Happy Birthday To Me!!!

Today is my 21st birthday!!! Whoohoo!! This will be my 5th birthday celebrated in NZ! So far it's been a good day! I got some pressies from my fam which included a straightner (the one I brought over didn't work grrr.) An umbrella for those rainy days. Although when there is rain there is usually quite a bit of wind so we will see how often I will be able to use it. Hopefully alot! I also got a sweet acoustic guitar that you can plug into an amp! Last but not least a brand new piano!! Thanks to my uncle Mike. He bought it but my auntie prefers the one they already have so we are getting it shipped over from Christchurch! I have not seen it yet but I should be getting it in the next few weeks :) I have really missed having a piano. In a few hours I am going over to my granny and grandad's house for my birthday dinner. My cake is in the oven at the moment and it smells scrumdidiliumcios! In honor of it being my birthday I threw in a few pics from when I was little! There were so many I just couldn't choose! So I put in my most favorite ones. 

Pictures Galore!

Last night I decided that i was going to go for a walk around my neighborhood and take some pictures. When I woke up this morning the weather was not the greatest. I waited until the afternoon to see if the weather got better and it was a little better. The only major downside was it was super windy. I have never experienced wind like this before. I am pretty sure if a toddler walked outside they would be blown all the way to kansas :) haha not really but they would fall down to the ground because of the strength of the wind. So I put on my big warm jacket and braced the wind to get a few pictures to put on here. The other pictures are from yesterday when we went into wellington. My brothers used my camera to take pictures while I was running around Victoria yesterday to sign up for my New Zealand Sign Language Class. A few pictures have them in them. They probably won't be too happy that I put them on here. Oh well they used my camera to take them so I can do what I want with the pictures! haha! 

This is the thing that I was talking about in my last post that you sit in the corners and you can hear the other person. 

In wellington

The view from outside my bedroom window.

Another view from outside my window

My family's cute little house :)

The view from the top of my street.

Awesome tree!

One of the many pics of Raumati Beach

Kapiti Island

Lots of junk that has washed up on the beach

The bridge I walk across to get to my favorite side of the beach :)

Awesome playground!

Inside of my freakin awesome cousin's car. My cuz in on his mission so when we get another vehicle and Jared leaves on his mission then I get this car all to myself! It has a little screen that pops out and you can play games and stuff on. Not sure if you can watch tv or not on it yet. And it has a sweet radio! oh and it is also stick shift! :) More about that after the picture fiesta!

Somwhere in Wellington. I was waiting in the car while everyone else went into the store to pickup jared's fixed laptop! So I took pics of the things around me.

I thought this was an interesting name for a cafe.

These stairs were a KILLER to walk up. There was seriously at least 100 stairs. Probably more. Scratch that definitely more.  Walking down is a breeze. But going up is a whole different story. It doesn't look like that many form the picture but trust me it was a lot worse than it looked. 

This was the first one I took so the one above is coming close to the end. 

A view of somewhere in wellington

Random statue near Victoria.

Awesome Pic

So there's a little taste of nz. I will take some more picture soon. I have a few stories to share now! Yay storytime! Right when I got here about a month ago. (wow I have already been here a month CRAZY!) I went into Victoria University to talk to the head person of the New Zealand Sign Language department. I wanted to skiI found out that there was a NZSL 101 class that i could take but it wouldn't count for anything. It would help me get a few weeks practice in before I started the 102 class. So I signed up for it because I need all the practice and exposure I can get. I had already missed the first class. But they still let me sign up. The day of my class came around. I was ready about 30 min before with my bag and jacket on. I was walking around my grandparents house trying to pass the time. Then I sat down and started talking to Caleb (Mistake #1) I then realized that i had to leave right then or I wasn't going to make it to class. I took a cell phone with me and I didn't know how to put it on silent so I turned it off (Mistake #2) As I was walking I realized that I had underestimated the distance and time it would take to get to the bus stop. (Mistake #3) So I was practically running to get to the bus stop so I could get to class. I had to stop at the light and wait to cross the street. As I was waiting there I was contemplating just taking a chance and run across the street  when there was a gap because the stupid light was taking too long. As I was thinking about this there is a sign on the light post that says stop look live. So I had just decided to wait and the little green man showed up on the stoplight. I was finally off again.  The bus stop was around the corner so I couldn't see if the bus arrived or not. I was coming up to the corner and I saw the bus pull up to the end of the street and then it was off. At this time I was thinking dang it! I should've taken up my mom's offer and had her take me to the train station. So I pulled out the trusty little cell phone (or so I thought) to get a ride to the train station. I turned on the phone but the stupid thing wanted me to enter in a code and I had no idea what it was so I couldn't use it! I decided that I wasn't going to class that night. So I got back to my grandparents house and told them that I had missed the bus. My mom told me that grandad had his train ticket and he left to go follow the bus so he could give me his ticket to save me 10 dollars. So even if the cell phone had worked I wouldn't have been able to get a ride anyway. But I have gotten to the last 2 classes alright. Although I have my mom take me to the train station. :)  I am also learning to drive stick shift. I don't have any funny or interesting stories about that yet... It is actually pretty hard. Not just the stick shift part. I have to really concentrate to make sure I don't turn into upcoming traffic and I get the car moving. I turn the windshield wipers on more than the blinkers. But I think with a week's practice I will be a pro! It seems that whenever I sit down to do a post I forget most of the things that i want to write down. But a few other things I start school a week from Monday!! I am excited it should be fun!! Well that's all I got and I am going to go get ready for my cousins dance concert! 

Weezer..

I can't seem to post the video from youtube. LAME!! So here is the link for Weezer's new music video "Pork and Beans" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9YBppbBFo#

They compiled a bunch of youtube videos for their music video and it is hilarious!!! I love Weezer's music videos!!

The Adventure Begins...

Well it took me a lot longer than I had planned for my next post. The main reason being I have not really had internet. Well actually when some of my family moved into our new house we had internet but no computer :( But now my laptop and camera has arrived!!! yay! So I don't have any pictures yet. So this post is going to be pretty wordy. 

Just a quick update with those who don't know my family has moved to NZ as well. We have this joke in our family now that I was moving half way across the world to get away from them but they are following me!! haha! anyways I am actually glad that they are here. It would've been a little bit tougher to adjust. When I told people I was moving to nz a lot of them were like wow that is a huge change. I guess I never thought of it that way. I've grown up with kiwi parents and all my family live in nz so even though I had never been there it still felt like a second home to me.

I pretty much am in love with New Zealand!!! It is the complete opposite of AZ. Everything is so green and hilly and rainy and it is pure bliss :) I haven't really done too much sightseeing. Because me, mum and caleb were waiting for my dad and brother to arrive. So we have been hanging out with my mum's side of the family. It has been awesome to have tons of family around again. We had a big family dinner the sunday after me and caleb arrived. It was a ton of fun! Catching up with family and meeting cousins for the first time and all that jazz. Other than just chillin I have gone down to Victoria University and got some things sorted out for classes. We went to this museum that had some cool things in it. They had this earthquake house that was pretty cool. Although it would be nothing like a real earthquake. They had this really cool thing outside. It was shaped like an amphitheater. If you sit at the top in the corner and someone does the same in the other corner. You put your face up against the wall and whisper against it the other person can hear you clearly as if you were sitting next to them even though they are about 20 feet away. That was pretty awesome. We are renting a cute little house that has been nicely furnished!! it is in the perfect location. It is about a 5 min walk to the village, about a 10 min drive to Coastlands which has all the stores you need. The best part is it is a 5 min walk to the beach!!! I have been going down to the beach everyday! Before I had only been to the beach like 3 times that I can remember. So I am lovin it! I even went swimming even though it is winter here. But I will definitely post some pictures soon. It won't be a month before I post them because I am back on the internet!!

Some new and not so new things learned but have listed them anyway...

* If you have a good pair of walking shoes and know how to catch a bus or a train then you don't really need a car. 

* Clouds move faster.

* NZ is probably one of the greatest places to live. 

*When driving a car in nz, a right turn is actually a left turn and a left turn is actually a right turn. Did you follow that? It can be pretty confusing. 

* Kiwi's have the second best accent in the world! (British have the first:) )

*Kiwi's have cooler words for things:

             candy = lollies

             hood = bonnet

             trunk = boot

             cookie = biscut

             goodbye = cheers

            chips = french fries

            roomates = flatmates

            apartment = flat

            soda = fizzy

            popsicle = ice block

            sweater = jersey

            flip flops = jandals

            swimsuit = togs

            speed bump = judder bar

            sprite = lemonade

            elevator = lift

There are tons more but I don't want to list them all. 

* Soda is SO much more fizzier over here and it stays that way longer. I don't know why that is. When I drink some it burns really really bad. 

* L& P ( a fizzy drink) is the best soda!!! It stands for Lemon and a town that I don't know how to spell. The town is famous for making it and they have a big bottle of L&P in the middle of their town.

* They have really good food. Some favorites are: marmalade, vegemite, steak pies, fish and chips, peanut slabs, pineapple lumps, chocolate fish, milo and others that I can't think of at the moment. 

* They put really weird stuff on their pizza like spaghetti, corn, and potato. Not all together of course that would be gross.  I haven't tried the spaghetti pizza yet but I have tried other types and they were actually really good. 

* There are so many cafe's here. There are probably the same amount of cafe's here as there are fast food places in Mesa. 

* In Wellington they build houses pretty much into the side of these huge hills. People who live on the top of these hills have a chair that glides up on an electric rail straight to their house. How cool is that!

* Disney Channel NZ plays old school shows that I used to watch when I was 13 like Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens.

* NZ is the bomb (dot) com. enough said

Quickie...

I just wanted to type a short note and say that I have arrived in New Zealand!!! YAY!!! I would post some pictures, but you are going to have to wait awhile for those. Why you might ask? It is because I am an idiot! Yes it is true and I will tell you why. I was over at the Robinson's house packing the last few items for caleb. We were weighing our bags so we would'nt be charged for overweight bags. It is now $100 dollars if you are over 50 lbs. Yikes! Anyways we were about to leave for the airport and I thought I had grabbed all of the bags. I drove all the way to the airport and sorted out mine and Caleb's passports and tickets and was almost ready to head into the airport. I started looking around for my laptop bag. Then I realized that I had left it at the robinson's. There was no time to go back and get it. So I have to wait three weeks until Jared comes over and he will bring it for me. I had quite a few things in there that I don't necessarily need but want. Like my laptop, camera, and a jacket. Oh well. The flights were good. Although the one from San Francisco to Sydney was forever and a day long. I thought we would run out of gas and crash into the ocean before we got there. There was some pretty scary parts on that plane ride and I thought I was going to die. I was probably overreacting but I think you would've thought the same thing. But it is pretty much amazing here! I love it so much! I will do a better post in the next few days and let y'all know what I have been up to!