New Zealand Birds and Flowers

This bird looks like it has a hat on but it kept moving so fast that it was hard to get a good picture.

This is outside of the Cafe Espanlade in the park.

October 20, 2013

Palmerston North

This is a view of the river and golf course in Palmerston North.  We went there Saturday for the monthly senior couples dinner.  This is a view from Anzac Park.

Before lunch we all went to the Rugby Museum located in the center of town.

Afterward we went to a small cafe which is only open for breakfast and lunch and is located in the middle of a beautiful park.

October 20, 2013

Young Men/Young Women Activity

Our ward does not have a scouting program so the McVey's and ourselves were asked to teach them how to build a fire. We decided to also teach them to cook silver turtles (tin foil dinners) which included meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and especially for them pumpkin and squash.  They had never eaten them before but really enjoyed them.  They met at the church before going to the beach to make their own dinners.  All the meat and vegetables were precut and ready to assemble.

Two teams competed against each other to see which team could build a fire and burn the string first.  This team won for the girl's team.

We didn't realize that it was high tide so they had to move inland to build the fires.

Sister Humphries is the Young Women's President and she is in the middle in the yellow jacket.

Afterwards Elder McVey did an object lesson which two dollar bills and that the value is the same even is one is new and the other one is crumpled and dirty.  All the youth and the leaders seemed to enjoy the activity.

October 16, 2013

Tulips

Saturday, September 22nd was a beautiful day and spring is here and the tulips  were blooming in the Botanical Gardens.

They bloomed a few weeks earlier than expected.

It was such a nice day that we spent about 3 hours just walking around, sitting down and enjoying the sun.

September 22, 2012

Sara McInally

Sara McInally was over the maintenance and safety of all of the Internal Affairs Offices in Wellington.  Her office was located in the Archives Building where we work.  She was 28 and seemed to have her life in complete order.  She had a PhD, had a great job and had just purchased her first home. Don always loved to see her in the morning with her matching coat and hat and she always was very friendly and full of life.  We saw her on Thursday, September 13th when she came to check to see if we had a fire extinguisher and when we didn't she joked and said, "Well don't start any fires until we can get this fixed."  Life changed drastically on Sunday, September 16th at a little before 10:00 in the morning.  Sara went to the Internal Affairs Office located on Lambton Quay and went to the roof and jumped to her death from the 12th floor.  We are still trying to figure out why she would have taken her life.  She will always be remembered.

September 16, 2012

Rugby Game

Torrential rains and gale force winds in the afternoon didn't stop us from attending the Rugby Game between New Zealand and Argentina  in the evening.  Luckily, the rain and wind had died down by the time the game started.  We only had one power outage at the end of half time.

Rugby is played in two 40 minute sections with a 15 minute break.  There are no stops during  play so the game moves very fast.

Before the game starts the national anthems are sung.  New Zealand sings  theirs first in Maori and then in English.

The Haka is performed before each game.  It is an ancient war chant that is directed against their opponents.

It was a great game with New Zealand winning 21-5.

September 8, 2012

Bucket List

 On Don's bucket list of things to do before leaving New Zealand was to golf on one of the golf courses.

His dream came true on August 6, 2012 when the Stake President George Harvey (who is member of the Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club invited Don, President Kezerian and Tom McVey to play golf with him.  This is a links course so it was a little different course for him.  He had to rent clubs and had to play without his golf shoes.  It wasn't his best score but he loved every minute of it.

August 6, 2012