Category: Blog

Despite our distance from friends and family, we were able to celebrate a festive Thanksgiving in Westport, complete with all of the culinary elements of a traditional American feast and a great group of new friends.  Finding turkeys in New Zealand is a bit of a challenge, but after many phone calls, conversations and web…… Continue reading Giving Thanks, Westport Style

Well, today was the Muddy Buddy– an annual race through the Orowaiti River flats at low tide.  The goal for the 1KM course is not to be the fastest, but to be the dirtiest and most mud-caked.  We bravely entered as a family and claimed that Rose was a year older than she actually is…… Continue reading The Muddy Buddy

One of the novelties (for us) of our house in Westport is a garage and, more importantly, a garage door opener.  This cutting edge technology has fascinated us all, particularly the girls.  It is also our good fortune to NOT have a remote opener.  So, when we leave the house, someone has to or–perhaps more…… Continue reading Making a Run for It

It’s true, I left Jeremy and the girls in Westport to spend 5 days in a resort on a tropical island in the Pacific.  Well, you have to keep up with your CME, right? The hardest part was buying my plane ticket.  The Cook Islands are just on the other side of the International Date Line,…… Continue reading Rarotonga: My Cook Islands WORK TRIP

Well, four of us (dad and the kids) experienced our first severe earthquake last night.  Meanwhile, Dara was still away at her “conference” in the South Pacific tropics–for some reason her flight home was “canceled” and she had to stay for an extra day of kidless hiking, snorkeling and swimming. A 7.5 scale quake struck the…… Continue reading Earthquake! (and we are fine)

Here’s Hazel’s debut under the big tent: img_5396 She may be hitting the road with the troupe in the near future.

Who knew that Dara is a super hero who can leap giant rivers in a single bound?

We tried to take advantage of this past weekend to get out and about to a few places nearby that we hadn’t yet visited.  So, on Saturday we drove about an hour to Lyell where there’s a hiking trail to an old gold mine site.  Lyell is also the start of the Old Ghost Road–a…… Continue reading Weekend Hikes and Romps – Oct 29-30

As the new Americans in town, we weren’t quite sure what to expect for Halloween in Westport.  On the one hand, the middle school held a Halloween “disco” for the kids last Friday night which was pretty well attended; on the other, we had heard from folks around town that trick-or-treating wasn’t really a big…… Continue reading Halloween 2016