On Christmas Day, we woke up to a warm but overcast sky. Vanessa picked us up at our backpackers, and we headed to Point Chevalier to spend the day with her and Graham at her friends' Nicky and Merv's house. They are friends of Vanessa's from Dunedin who have recently moved to Auckland to be closer to the grandkids. They spent the day with their grandkids and gave the six of us free reign of their house, deck, and proximity to the beach for our Christmas Day celebrations.
After skyping Mom and Dad and Mem and Pep and the Humora gang to wish them happy Christmas Eve, we sat down to a delicious breakfast of streaky bacon (what American bacon is called here) and Dad's famous
Nicaraguan tortillas made once again by Todd. Yum!!!
After breakfast, it was present time! Vanessa played Father Christmas, and a good time was had by all. We blinged Elena and Lorena out with a ton of NZ paraphenalia, Todd got all things sporty (backyard cricket set, cricket ball, cricket book, mini bocce game), and I got all the things I love about New Zealand (ponamu, mini teaspons, fire warden arm band).
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| Lorena & Elena with some of their New Zealand bling. |
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| Vanessa gave me a double twist pounamu (greenstone) necklace which is a very Kiwi thing but something that you're not supposed to buy for yourself but get given as a gift. |
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| Todd is now fully equipped to play cricket. |
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| Graham's calendar is 12 months of Goats in Trees! |
The most suprising thing I got was a t-shirt with the little graffiti guy on it!! Vanessa screen printed him onto a t-shirt, and it's so cool!!! Now there will be a little graffiti guy wandering New Zealand.
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| On my face...complete shock. |
After all the presents were opened, we took a stroll to the beach to see how it looked for our soon-to-be Beach Cricket game. We saw all sorts of families at the beach celebrating Christmas with barbeques, swimming, and all around beach merriment.
Vanessa and Graham produced an amazing summer Christmas dinner - ham, chicken, salads,
pavlova (national Christmas dessert of New Zealand. Vanessa and Graham bravely decided to show four Americans how to play beach cricket. You may not know that Beach Cricket and Backyard Cricket have different rules than official Cricket, and these rules are determined by the players...or the only Kiwis in the game. Regardless, the essence of what we needed to do was just like real Cricketers - bowl, bat, and run. We all took our turns and tried our best, but I was so pathetic that a group of 5 Samoan lads passing by were so taken aback (by this I mean doubled over with laughter) at my batting skills that they decided to join our game to help Graham and Vanessa school us in proper Cricketing. Needless to say, hilarity ensued, and we had more fun than the six of us thought was possible.
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| And here come the Samoans... |
Even though it may not be obvious from the pictures, we need LOTS more practice, so the cricket set travels with us, ready for any opportunity to play. The set will also be coming back to America with us, because who knows if you can even get one in the US.
Hope your Christmas was as lovely as ours!
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