The Schmitt Family Happenings: August 2013

Charlie has been going to kindy for a few weeks now and seems to really enjoy it. If he would share with me what he was doing I would like it more, but he has always been a keep to himself kid when it came to AWANA, Sunday School, and preschool so I didn’t really expect anything else. Maybe someday he will walk me step by step through his day….in my dreams. Our conversations usually go like this…”Charlie how was kindy?” Charlie – “good. hey mom, can we go to the aquarium?”. I ask pointed questions like “what did you have for snack? did you paint anything or play in the sand? tell me the name of ONE friend you played with?” I get basically nothing back. he is a mysterious little one. in all reality it is probably good for me to give him some space. I just pray for him and let him know that I think about him and pray for him while he is at kindy.

One cool thing is that they have a website where they communicate things about your child. I receive emails with a link to stories about Charlie. Here is the picture they snapped of him. It is the best “school” picture Charlie has ever taken. At Mayo backup – he was crying in the picture.

for those of you who might not have seen it – this was his preschool picture last year. that is just NOT our child (but always gives us a good laugh)!

we were much happier to see our charlie show up in these pictures. he must be enjoying it to smile this much for them.

Last week he had Pajama day at the school and we could purchase a “red nose” to help raise money for Curekids (a program here to help sick kids).

the hardest part about Acorn is that some kids are dropped off at 7:30 am and picked up at 5:30 because it is used more as a daycare than what I am using it for. So when I drop charlie off there already is lots of activity and there is no real “start” (that I see) or “end” when I do drop off and pick up. I know they are doing school type things with the 4 year olds – it is just different than sweet little Bethany Nursery school last year. I also REALLY miss the pick up and drop off option. I do not carry the girls in and out to drop off and pick up charlie. I am supposed to, but seriously that would make my job 1 million times harder and I am not willing to do it. So since the weather is cold – I leave the girls in the locked car and run in. They do fine, but I feel guilty every time. Thank you Bethany for doing the drop off and pick up option – it saved my conscience last year.

Before I get into Saturday, I just have to mention that Bill and I went to a dinner at one of the Otologists houses on Friday night. We had a delightful time. Michel (pronounced Meeshel) and Catharine hosted the party to welcome us to New Zealand. He is Bill’s “boss”. There were 4 other couples there – all Otologists. Catharine is an INCREDIBLE cook and Bill and I are still talking about her food. It was definitely the most well prepared meal I have ever been served at someone’s house (sorry bubba and nana) and it was delicious! It was better than most restaurant food we have had and the presentation was fantastic. I have no idea how they were so present at their own dinner party while presenting and plating all of the food. They are pros. We started off with the choice of either a wasabi/asian tuna tartare on top of avocados served in a perfect cylinder or a goat cheese, caramelized onion crostini – both incredible. for the entrée we were served an “eye cutlet” (? or something like that) beef wrapped in bacon over thinly sliced potatoes served with watercress. then family style she had asian brussel sprouts with carrots and roasted honey beetroot with goat cheese. dessert was a meringue with ice cream and fudge. I may have eaten 1.5 desserts. The crazy part is that she has never had any training. after asking her how she learned to cook like that she said “I just follow the recipe” – ha! I can follow a recipe too and I don’t think anything would come out like that!

anyway, our babysitter mel was a champ because we didn’t get home until a bit after midnight! I was SOOO tired on Saturday morning since I had gotten up at 5 on friday morning. But after some coffee and breakfast we loaded up the car and drove the 40 or so minutes across the country to the west coast of NZ. Auckland is deceiving – a big city where at times I feel like we are ALWAYS in auckland. But days like Saturday prove just how small NZ really is. On the same day we walked on a black sand beach on the west coast of the island and the white sand on the east coast of the island (our St Heliers Beach), along with lots of other things that day. The scenery and weather change so quickly.

getting ready to go. at the top it was cold so we were all bundled up and it almost always rains at some point so we are wearing our rain gear. once we got closer to the ocean and started hiking it was HOT.

Bill and I are still working on our communication about what we are REALLY doing with the kids and you will see some of that play out in the pictures. He said he found a LITTLE walk for us to do with the kids along the coast. What he left out was the fact that it said it could be very steep at times and very muddy. so I packed some snacks and water but left it all in the car (not that we could really have carried another pack). Also, I am a bit particular about the shoes the kids are trashing here and me for that matter, since we only brought a couple. we started off on the path and I soon realized we were going to be getting dirty and sweaty!

before heading out, I tried to get ellie to look and it just wasn’t happening!

this was just the start of the trail and already the views were incredible. be ready for some scenery pictures.

this is Bill trying to plead with Charlie to stop crying about the fact that his balloon was popped. it took about 10 minutes for C to get over it. Sometimes the oddest things set him off and it is hard to recover. He is one passionate child! We are just praying we can channel that passion towards good things in his life.

Aotearoa – most common Maori word for New Zealand. It means - the land of the long white cloud – which is SO true. there are always long white clouds around!

we had the girls start out walking. they loved it – but it wasn’t a speedy method.

notice ellie’s stick in her hand. they were constantly stopping to pick things up. again – quick wasn’t the name of the game for them.

notice the warning – cliffs, slippery, etc. at this point we had the girls in the ergos.

the real issue with having the girls on our backs is that we don’t have a pack to carry any water, food, wipes, bandaids, etc. I have actually decided I need to figure something out. this is where the lack of communication comes in a bit. if I had heard it was possibly steep and muddy I would have thought we should bring water along. bill thought they were probably exaggerating – guess we learned.

this view was beautiful!

I got cranky when my new shoes got really muddy and soaking wet. I should have worn my old running shoes (or better yet the 2 different hiking shoes/boots that I left in the states. I just didn’t think I really needed them. wish I could remember where I put them. grrr).

there were lots of places with this much mud to navigate. charlie’s shoes were (and still are!) soaked with mud.

so beautiful!

love this one.

this is a trail that has 2 starts. the north and south side. you can see Bill seeing if we could call and get a ride from the north end back to our car if we just hiked through. no go. apparently the north end is a much easier hike. we are going to go back to that side sometime soon.

more mud.

heading back towards the car. charlie was already saying he was tired.

when the sun would pop out it would look totally different than when the clouds were there. love this about NZ.

charlie’s new fake smile.

we love the zoom on our camera lens!

this is what I meant by it being a steep hike. check out those stairs! we came down them and now we were on our way up.

quick bathroom break for ellie. sorry ellie.

since we were clear of the mud we thought we would let the girls walk up the stairs to burn some energy.

bill’s back was sweaty! we actually thought that ellie had an accident at first because her pants were wet. then we discovered her underwear was dry and it was just Bill’s sweat!

glad he was still smiling!

coming up!

bill and charlie were counting the stairs to say how many he climbed alone – 227 was the answer (actually double since we went down too).

only 80 more to go!

I have to admit I had a lot of workout envy watching trail runners training on this trail. it looked so hardcore! maybe I’ll come back and do it one day while we are here.

we finished! I had packed some freebie chocolate drinks we had gotten awhile ago and they were the perfect reward.

then we drove over to Muriwai beach just a few minutes away. I have never been on a black sand beach (or at least that I can remember) and I loved it. there were surfers everywhere, which we haven’t seen here yet because we have been on the east coast of the island where the waves are not big enough to surf on.

bill and claire.

eleanore. miss “I want a pony tail put in after bathtime – but then you can’t touch it EVER”. hence the messy do. so chic.

ellie saw the huge waves crashing in and got nervous. she clung onto Bill with her super human strength.

the contrast was awesome.

my dad and I would make this shape a lot with shells when we were on marco island. had to do one here.

there was this line of clouds that the sun would peak in and out of changing the temperature and the views.

charlie burst into tears when he thought we were going to leave. he just wanted to PLAY WITH HIS BOAT ON THE SAND!!!

check out the surfer in the background making cool things with sand.

LOVE THESE pictures of these two seestors.

ellie’s smile is so genuine!

there were these life saving boats that would zoom up/down/back/forth pretty fun to watch.

claire – probably munching on some sand. this girl STILL likes to randomly eat sand. I sure hope she grows out of this! I am done trying to correct her.

chase dad game never gets old.

there were some steep sections of the dunes and people were sledding down them on boogie boards. looked super fun!

we walked over to this area to view the Gannet birds – sadly the stairs up were closed so we just got another view of the beach.

best dad in the whole wide world!

we drove up to a different area to see the Gannet birds – a special nesting colony in New Zealand. the girls had no pants on because they were filthy so I stayed in the car with them while bill and charlie went to see the birds.