Cooking the fish that James caught.

For more pictures, click thru to see our flickr site.

Living in HV has spoilt us silly. We could ta bao anything from Sushi Teh, Crystal Jade, Nasi Lemak…… you name it, we had it (I’m drooling now..).

One of the things that we are trying to get used to here is FOOD. We eat breakfast in our units. Lunch and dinner are served communally so there isn’t much choice for food.

It’s not that we don’t like Western food. We love it – the pastas, steaks etc. But Kiwis don’t eat a lot at lunch and dinner here is at 5.30pm! We normally eat sandwiches or pies and salads at lunch. So we get hungry after lunch and by 10pm we are hungry again!?

Sophie hasn’t been eating much because she doesn’t really eat pies, fries, potatoes and all the raw veggies (which btw has been really good for us). But I was surprised to see that she started to eat raw onions and lettuce today!

Anyways, we started to get creative about our meals on the weekends because the school provides us with ingredients in the morning for our lunch and the kitchen is closed for lunch on the weekends. It’s mostly for sandwiches. So we get tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cheese/hard boiled eggs.

On Fri, James went fishing with one of the staff and they caught a trout! So on Sat, we cooked it for lunch. Steamed fish with soya sauce! We used all the tomatoes, and onions for the fish instead! I bought a microwavable mug and cooked rice in it! So we had fish and rice. WAH SHIOK! The fish was so sweet…….. yummmmmms!

Today, we cooked an omelette with all the ingredients – onions, tomatoes, cheese and Sophie had that with some shell pasta I cooked in the microwave. She helped to cook the omelette. It’s a fun thing to do. I simply cracked the eggs and cut up the veggies and she helped mix everything and stir it.

Actually although we would love to eat like we do at home, we are actually quite ok with it coz James and I are quite chin chai people. It’s Sophie that we are worried about coz she hasn’t been eating much. But I think she’s adjusting coz seems like most of the other babies are not eating much too, just fruits and bread. We’ll see…

P/s The post above was written on Sunday. On Monday Sophie had a virus that made her throw up. She was down the whole day and got better today. All the kids got it last week. We thought it would pass us but Sophie finally caught it too. But she’s much better now. She’s been drinking and just sleeping lots. Also thank God that one of the students in our school is a PD!

Dearest Sophie,

We’ve just moved to New Zealand a week ago. You have adapted very well. It’s like as if you’ve been here all your life! You are such a village girl! The only two things that you are still adjusting to are going to daycare and the food.

You generally enjoy daycare because all your friends are there but you don’t like us to leave you there. It has been very heart wrenching to leave you but we know that you will adapt in time and you will start to understand that this is part of growing up and it is good for you.

You love all your friends. It makes us so happy to see you so happy playing. It’s always hard to pull you away from your friends. You love going to their houses and following them around. You have no problems at all making new friends, even if they don’t speak your language. You prefer older kids and little babies. You tend to be shy with adults and a little competitive with kids your age unless you knows them well.

You are very articulate and communicate very well. Sometimes I forget that you are only two. You speak to the older kids at their level, e.g. “Mateos, you like to play in the trampoline with me?” They are all very amused by you and always like to play with you because you entertain them with all the silly things you say and do.

More and more you are certain of what you want – what kind of food for breakfast, what you want to do, where you want to go etc. I stopped trying to figure what you want for breakfast coz you’ll just go to the fridge and take out whatever you want to eat. You’ll even look thru the promotions pages with me and tell me which toy you want!

However when you don’t get your way, you resort to whining and that has been something that we are working on getting rid off. Sometimes it just feels like you are saying no to us the whole day!

But for the first time ever, you and I held hands and walked for a while, willingly. Most days you would refuse to hold my hands and go for a stroll, preferring to run instead.

You are really enjoying all the activities e.g jumping on the trampoline, climbing etc. It’s great to see you having so much fun. I think NZ is really good for you and I’m glad we are here.
 

Love
Mummy
 

The third and fourth day of daycare for Sophie has been a bit more challenging.

Yesterday when we arrived, another girl was crying and that affected Sophie who was already a bit shaky. But we quickly brought Sophie out and let her play on the trampoline and that did the trick. She started playing and then said bye quite willingly. Bianca, the daycare teacher took over and we quickly left for class.

However, in the afternoon, Sophie woke up early from her nap and I had to leave class to get her and put her at the daycare. For the previous two days, it was more free and easy and I could stay with her when she woke up from her nap. We also use a baby monitor to check on her so we can get her when she wakes up from her nap. She is normally sleeping in the unit while we are in class.

The Sophie after nap takes a longer time to settle so she cried when I had to leave her at daycare. But the teachers were good at distracting her and then after a while she told them that she wanted to go lie down and rest, so she did! That’s what I like about the daycare, the kids pretty much did whatever they wanted, of course within boundaries. So she laid on the mattress at the daycare until I came to get her about ½ hr later, after class.

Today again she cried when we were about to leave in the morning. But we had to say bye and then leave. The teacher said she settled and then was pretty ok throughout. Another classmate of ours who brought her two year old a little later said her daughter also cried but she said Sophie was ok by then. But as I was leaving with James, I felt so bad and so tempted to go back and just bring Sophie home.

I’m praying that it’ll get better tomorrow!
 

Sophie was a bit tired and whiny today. She woke up at 7am so by 12pm or so she was getting really tired.

She told her teacher "I want to go to my special place". She prob meant her cot. Hee… Her teacher said she was putting her head in the pillow while she was reading to her. So cute lah. When we went to get her at almost 1pm, she looked so glad to see us, I felt a little bad. But she has been doing quite well. I think she was missing us because she stuck to Agatha and didn’t want her to leave. Agatha who is 12 is her fav person at the moment.

I could see Sophie from our class room during break time and I saw her playing in the sand pit and running around. I think she really enjoys being with the kids. She keeps saying that she wants to go to school so I think she’s happy there. All the kids were a little more tired today. They all looked a little stoned out at lunch. Hee. Maybe too much sun. For the first time Sophie slept for 2 hrs during her nap.

Creche room with Sophie’s fav che che Agatha from Slovekia.

For more photos, click thru this picture to our flickr site.

It’s the first day of school for all of us today.

This is the schedule for most days
9am – 12.45pm – School for all
12.45 – 2pm – Lunch for all
2 – 3.15pm – School for all (Sophie naps)
3.15pm – 5.30pm – Work duties (Alternate days, fridays and weekends are free for those parents with young children, that means us)
5.30pm – Dinner
Most nights are free except Monday nights where we have a Marriage Video to watch.

For today, we had breakfast together as family in our home unit before base worship. Base worship is when the entire base gathers together for worship. That happens every Monday. That includes all the kiddos! Ooo it was so cute to see all the kids take different percussion instruments and flags and started playing and waving around, just for fun, not necessarily in tune or according to beat. So nice.

After worship at 9.50am, we brought the kids to the creche/homeschool. There are 3 ladies looking after about 2 babies, 3 toddlers and 2 that are 4-5 years old. For a start they’ll all be together but when it comes to nap/craft time, they will be separated 3 ways – babies have a little room with cots, the toddlers have a room and the kindy kids have another room of their own. The older ones have a homeschool room where they can do their work with someone watching over them. During playtime, they’ll all play in the big playground where there is a trampoline, swings, play cars, and a little adventure area where they can climb up and down.

Sophie was already quite familiar with the play area so she quickly settled in. Her fav che che Agatha was there so she was very happy. We said bye and left. That went pretty easily.

During our tea time (about 11.15pm), James and I took turns to pop in to see her. I brought her hat for her coz it was getting quite sunny (It alternates between sun and rain thru the day). When I left, she started to cry! ooooo… but her teacher said she was easily distracted and stopped quickly. Phew!

So thank God Sophie did very well on her first day – almost 3 hrs on her own at the creche.

On our side, the staff did the introductions and sharing about their life stories. As usual, YWAM style – total openness. We spent the afternoon working on a collage on our personal life – from birth till now. It’s our turn tomorrow to share using these collages.

After lunch, I took Sophie back to the unit for a nap while James went back to class to work on his collage while I did mine in the home unit. Sophie was supposed to go back to creche at 2pm but she didn’t wake up till 3pm so I decided to just keep her in the unit and spend time with her. We had tea and did a bit of homeschooling. I’m still trying to figure out how to let her nap and go back to class. From tomorrow onwards, we will have afternoon sessions.

It rained today. Like really rained. So I was very happy – got to wear 3 layers today. You see, we were expecting it to be cold. Not cold cold but somewhat cold. BUT it has been real hot the past few days. Like hot hot. NZ sun can get REAL bad, apparently highest cases of skin cancer around. Anyways I only brought 1 pair of shorts and a few t-shirts. I almost left out the pair of shorts thinking it’ll be too windy. I had reduced my clothing so that we can squeeze more of Sophie’s books in. So I was quite glad that my sweaters came in handy today.

P/s It’s as I suspected. We are the only Chinese on the base and in this school. The other Asian is Filipino. The rest are from Europe, Canada and New Zealand. But most of them are very well travelled so no one asked us if Singapore is part of China, phew! I remember 10 yrs ago when I was backpacking in Europe someone asked me, "How were the Communist?" Erm ok…
 

We took a little walk around the base today and found a whole herd of cows grazing! I’ve never seen so many cows at the same time so close up before! It was so surreal. Sophie was hardly impressed with the cows but she happily went around picking up wild flowers! Ooo but she did say she wanted to milk them, had to tell her no no…. hee. The cows belong to the neighbouring farm.

We are finally adjusting to the time difference. Sophie went to bed at about 9pm last night and got up at 8am. NICE. Tonight she slept at about 8 so I hope she’ll do her 8pm – 8am soon so that when school starts on Monday, we’ll be on time! School will start at 9am so we need to get her to the daycare before that and help her settle down. Based on the schedule that we received today, it looks like Sophie’s going to be spending a lot of time at the daycare because we have afternoon lessons as well. But we’ll have our meals and evenings together and I still have to be around to put her down for her nap after lunch. I really pray she’ll get used to the new arrangement soon. Ooo and us too.

We managed to get a ride to the town (Matamata) this morning to buy some groceries. Sophie hasn’t been eating much of the main meals because she’s not very used to fish and chips. So I got a few stuff for her – fruits, yogurt, cheese in case she gets hungry. Hopefully she’ll adjust soon. Actually we’re trying to get used to the food too so I’m not surprised she’s not eating. But we’ve got a stash of cup noodles for ourselves. Hiak hiak. But the good thing is that we’re eating a lot more veggies coz of the salads.
 

Everyone here has been real nice. We got to meet more of the staff and students today. Everyone should be in by tomorrow for the orientation. There’s another lil girl that’s Sophie’s age from Brazil. She doesn’t speak English but I’m sure they’ll figure a way to communicate. Sophie’s been enjoying the company of the older kids who have been taking her around and even playing with her in our little room.

Joel & Sophie playing in the room
 

The school sounds real exciting! We have the Littletons for our first speakers. We first met them at the church staff retreat in 06 n they have been to our cell a couple of times. We have lots to learn about marriage and parenting from all the staff – most of them have more than 3 kids! There’s a lot of work to do though. Much more than a DTS. We’ve got book reviews, a research paper, regular assignments plus journalling. But we’ve got lotsa time! NO TV and hardly any internet!!!!!

Here are some photos of our unit on the base

Left: Sophie’s Room – The thingy covered with blankets is her travel cot.

Right: Our dining area which is also our bed room. It also has a little kitchenette but we can only use the microwave, no cooking facilities.
 

We arrived at the school base at Matamata today. It’s LOOOOOOOOVELLLLLY!!!!!! Before we could get out of the van, Sophie was already saying "I’ve got new friends!". As soon as she could, she went down the van and started playing with all the kids.

The staff brought us around the base with all the kids following us around. There are so many kids! Sophie’s going to have such a great time! She already made herself at home on the grounds by jumping on the trampoline, swinging on the swings, running on the grass, and suddenly I realise that my girl has become such a climber! She pulls chairs to climb to get things! Argh! She’s never really done that.

I’d love to post some photos soon but we’ll settle in a little and I promise a more detailed update! Miss you all at home…

New Zealand is A LOT like Australia……….. (but the kiwis will hate us saying this. Prob the aussies too. oops!)

But the time difference is 5hrs. That’s a LOT. Last night we went to bed at 3am and got up at 12pm. We are still trying to adjust.

It’s summer. The weather is GREAT! Bit hotter than we expected. But it got nice and cool towards the evening. But the best part? The sun only sets at 9pm! So even though we started the day at 12pm, we managed to do quite a bit before the day "ended".

We went to the Sky Tower to see the city from way up there. It’s even taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris! We spent some time there to have lunch. After that we walked to Victoria Park Market but it was almost closed at 5. So we walked across the street to the park and spent a nice time at the playground and watched people play soccer and exercise. On the way back to the hotel, we made a detour and went to the harbour. We had dinner there and it was still bright and sunny when we left at 8! The taxi refused to take us back to the hotel coz it was just a few streets away SOOOO we walked back! We walked everywhere today. Thank God Sophie was happy sitting in her pram! I think she’s quite happy here. She was a bit whiny today prob because she’s trying to adjust BUT generally she’s been great! She REALLY enjoyed the playground. We took lotsa pictures but will post them up later coz our internet time is up. Stay tuned!!!

It’s 2am rignt now in Auckland, New Zealand! We just arrived a couple of hours ago. We had the best flight ever with Sophie. She did marvelously! Much better than we expected!

Also we managed to bring 100kg of stuff and only paid excess baggage for 10kg!!!! WOO HOO! That’s a big miracle for us. That meant that they gave us a max of 30 kg per person! Okie will update more later. So far it’s been a great journey of faith! And guess what? We checked into a "Christian" hotel! The soap etc says "Jireh"!!!!!!!! God our provider!!!! Got goosebumps as I type ah. Looks like this is owned by Christians coz they hosted the Doulos crew recently. Well will find out more tomorrow. Meanwhile James has gone to get dinner. DINNER! I’m starving and Sophie is still hypering around me. Talk later!

We finally finished packing up the house last week and handed over the keys to our tenant today. I had mixed feelings the entire day – sad to say bye to people and our home that we’ve lived in for the past 4 years YET excited about our next step.

I was wondering how Sophie was feeling about the whole thing. She didn’t even ask about her missing cot as she went about in her room at Holland. She’s settled in very well in my in laws’ place btw. Then I realised she knew exactly what was going on! My MIL asked her if she knew where her things were and she said "It’s in your house!" a matter of factly! Nothing really fazzles this little one. She takes it in her stride. I really pray that she’ll be just a matter of factly about moving to NZ.

We really enjoy staying at our in laws the past few days. Everything is provided for – childcare, food, washing etc. So nice….. We could run our errands and not worry about Sophie. My MIL is back at school but Jean, their helper has been a GREAT help in caring for Sophie while we’re out.

So what did we do on our final weekend? James had a night out with the boys on Fri, I met Beks on Sat morning, my extended family came over to my parents’ for a gathering at lunch, my sis and I went shopping at Haji lane for her birthday outfit, I hung out with Serena, Chris n Nikki at night, came home to pack, went to church today, dropped by Joshua’s bday party to say bye to the cell, had lunch with my family, met tenant and handed over the house, dinner with my in laws and came home to complete our packing. Feel like this entire process has been very thereputic – helped me to flush out what is redundant and keep what is precious.

We have reduced what we need down to 2 large, I mean REALLY LARGE suitcases (1 for Sophie and I and the other for James and misc stuff), 1 cabin bag (mostly Sophie’s books), 2 backpacks (1 for James, 1 for me) and 1 play suitcase for Sophie. Ooooo and 1 box in case we are overweight, we have to junk that box. We’re praying that the SIA people will be kind. 

Here’s the big news! I’ve been holding this for a while because we wanted to wait for all our close friends to know before blogging about it. Also we have been SOOOOOO busy preparing and packing!!!

We are going to the Family Ministries School with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Crystal Springs, Matamata, New Zealand. Our school begins on the 19th of January 2009 and will last for 6 months. There will be three months of lectures followed by three months of outreach. We will leave early next week.

Please check HERE for more information about our course and how you can be part of our adventure.

Meanwhile we are busy packing up our home so that the tenant can move in. That explains all the spring cleaning and selling of stuff. Thank God we managed to secure a tenant – they were the first to come see and confirmed it almost immediately. They are friends of friends so we are very assured that our precious little home will be kept in good condition. This will help us to provide a stable income while we are away. We’ve also been spending a lot of time with our friends and family. The weekends have been full of gatherings. We’ve received a lot of prayers, blessings and even gifts!

I’m not sure what the internet facilities will be like in NZ. We just heard that it is uber expensive SOOOOO looks like I’ve gotta fast on bloggin! Argh… another golden cow to kill. We’ll try our best to answer our emails and update our blog at least weekly.