Twelve

Her birth is somewhat of a haze. A very drug induced, dry heaving on the O.R. table kind of haze. I'll spare all the details, because if you're like me, blogs are best served up while eating breakfast and we can't have anyone losing their appetite for their green smoothie now can we (wink). Having a C-section was definitely not in my birthing plan, but holding her for the first time, her tiny body molding to mine like a missing puzzle piece, I knew without a doubt that I was born to be her mother. And twelve years later I believe that more than ever. Somehow that 6 lb baby girl has grown into this incredible young woman who can nail any impersonation, always smells like a Bath and Body works store and has mastered the fine art of the duck face selfie. But most importantly she has such a kind heart, looks out for the underdog, realizes that the love of family is a treasure, has a testimony that burns bright, is confident, self assured and never hesitates to stand up for what she believes in. So grateful that not only is she my daughter, but my best friend as well. She requested crepes and combat boots for her birthday. And I can't believe I'm old enough to have already recycled through two complete fashion eras. This generation has dabbled in the 80's for the past few years, but now the combat boots and plaid shirts are pretty much my regurgitated senior year wardrobe. 1998 called, they want their grunge back. But this girl can pull off any look and we do wear the same shoe size in case I ever want to borrow them. First I'll just have to dig up a pair of overalls with one strap undone and tie a plaid shirt around my waist. While we're on the subject, am I the only one who has noticed that this generation of girls somehow seem to be exempt from that awkward tween stage? I mean, when I was her age my hair can best be described as a red triangular poodle. And make-up was doing absolute no favors for me. Apparently the goal was not to have every color of the rainbow represented on your face after all. But all the young girls these days are so beautiful and so mature. It must be all the moms determined to not let their daughters slide down that same slippery slope of bad perms and blue eye shadow. She also requested a birthday photo shoot, which I am not one to turn down a photo op. We were going on day 16 of fall break and had entered survival mode, so while the boys slid down the stairs on plastic container lids, we had a little too much fun working the camera. It involved blow dryers and cats and smelling armpits and the gardener and lots of laughing. This girl is a guarantee for laughs. Later that night she invited over a few friends to make homemade pizzas, play night games at the park and eat shark inspired cupcakes (sharks are her latest craze). It was fun to have a day to celebrate this girl that brings so much joy into our lives.  Happy birthday, baby girl. Because no matter how old you are, you'll always be my baby girl.

She also got this for her birthday, not sure if they're just a NZ thing, but the hours of entertainment have given me a strong conviction that they need to be introduced to the states.

and everything in between

We'll just cut right to the chase. Apparently head lice is a pretty common occurance here. The "got nits" car parked outside the school weekly and notices sent home almost as often sort of tipped me off. But it was still traumatizing when Maddox got his first case.The treatmen smelled like a candy cane factory explosion in our house and it burned like a mother, but he was a trooper (with the saddest face ever). He did get to skip school the next day and admitted that lice was a small price to pay for clearanced sand toys and a morning at the park. We've had another case since then, so this was the first and I have a feeling it is far from our last. I've spent many sleepless nights certain I could feel lice crawling through my hair, but so far I've had a clean bill of health. Judy reassured me that if I did get lice she had the fool proof remedy to kill them off. Just go to a salon and get your hair dyed. It works every time and is a treatment highly recommended by no hair stylist anywhere. Ever. Or the clients after her.

It was Kylie's turn for school camp. They snuck 5 girls to sleep in a two person tent, went on an 8hr hike (or so she says. she's known to be a little dramatic.), played Spotlight, learned about eels, rolled down hills and their teacher played (a very mild) truth or dare with them at night. She loved it. Every last bit of it.

The boy's school had a disco dance. Maddox was so excited, he insisted on being fancy and wore a button up shirt with his hair parted on the side. And then he sat like a wall flower almost the entire night. The older grades had their dance afterwards and after a quick date night (to a place that boasted to be just like Chipotle but the $10 bowl of rice, canned black beans and iceberg lettuce almost made us cry) Jason and I went to pick up Jayden and spied on him for a minute. I still remember how this boy would steal the show with his dance moves. His claim to fame are winning a dance contest at 2 different birthday parties and a wedding reception (which involved wearing a garter belt around his forehead). And now he's all grown up with a swagger as he walks around with his friends, way too cool to actually dance.

I finally got somewhat of a picture with his cute friend, Christian. We spent the morning at Tumble Time and when I tried to explain to him where we were going I told him it was like ninja training. So he insisted on wearing his best ninja head band reserved for special occasions. It just so happens to be a sparkly orange ribbon. I'll be honest, he got a few looks.

How is that during the day this boy can test every last one of my nerves but at night after he's gone to bed I look at these pictures and turn to mush? He is Grade A rotten at church. He refuses to go to nursery and it's a nightmare wrestling with him for three straight hours. I go home with buttons popped off, necklaces broken and hair falling in my face as I swear through my teeth that Sunday is the absolute worst day of the week. But then he goes and insists on wearing his rain boots to church and that construction hat and I'm all like, how can I be mad at that?

This year the girls 8 and up were invited to attend the women's broadcast portion of General Conference. I was surprised to show up to an almost empty chapel and no other girls her age. You can imagine how awkward she felt when the woman giving the talk (being broadcasted from Salt Lake) invited all the young girls to stand up and sing. And so it was like a solo. Then we all joined her to make it a little less painful.  But it was an uplifting and inspirational meeting and I loved being there with her. We ended the night eating Burger King in the car and watching Youtube videos while rain streamed down the windows.

We were also able to attend the New Beginnings night for all girls coming into the Young Women's program this year. They did such a great job with the decorations, and the food was nothing short of a Thanksgiving feast. But more importantly this means she's growing up and I am getting really old.

Ryder continues to love Kindy, as long as I am there. I've been leaving for 15 minute increments each day and he still manages to scream the entire time. But when I'm there he has a great time playing with cars, digging in the sandbox and doing craft projects like this. Um, yeah...I think we need to address this whole well rounded education thing.

Maddox learned to pump himself. And thank goodness, I'm getting pretty underdogged out these days. He sure is proud of himself and it is pretty cute seeing those little legs in action.

Maddox is obsessed with Man vs Wild. April has been the rainiest month yet and the river bed behind our house has just been calling his name waiting to be explored. He wants to be Bear Grylls when he grows up. Either that or a chef, you know, because they're pretty much the same thing. If he's not looking for shelter or tying to make a spear then he is in the kitchen creating recipes. I don't want to stifle his creativity, but making cookies out of mashed bananas is not a very clean process. Neither is his homemade applesauce. Today we were all out picking weeds while Maddox was inside trying to make mashed potatoes and set up a fancy tray to serve ice cream. What I would give to spend a day in that boy's head.

For the second week of fall break I told the kids they could each pick a day to do whatever they wanted (within reason). Maddox wanted a whole entire day of craft projects. Of course he did. The poor kid has been making kites out of notebook paper and skewers, so it was about time I choked down the $10 box of Crayola markers and got this kid some decent craft supplies. We painted and glued and cut and even made the entire cast of Nemo out of modeling clay. Well, Kylie and Maddox did, I can't take too much credit since my Crush wasn't quite up to par.

For Ryder's day we went to the museum at Hagley park. We learned more than we ever needed to know about mucus at the Body Alive exhibit, squirmed at the human hand and dead animals floating in jars in the discovery room then relaxed and ate ice cream at the cafe overlooking the gorgeous fall leaves in the park while the boys played with cars. And just so you know, Hagley is still looking all kinds of gorgeous these days.

On Kylie's free day she chose candy and a movie marathon at home. Also to note, I made them all watch Mary Poppins. It took Jayden a full 2 days to forgive me, which is about a month shorter than the amount of time it took him to forgive me for making him watch The Sound of Music. But I still catch him humming the songs every now and then. Some day he'll appreciate it. For Jayden's free day he chose McDonald's then walking around Kmart to compile his birthday wish list (that's still three months away). While we were there Ryder had his heart set on these cars, but at the going rate of $50 for 4 small die cast cars, I didn't know how to break it to him that it just ain't happening. Then Jayden requested that we go home and look up instructions to rebuild some of his lego kits. Four hours later I could barely see straight, but we rebuilt four kits.

We spent Anzac Day with our friends, the Tovey's at Castle Rock Hill. The weather was gorgeous when we left, then we arrived to a black sky and buckets of rain. So we ate lunch in the car while deciding what to do, but by the time we were done the skies were perfectly clear again. I swear, Mother Nature has the mood swings of teenage girl. And I think that just about covers all the nooks and crannies of our life lately.

Grand finale

It's funny, when we mentioned to friends, co-workers and my friendly neighborhood Pak n' Save cashier that we were going to the Catlins most of them had never even heard of it. And they were all born and raised here. Granted, we had the Grand Canyon in our back yard and the last time we went was 11 years ago. We took a tiny charter plane (cue panic attack) filled with Japanese tourists, Kylie was a baby and threw up all over the people behind us. It's very hard to apologize in a different language for your baby upchucking all over the only pair of clothes they have to wear for the next 8 hours and to apologize to the entire plane that the rest of the flight will now smell like vomit. Maybe we haven't gone back yet because we're still not fully recovered. Man, even I lost my train of thought with that tangent. Where was I...it's a shame that so many people have missed out on this little pocket of the country because it has shot right to the top of my list of favorites, and it is next to impossible to pick favorites here. It was a long drive home but I had a whole list of stops along the way to break it up. First up was Tunnel Hill, an old abandoned railway tunnel that was dug out entirely by hand picks and shovels. It took years to finish and two workers lost their lives in the process. Which of course led the kids to believe it was haunted and they spent the whole walk looking for catacombs and humming the Indiana Jones theme song.

I love all the beautiful old churches in the small towns we drive through.

After eating lunch at a park where my fingers turned to ice while I sliced apples, we explored Tunnel Beach (apparently we have a tunnel theme going on here). The weather warmed up and we couldn't believe how lucky we were to get three days of no rain. So the story of this beach is that in the 1800's the wealthy Cargill family that founded Dunedin wanted a private beach away from the prying eyes of the public, so they had a tunnel excavated through sandstone to access a remote and pristine private beach. This was a birthday gift for his daughter who tragically drowned at that same beach a short time after. It is set among a wild and stunning coastline and has sort of a Shakespearean tragedy vibe. I give it a 9 out of 10 stars, only because I could do without the long treacherous walk back up carrying 3 coats, 1 a dump truck, a 5 year old on my back and a partridge in a pear tree. But no pain no gain.

The beach can only be accessed through this long narrow tunnel

Not only was the beach spectacular, but there were so many caves, tunnels and huge climbing rocks to keep the kids entertained for days. The sandstone cliffs are supposedly filled with fossils and whale remains and are a geologist's dream, but we were too busy playing to pay much attention.

We'll call this "staring off into the horizon and contemplating the purpose of life"

We'll call this "staring off into the horizon and contemplating the purpose of life, part II"

So I took like 10 pictures in here because this eerie blue light kept showing up in each one. I'm not saying this place is haunted, but I am saying I don't blame that poor girl who drowned if she wants to keep coming back here. It is pretty amazing after all.

So, Dunedin. Let's talk. Everyone said to not waste our time in Dunedin. And I am loving it when I set my expectations low then get blown out of the water. Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but really. You and your charming architecture and street side cafes just need to stop being so cute. You're making all the other cities look bad. It really did make me so sad that we didn't get to experience Christchurch before the earthquake, from what I gather it was all this and then some.

We spotted this spire from the freeway (which do you know just how rare a freeway is in NZ) and like all good husbands do, Jason tracked it down so we could pop in and ogle at the ornate interior.

Of course we had to visit Baldwin street, the steepest residential street in the world. Once a year they have this Jaffa race where they roll tens of thousands of these iconic round candies down the street. Can you just imagine. Years ago some kids died while trying to race down in garbage cans. So many tragedies!

So this was the grand finale, the piece resistance, the icing on the cake, the cherry on top. You get the point. First there's a lighthouse. You know by now how I feel about lighthouses. Then we walked out on this peninsula that was bursting at the seams with wildlife. Seal pups splashing in tide pools, penguins returning to the beach after a long day of fishing and giant sea birds (yes, that's totally their technical name) nesting in the cliffs. Then they all started climbing up the peninsula and before we knew it there were seals wrestling only a few feet away and penguins waddling right at our feet. I mean you haven't really lived life until you've seen a penguin waddle in real life. It's the cutest. And then we were graced with the most spectacular sunset. The ever changing sky just kept competing with the animals for our attention. And being able to experience it all with the people I love was just so surreal. I wanted to inhale it all in and never exhale out.

This picture makes me laugh because it is just so Maddox. He is so odd in the absolute best way possible. Always the very last, always talking to himself and never walking in a straight line. At this moment he was deep in thought about the best way to make his own bread dough. He came to the conclusion that it would have to be by soaking a piece of bread in water. And that's all he talked about the entire way home and it's the very first thing he did when he woke up the next morning. Imagine his disappointment when it didn't work.

We had one last stop in Oamaru to eat pizza at a park with one of our favorite Arizona missionaries that got transferred here from our current ward. Of all the things we did this park was a fan favorite among the kids. All the parks here are pretty awesome, but this one takes the cake with this huge slide, hamster wheel, disc swing, trains and zip line. Plus the sky was clear and the stars were beyond spectacular. Without any light polution we could see the Milky Way, not just stars but like a real galaxy. And then we saw blue penguins (not to be confused with the yellow eyed penguins we saw earlier). I know, like this trip just keeps trumping itself. The missionaries showed us the best place to see them at the wharf and after searching long and hard Kylie spotted one and we were so excited. Ryder still remembers to bless the blue penguins in his breakfast prayers. And thus concludes the Young's take the Catlins portion of our New Zealand adventure. And it's one of my favorite chapters yet.