 year old is amazing 😉 ) . Anyway, we have all decide to make habit trackers for the new year.  Each month we list some (8-12) habits we want to work on and and check the box each day if we have succeeded.  My avid reader, who rarely uses a device, wrote less screen time.  So far for the month of March she has two boxes without a check.  When I asked her about it she said she watched a movie at a friend’s birthday party and I don’t remember what the other one was.  But anyway, she’s my new inspiration.  If she thinks she can do less, then I can definitely do less.  Now my middle, she’s a different story.  She has wanted an iPad for every birthday and Christmas for years.  The other day she asked if she could watch a show.  I told her no and instead she did this.

Now we’ve got an awesome speaker when we’re blasting The Greatest Showman (because apparently they will NEVER get tired of it).  Anyway, talk about encouraging!  I was like, “Alright, you are never going to watch a show again because this is awesome!”  Okay, I’m kidding.

Let me just say, I am so grateful for technology.  I live so very far from family and we chat like we are down the street via text and videos.  We have two laptops, two iPads and three iPhones in the house.  It sounds ridiculous.  It is ridiculous.  The kids go days without screen time, but I can’t say the same for me.  They can’t use a device without me knowing what they are watching or what app they are playing and there are no devices in any bedroom.  I won’t sleep with a phone in my room, we have a good old fashioned $10 alarm clock to wake us up.  It’s worth the investment. 🙂 .  I write this stuff because I spend a lot of time reading and have attended seminars about brain development and addiction and pornography and so on and so on.  I am not judging, but I am passionate.  I believe you can take your kids to a meal and not need to give them a device.  If they get antsy, bring pick up sticks and play together while you wait for your food.  There are options.

Reading about solitude and how technology has taken that away and so on and so on was swirling around in my head, and then I got to thinking, I was the kid who spent hours in front of a screen a day!  In 1989 it wasn’t a computer or a phone, but the box television.  My parents had divorced, my mom worked full time and I passed the minutes of the afternoon watching Alvin and the Chipmunks, Muppet Babies, Small Wonder, Looney Tunes, and Chip n Dale’s Rescue Ranger to name a few.  Seriously, I probably watched all of those shows in a single afternoon.  Somehow, I also made time for Super Mario Bros., the only game I had for our Nintendo.  Before my parents divorced, we lived in a neighborhood where we were always outside playing with the neighbors.  After the divorce we lived in an apartment that had very few kids around and no adults were home until dinner time.  We were your typical latch-key kids suddenly.

I grew up going to the beach occasionally and vacations were minimal, but when they happened they were to the mountains or to the river where my dad could fish.  But other than that, we were nature deprived.  We spent our free time going to the mall or the movies.  Good ol’ suburban fun!  I don’t blame my parents or anything, it was survival mode in a lot of ways.  My mom and sisters and I are always enjoying each other’s company in the great outdoors these days.  Here we are on our last hang out with the three of us before I moved, hiking El Moro.  I was 32 years old before I learned that Orange County, my home for my entire life (minus my first 3 years) had waterfalls you could hike to.  And my first memory of watching the sun set was in college (not to say that it never happened).

And YET, get this!  I am not condemned to being a junky with my face still stuck in front of a screen.  There is hope!  My life isn’t ruined because of too much screen time!  You can change habits if you want.  There is a world waiting for you to discover it and if you do, you just mind find out that you LIKE it.  What a different experience my kids will have.  I don’t know what they will choose when they are out of the house, but their childhood memories will be ones spent going to the beach, bike rides, sunsets, hiking and the like.  Brian goes out nearly every night at sunset.  Sometimes he is rushing off from dinner, other times, we all ride down, sometimes even with bunnies in tow.  Occasionally the timing seems bad and one of the kids is annoyed and asks why Dad always has to go down to the beach.  To which I responded “You don’t know what a privilege it is to watch the sunset until you can’t.  We lived two years in Germany and I could think of one time that I saw the colors of the sky change and the sun going down and I had to drive to the top of the mountain to do so.”

This week I tested myself with a few different challenges each day.  Once day I did not check social media.  Another, I left my phone in the car and played at the park with Clover.  And one day took a book to get my blood drawn.  Not big things, but little things to make sure that I am still in control.  That the screen doesn’t control me.

“We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children’s memories, the adventures we’ve had together in nature will always exist.”

-From Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv (such a great read!)

 

 

The Greatest Showman has forever changed our life

Seven months ago we embarked on a family trip that we had been dreaming about for years.  We had bought a new 12 passenger Sprinter with the intention that our “semi” cross country trip would finally be happening.  When the opportunity for us to move to New Zealand became available, the one thing that was holding me back from being “all in” was that I knew that if we didn’t do the trip before we left then I wasn’t sure it would ever happen.  I think somewhere between Arizona and Colorado, Brian bought the sound track to The Greatest Showman and from then on it became the theme song to our trip and, at that point, our future which was just about to change…drastically.

Some people long for a life that is simple and planned
Tied with a ribbon
Some people won’t sail the sea ’cause they’re safer on land
To follow what’s written
But I’d follow you to the great unknown
Off to a world we call our own

Hand in my hand and we promised to never let go
We’re walking the tightrope
High in the sky
We can see the whole world down below
We’re walking the tightrope
Never sure, never know how far we could fall
But it’s all an adventure
That comes with a breathtaking view
Walking the tightrope

With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
With you

Mountains and valleys, and all that will come in between
Desert and ocean
You pulled me in and together we’re lost in a dream
Always in motion
So I risk it all just to be with you
And I risk it all for this life we choose

Oh man!  So sappy huh?

We were having the greatest time connecting with family.  I couldn’t have guessed that our trip would be so fulfilling and life giving.  I thought we were crazy, and I know a lot of you did too, to pack up our house and travel for a month before moving overseas.  It was crazy, but boy am I glad we did.  Everywhere we went I felt like I was teaching my kids the importance of family.  We saw amazing things, like having to slow down because there was a bison blocking the road!  And did crazy things, like somehow I found myself in the arena at a rodeo!  But the most amazing thing was showing them the value of family.  We like new places, we enjoy adventures, but we love family.  They talk about our trip often and the highlights for them are not staying the teepee or going to Yellowstone.  Their highlights were the people.

So with every word to every song engrained in my mind, I felt so confident walking into this great unknown.  I would be moving to a place where there would be no family, but hoped that we had instilled in the kids that it is still something we value, even though we are making the choice to move.

And then, BOOM!  We moved here, and I felt that I had bought into the romanticized lie.  This tightrope business is hard stuff and gave me false confidence.  I had wanted to write about our road trip after we got back, but things were crazy and then we were here in New Zealand and then I felt like I couldn’t because I wasn’t in a good place.

But now, now I am here, in the same place, but it’s good.  It’s weird how that works.  I can see that things happen for a reason.  I can see that there will be mountains and there will be valleys.  I have a hard time seeing the mountain when I am in the valley, but that’s normal I think.

After being here for 6 months, our family finally went away for the weekend.  The Greatest Showman was playing loudly and the windows were down.  It is summer again, and we were on the road…again.  With a smile on her face, Piper said, it reminds me of our trip this past summer. And all I could think of was that the last 6 months have been quite the adventure.  It has not always been easy, but it has been worth it.  I was finally ready to  share about this adventure that we call life.

P.S.  A million thank yous to all the family that made our trip so so memorable.  You don’t know what it meant to us.  We LOVE you and miss you tons!  And to our family in friends that were close by, we love and miss you too.

P.S.S. I documented the trip on Instagram if you haven’t seen the pics.  @perfectpieceoftime

11

Christmas break marks a big change for Piper.  She has been working at the cafe a few days a week since the new year.  She is only 11, but this marks a big change as I know that from here the work and the responsibilities will just build on what all started at the beginning of 2019.  Who would’ve thought that 11 would be such a big year?  When I think back to being 11 now, I guess it was big for me too.  I left my catholic school and started public middle school.  Started my period.  (So fun to start right when you are the new kid at a new school! Ugh!) And at 11, I also made a pact with my best friend that it would be the year that we kissed a boy (that didn’t happen until I was 15 though. 😉 ) . Piper turned 11 eleven months ago now and what an (almost) year it has been.  My little shorty isn’t so short any more for one thing.

She had decided that she wanted to teach a class on book binding to other kids her age.  She told her friends and asked me to post it on the neighborhood Facebook page.  Well, there was so much interest that we capped the class at 10 and she will be having another class in the near future!  I was so proud of her watching her prep for the class, while also fitting in her surf lifesaving summer program and working at the cafe.  Oh and a run with her friends!  Yes, the kid who has always hated running has decided that she wants to do the 10k in April and has started training.  She wanted me to help with the art class but ONLY when she asked me.  I was nervous for her, but the kids really enjoyed it and some 11 year old boys told their parents that Piper was a great teacher. 🙂 . So sweet.  Now that she is making money, we made an appointment to get her a bank account here.  She was so cute, the night before she asked, “Should I dress nice?”  I thought she was talking about for work the next day and so I said, “No, but maybe don’t wear shorts since you will be carrying hot drinks.”  (Remember, this is the child who ended up in the burn center).  And she said, “Not to work, but to the bank.”  Precious!  Maybe 50 years ago, that was a thing, but now I told her to just get ready for work and that was also fine for the bank.

Our move has provided so many unexpected joys.  This morning Brian and I went on a hike without the kids and he said it almost feels like Piper is a character in a book.  It’s like she is the American Girl: Girl of the Year character.  What’s her story?  Piper is an 11 year old girl who has just recently moved to New Zealand so that her dad could pursue his PhD.  She is homeschooled and was sad to leave her friends and family back in California.  Little did she know that new opportunities and adventures await her in New Zealand!  She gets a job at the cafe across the street a few hours a week and gets the chance to teach art classes to the kids in the area, which she loves!  To see how Piper handles these big changes, you’ll have to read the book! 😉

Piper has always seemed so old.  Even when she was a little pipsqueak in Kindergarten, she acted so grown up.  This isn’t a good or bad quality, it is just the way it is.  Tatum has always enjoyed being little and doesn’t want to grow up and that is just great too.  But this move has been so great for her as well.  She is 8 years old and is a free bird!  The other day I went to pick her up from surf lifesaving camp and there she is walking home with the neighbor on her own.  The town is just over 2km end to end and 1km from the beach to the edge of town.  We live smack dab in the middle which means the kids can go to their friends house and vise versa whenever they want.  These changes were on the horizon for Piper even back in the US.  I would send her to the store for milk and so on.  But I try to tell Tatum how lucky she is that she gets to live the childhood that my parents did.  Her memories will be playing with friends until it gets dark.  Riding bikes to the forest and making hideouts, and finding just enough coins to get an ice cream at the dairy.  For these moments of childhood I am grateful.  For Piper to have her last years of childhood so carefree and for Tatum to have discovered a new found freedom with her bike and her sister is a gift that I didn’t exactly expect.

Piper’s first job

Book making class was a success

 

A Christmas Letter

We started the year off with a few new pets from Christmas and THEN we made the decision to move to New Zealand.  I got a baby tortoise named Rocco, and Tatum and I got guinea pigs, Taffy and Cinnamon. We went from only having Frankie to 4 pets!  Mom got a job working at a winery. It was a cool location in San Juan Capistrano, with an old house and an active train tracks. We would smash pennies on the tracks when we were there.  For Christmas, we all got passes to Knott’s Berry Farm. I love Knott’s, they have the best roller coasters, so I decided to celebrate my 11th birthday there. In March, Clover’s 4th birthday was at the park with a yummy rainbow cake and later that month, we went to Arizona with Grandma, and without dad to celebrate Aunt TT’s 40th birthday.  In April, Clover hit her head on our fireplace and got stitches on her forehead and Tatum turned 8. Tatum had a Kit Kittredge American Girl mystery birthday at one of our favorite beaches, Crystal Cove. We had the party at one of the historic cottages and stayed 2 nights. On Tatum’s actual birthday, we went to the beach and Tatum and I got baptized.  Once May came, everything got crazy with moving, garage sales, selling furniture, cars, everything, gone! The saddest thing was that we couldn’t bring our dog to New Zealand. It cost $8,000 and a long time in quarantine. In June, my cousin Christian’s adoption was finalized which was exciting. But we also had a lot of our “lasts”. Tatum and I had our last piano recital.  She played the national anthem and I played Eidelweiss. We had our end of the year homeschool show where Tatum sang “You are my All in All” and I memorized and recited Longfellow’s very long poem “Paul Revere’s Ride”. I had my last gymnastics, which was really sad because I had been going there since kindergarten. And all three of us ended June with our ballet recital. June 30th was the craziest day!  We had to be out of our house and we had two shows for our recital that day! That night we stayed at my Nana and Papa’s house and on July 1st it was bye-bye California, Hello Roadtrip!

We built bunk beds in our 12 seater Sprinter van and packed all the stuff we would need for a 7,000 mile and month long road trip.  First stop, Arizona where we said goodbye to our big family. Tatum belly flopped right off the high dive at the pool! Jade, Grandma and our family stayed at a waterpark hotel with the rest of our family.  It was so hot, 120F, that it melted the a magnet off of our new car! We celebrated the 4th of July with my 2nd cousins and great grandparents. From there, we headed to Colorado by way of New Mexico. We saw my mom’s cousin and enjoyed the beauty there.  We woke up early one morning and drove 12 hours through flat, unchanging Kansas to Missouri to meet my mom’s aunt at an epic fireworks show. We met more 2nd cousins and got to ride in a horse drawn carriage to the Gateway Arch. We also spent 2 days on my cousin’s boat wakeboarding and swimming in a 70F lake.  On our way out from Missouri, we got a tour of where my great grandma was born by my mom’s uncle. We drove through an Amish town and saw people riding buggies down the street. That night, we stayed in Hannibal on the Mississippi River where Mark Twain was born. Next stop was Wisconsin to see my dad’s family. We stayed at my great aunt’s house with her grandkids (more cousins!)  We had a BBQ where got to go on a hayride, and went to an island in the middle of the Mississippi River where the homestead of my great great grandpa’s house was and got eaten alive by mosquitos. Then we swam in the mighty Mississippi river. One night, we also went on a paddleboat pizza cruise on the river. We left Wisconsin and drove through South Dakota and saw the Badlands and Mount Rushmore and stayed in the adorable tiny town of Wall.  Our next stay was in a teepee by Devil’s Tower, with an amazing view. From there we drove to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. On our way to our camp, we got stuck behind a bison in the middle of the road. We camped in the middle of nowhere by a beautiful river one night and in a prairie with a view of the Tetons another. It was breathtaking. In Yellowstone we swam in a swimming hole heated by hot springs. Montana was the place I was most excited about to visit because I had such good memories of there.  On our way, we stopped and swam at a crystal clear lake. We got to our family’s house on my cousin Brooklyn’s birthday and went to the rodeo. It was super cool and our first rodeo. Then I got to sleep on the trampoline with her and her friends. I didn’t go to bed until 4am! I probably saw 25 shooting stars! The next day was Savannah’s birthday and we spent the day at a lake that had clay cliffs where we made bowls that we hardened in the sun. Like every other stop it was sad to say goodbye but we were headed to some more cousins in Idaho.  There it was more fun swimming and also tubing in the creek near their house. We celebrated my dad’s birthday there. Our last stop was Twin Lakes, my favorite place in the world which we have been going to since I was 5 with our friends, the Coopmans. We spent the days tubing, fishing and playing on the beach. It was the perfect ending to our trip. Our last two weeks in America were spent with our friends the Paulsons. They hosted a going away party and afterward, the dads took all of us to toilet paper our friends’ houses! We love America, but it was time for us to say goodbye to everything we knew and go to New Zealand. By Piper

 

We arrived in New Zealand the 18th of August.  I expected our town to be a lot smaller but it still is pretty small.  There are thousands of farms and everywhere you go, you see green grass and trees.  There are a lot of forests. There is one with an epic playground in the forest called, Middle Earth, and on the walk there you go through a fairy garden there is an obstacle course that I’ve gotten really good at.  Almost every day we walk to the beach. There are so many shells, bones and driftwood. You can walk forever on the beach. Cars and horses are also allowed. There is also a super fun river that we play in that goes into the ocean.  It is cool being able to walk to the forest and the beach. At first, we didn’t fully like our house, but once we got our Ninja Line up it was A LOT better. Then we got our bunnies and made our house a lot more homey. We hold our bunnies almost everyday now.  We have a garden and had like a 10 pound cabbage and a little too much kale, but no worries, our bunnies like kale.

All of a sudden God answered our prayers for a friend and we met Fern.  Now we play with her almost everyday. She was raising a lamb named Lulu who is so cute.  Then Fern introduced me and Piper to another friend, Courtney. Now we are friends with both of them and all of us are making up a dance.  We’ve also met our next door neighbor, Brian, who is 7. We play with him everyday. Fern told us we should join Scouts. So we did and it is so fun!  Once we lit a fire in a volcano made of sand. We also went abseiling, cooked pancakes on a coffee tin, and the best part was getting pulled on a mat by a tractor in a pasture.  Whenever you fell off you got covered in cow poop. We had a blast! Piper and I have joined a soccer team and Piper scored a goal. Not only soccer, but all three of us joined gymnastics.  Everyone looks forward to going. I LOVE New Zealand and I hope you do too. By Tatum