Summer Break

This past NZ summer (December & January), I headed down to the South Island and stayed with a friend from school and her family. They live about 30 mins outside of Christchurch (yes, where the big earthquakes have been) in a town called Sefton. Her name is Esther and we were roommates the first 10 weeks of school and it was SO wonderful to spend 3 weeks with her and her family. I was really missing home over Christmas so it was nice to have a family to spend the holidays with and that made me feel at home.

This is me, Esther and two other girls from school that traveled down with us to the South Island. We stopped in Levin, which is near Wellington in the North Island, to play around on their GIANT playground. Always a good stop.

This is me, James, Holly and Kelsey on the ferry to the South Island. It was a really fun trip across and since it was the first time I went across during the day, I actually got to see the cool views the whole time!

This is a waterfall at the top of another waterfall near Kiakoura. We decided it would be fun to climb up to the top of the first waterfall even though we didn't really see a path for it and it definitely was!

Here's me, Esther, Kelsey and Holly at the top of a hill near Esther's house at sunset. It was really pretty and we had a lot of laughs taking pictures.

I love this picture of me and Esther. We're on the port hills looking at Christchurch.

Esther's family have sheep, 3 alpacas, some pigs, chickens, cats, turtles and lots of dogs. When I was there, they had to shear their sheep for summer so I got to "help" with shearing one of them. Really all I did was hold the shaver thing and the farmer-shearer-dude (yes, wearing very tight jeans) held my hand. But it was still really cool! NZ has definitely opened my eyes to the world of farming.

Here's Esther's mom, Fiona and her getting the gross parts of the wool off so the rest can go in a big bag to be sold.

Here is "Blob". Esther's family breeds Dachshund and this little guy is only a few weeks old and is SO CUTE! I really really wanted to steal him and take him to school with me, but I don't think the Ward's would have appreciated that.

Here's a Saturday market we went to in Lyttleton with some of Esther's friends. Lyttleton is where the center of the last big earthquake was down there. It was crazy that I was in that area for 3 solid weeks not long before it happened. All of Esther's friends and family were ok but they've had a lot of adjusting to do to say that least.

Here's a fun pic of New Year's Eve. I hung out with Esther and her friends at one of their houses and we mostly played card games the whole night. It was a lot of fun.

This is me at the Rose Garden in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. After walking around me and Esther and her sisters just relaxed on the lawn area for a couple hours. My time with her and her family was SO relaxing and chill. It was an awesome blend of doing stuff but taking time to chill.

Another fun thing we did was spend a couple nights at Esther's friend's cabin in Akaroa which is out in the peninsula near Christchurch (about an hour and a half away). The view from their place was Amazing. It was so much fun to eat yummy food, play games and laugh and laugh and laugh since all her friends were Hilarious!

Here I am picking gooseberries. They look like green grapes but with light green lines on them and are in really thorny bushes. We picked a ton and then make gooseberry pie for dessert which was scrumptious.

This picture was Obviously taken with a timer on a car :) It's in Akaroa and it was my first NZ lighthouse! Little did I know that they get WAY better further south.

Here's Joel, James, myself and Esther at the beginning of a 3 day hike on Mt. Somers. James is from Geraldine (about 2 hours from Christchurch) and Joel's Canadian but was staying with James over Christmas. It was good to see the guys again, even if it had only been a few weeks since school had gotten out.

The first day of hiking was really cool. It was windy and when we were on the top of hills I was sure I was going to fall off! We got to our first hut relatively early so we went off exploring down this stream. We ended up climbing rocks and swimming in this pool that was part of the stream which was freezing but fun.

the next day... not so much...

The second day was POURING down rain! We hiked for about 3 hours in it and it was cold and we got soaked. It wasn't too bad because we didn't have long to hike but this is the hut we stayed in the second night and we basically chilled in here the second day after hiking. We had a lot of time to kill so we read through the book of Luke, each of us reading a chapter at a time which was pretty sweet. It made for a great memory and lots of adventure crossing streams and rivers!

Here's James, Joel and me exploring some rocks.

Here's Esther and me on the third day as we headed out of the mountain.

And we survived! haha just kidding. it wasn't a too hard of a track and we saw so many cool views! I'm really glad it worked out for all of us to go and it will be a trip I'll never forget!

I felt SO blessed that the Ward's took me into their home. I really felt like they became family and they way they showed they cared about me was incredible. Esther's dad is really into cars and would always make sure my car was up to par and helped me a ton with my itinerary for Amy and I traveling. Esther's mom and I would have tons of talks about the differences between the US and NZ. Her sisters all had such different fun personalities and it was super neat to get to know them well enough to be a part of jokes and teasing. I tried thanking them a ton for hosting me but I always felt like I couldn't thank them enough. They will for sure be my favorite kiwi family I know!