A good mix of fun and serious

So, obviously my “I’m gonna try to frequently update this blog” was just wishful thinking. Sorry. Get ready, because here comes more squishing!

Anyway, the weekend after my last post I joined the Mott family for a day at Muriwai beach. Muriwai is a really cool beach and is very different from any of our Florida beaches.

It’s a black sand beach and it has rocky cliffs that come out over the water, and it’s at the foot of a mountain.

 It’s an absolutely gorgeous place! Nicole spared no time in getting completely soaked. She was very cute splashing around in the waves, even if she was fully clothed and not supposed to be in the water.

 Jess and I walked around and took pictures. We then hiked up the cliff. It was very cool, and very dangerous , because the waves were high enough to come over the rocks. You had to watch the water to see when a big wave was coming so you did not get hit and drug over the edge.

The view from the top was beautiful!!!!

Since Sarah couldn't join us at the beach on Saturday she and I spent the day in Downtown Auckland Sunday afternoon. After a little bit of wandering around we stopped and had delicious gelato!

While we were out walking around I found the new "What Bizarre thing has Emma Seen?" This time I found a Possum fur thong. I think this one will be hard to beat, at least, I hope it will!!!

I then had a pretty calm start to my week, with no exploding dishwashers! I spent most of my Monday picking up more magazine donations, and most of my Tuesday down in the warehouse, counting and organizing the donations. In total we had roughly 7,444!!

 I spent most of my Wednesday doing odd jobs around the office. I spent a good bit of the day doing research for survey on what percent of native Maori children were in each individual classroom. It was interesting to see how generally poorer neighbourhoods had higher percentages of Maori, and wealthier neighbourhoods had lower percentages. This surprised me. Though the Maori have historically been oppressed, they are now a very honoured group. It was surprising to me that though the Maori and their culture are honoured and embraced, they are still the poorer people.

Thursday was by far my favourite day! I woke up at 5am, and was in Downtown Auckland by 7:30 to meet a school and take them hiking up Mt. Rangetoto. Mt. Rangetoto is an inactive volcano out in the Auckland harbour. The children were so excited!

 Most of them had never been on a boat, much less hiked a volcano!

I was in charge of four, eleven year old girls and I picked up another on the way up. These are my girls!

They were fascinated with the volcanic rock, and I gave them a small science lesson on how the rock, and rock formations were made from cooled lava.

 My girls were very slow (We had to take breaks every five minutes) and the hike was very long (Seven Kilometres), so we did not make it to the top of the volcano.

 We stopped about half way up and sat down for lunch. It was heart-breaking for me to see what the girls pulled out to eat. Only three of the girls had brought lunch, and their lunch was mostly a gathering of cheap junk food. One of the girls had nothing. I split my lunch with this girl. It was heart-breaking for me to see these sweet girls with nothing. After finishing lunch and hiking back down the volcano the children gathered around us and sang to thank us. It was beautiful! Being able to interact in this way with the children was so precious!

On our boat ride back there was a rainbow! 

I'll finish up with this past Saturday. This Saturday was Jess's ball, which is the equivalent of an American Prom. It's a very big, very special day for New Zealand teens. 

Our day started out at the hairdresser. After great consideration, Jess decided to wear her hair up in a gorgeous half-back style.

After we finished at the hair salon, we headed over to get makeup. Jess picked a silvery blue style. Jess and her friend Hannah looked beautiful!

After going home and putting on her dress, Jess looked absolutely stunning!!!

I was allowed to join them for the Pre-Ball before they left for the ball.

This past week has been blessed with fun and eye-opening experiences!