My First Date in New Zealand!

Yep you heard right everyone! I had my first date in New Zealand. It was so so good. I think there will definitely be a second maybe even a 100 more. It was so so sweet and I really didn't want it to end. *sigh* Here is a picture...
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Homemade Date scones are the best things ever! Yes...I mean the fruit. ;)

Pool Jump!

Just in case I haven't mentioned this to anyone but....IT IS SO COLD! I went to over 100 degree weather in Hurricane to really cold degrees Celsius here. Today was actually a decent day in weather. I wouldn't say it was warm but a good enough day that we went on an amazing run on Milford beach to Takapuna Beach. So wonderful!! After our run we are sitting in the kitchen and i look outside and say "Keri, I just had this huge urge to jump in that swimming pool." "Let's do it!" she says. So we just jumped right in with our running clothes and it was pretty dang cold you could say. Very memorable but definitely a once in a lifetime thing. Here is the video! And don't be fooled by the sunshiney blue skies! haha so fun. I love this girl!

Waterbuddies!

Water buddies! Every kids favorite drink here in good ol' NZ. These guys are one of the sponsors for the Polkadot National tour and so in return they will be doing some advertising for the Water buddies during the tour and Pamela, with her amazing sewing skills, made a costume of one of the water buddies' characters, Carter. They went to present the costume to the business and I was the lucky one who got to dress up as Carter. haha The character Carter was based off of the business owners' son and he was there and hid underneath the chair when he saw me. His Dad said that was his way of saying he loved it. haha I believe him. So here is my lovely Carter Costume experience...you never know what the day brings here at the Reid household.

Kiwi Wanna Be...

Enjoy this gem that Keri and I made. We definitely are Kiwi Wanna Be's while here in New Zealand...we are pretty gangsta you could say!

Toddler Olympics

Carly does this thing about every week or so where she gets a bunch of moms and their kids for a little get together. In honor of the Olympics they had a toddler Olympics. It was so cute. I think it would be fun to do something like this back home for parents and their kids and just do free fun and cheap activities at the church eh? We'll see! Until then...Enjoy the pictures

Swimming race!

Carly showing the kids how to do the hurdle race!

the kids jumping over the "hurdles" 

Receiving their medals!

Brookie!!

Yes! he was so happy to get a medal!

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Lost in New Zealand..

So I realize that my last post I talked about being lost but I don't technically count that as my fault. Well this time...it was definitely my fault. I decided to take Brookie, Charlotte and Ashton to the park by Carly's house while Keri and Carly got some work done for the tour. Carly explained to me how to get to the park and then said, "Just follow Ashton. He goes there heaps of times and knows where it is." So we are walking down the road and then Ashton runs up and pushes the button to cross the street. I had a conflicting moment because I was almost sure Carly didn't mention crossing the street but then she also said Ashton knows where he is going. We end up crossing the street with two toddlers on their little plastic bikes and the stroller. We walk down a gigantic hill and then make a turn...because Ashton made a turn. It led to a dead end. Anyways, we end up on this trail that looked promising. We are half way down the trail and Brookie turns to me and says..."Kenzay (accent) I think we are in the jungle. And there are lots of tigers in here." Which as you can see it did look like the jungle. She was so adorable with her little bike trying to figure out where we were going.

Yay! We found the park!

I ask Ashton one more time..."Ashton is this the right way?" "YEP!" says Ashton. Anyways, we turn around and finally find the park. Once we arrive we are there for about 20 mins and Ashton wets himself so we started the trek back home. The kids are exhausted by now and so I was super talented and carried the two plastic bikes and pushed the stroller. Brookie tried to carry Ashton because he was tired but that didn't work out so well. Once the adventure was over we were gone for a total of 2 hours and was at the park for twenty minutes of both of those hours. So the moral of the story is no matter what Carly says don't take directions from a 3 year old no matter how cute and confident he seems or you might end up in the jungle. :)

Charlotte on the slide! Such a good baby :) 

Earlier that day though Ashton and I were playing cars and a song came on and did some interpretive dancing for Ashton and he was just frozen and stared at me the whole time. When I was done he laughed and said "Again!". Yes, I am THAT good at interpretive dancing. So both of us really enjoyed listening to the Dinosaur train song and danced to it. I obviously got a lot more into it then he did. Adventurous day you could say!

Temple Day!

Man sometimes you take for granted that the temple is only 20mins away from where you are. It is at least a two hour drive to the temple here located in Hamilton, New Zealand. A bunch of girls and I decided to make a day's trip out of it. It was quite eventful you could say. These girls are so much fun and we all get along great. We are already making plans for them to come experience Hurricane,UT in the future.Brittany was our driver and although we were safe we spent a lot of the day making U-turns or missing our exits or even ending up in the same place twice. haha It made the trip very memorable and I know deep down she was just being a sweetheart and trying to show me more of New Zealand.;) Elise and I made sure and documented everything and here is one of our silly videos that we filmed.

we finally made it to Pocono (spelling?) and got some delicious ice cream!

The temple was beautiful though. It was very very small as well. I love that the church is the same wherever you go. We all are feeling the same spirit and believe and teach the same things.

One thing that I have felt while being here is just a huge sense of gratitude for my own life and the way I was raised. In Utah we don't realize how unique our situation is having members all around us. Of course there are still opportunities for missionary work but we have a strong support system in the church and a long history. I had an interview with the Bishop here last week to get a temple recommend and it was so good. He asked about my Dad being Bishop and the challenges and blessings it brings. (he was just put in about 6months ago). Then we started talking about my Grandpa randomly and how he was stake president. The Bishop was just amazed at the history of leadership in the church my family had. He asked if the membership began with my grandpa and we talked a little bit about my ancestors.When I told him I had ancestors that were pioneers his jaw just dropped and he said "Do you know how blessed you are?" Now what I am telling you is a pretty normal thing in Utah and with the people I know. The membership goes back to many many years ago. People here are either 1st or 2nd generation members of the church. It has just been a good experience to take a step back and realize the blessings I have that I may have been taking for granted. All in all...a good weekend. :)

So when New Zealand doesn't have a word for something they call it a  Doofer. So here are a bunch of doofs with their doofer. (it holds your hamburger...quite genius if you ask me)

We're on a Fairy Hunt!

Ok, so these kids here are adorable. Pretty much my job everyday is taking care of them and coming up with fun activities to do with them. I have been working a lot with Desiree's kids this week and I already just love them to pieces. Charlotte...the one who ate my cake...is almost one years old. She is attached to her mummy but she is getting more and more used to me I think. She has the most adorable blue eyes that just melt me though. Brookie is three years old and she is just a hoot. I will never get over how adorable she is. These kids are so cute and then you add their cute little accents on top of it...I am a sucker for them. haha I filmed this video of Brookie the other day. She made up this song and sings it all the time.

Today when she came over to the house I told her I met a fairy while I was out on my run. The fairy told me that she had a special surprise for Brookie and hid a secret message in the house for her. She was so excited and her eyes got really big. Kinda like this....

haha this was a photo from our photo shoot we had a few days ago. Anyways, so I told her that we needed to put our special fairy glasses on to go search for the letter. We put on some nerd glasses that I brought with me and searched the house. She finally found the note and the fairy gave her a job to write a fairy story and illustrate it. Once she is finished with the story I am going to turn it into a digital storybook with Brookie telling the story. We didn't finish it today but we will soon. It was so fun though and she has the best imagination. I love kids!!!  This just makes me excited to be a mom. I can definitely wait for that day but I still am excited! haha :) 

Then when Brookie is at Kindie (pre-school) and Charlotte is sleeping I clean away. I deep cleaned the bathroom the other day and the only reason why I say that is so that I can post this picture dedicated to my mother. I know it would make her proud...shout out to Dust to Dawn Cleaning!

Polkadots!

I just want to officially introduce you all to the polkadots! I think this whole group is just brilliant. The whole group revolves around their kids and helping parents become involved in their kids lives. They have junior explorers classes and a great blog that you should all check out. http://blog.polkadots.co.nz/ It is filled with ideas for activities for kids and parents to do together. This whole family is very family-oriented where they all just look out for each other and help each other out. Here is one of the videos of the polka dots. All these girls are sisters and Mr. Bop is the green polkadot's husband. They are just so fun.

I had my first official polka dot rehearsal a couple days ago and it was just a blast. We just ran through the whole show. I don't feel like I know a whole lot yet as far as dancing goes so I have to do a lot of practicing on my own. These ladies are so great though. I am discovering more and more how alike we are. It's a lot of fun.There have been a few changes since I have gotten here as far as the tour goes. Their original understudy from New Zealand is able to come on tour with us now. This means I won't be able to do as many performances as I thought but I will still get a chance to perform as the pink polka dot! When I am not doing that I get to take the kids out to explore New Zealand or I will be in the pre-show for the polka dots. We are doing 25 shows in two weeks and we are traveling all the way down to Christchurch. Its been a good experience too because I have been able to help Paul and Pamela with preparing for the tour. It's just fun to see how it all works. The tour starts October 1st and goes till the 14th. So if you happen to be in New Zealand around then come and see the polkadots. O! And like the polkadots on facebook :) https://www.facebook.com/PolkadotsNZ

The start of something new!

I have officially been here a week. It is so crazy! I am going to be posting heaps of stuff in the next hour I think and don't  feel obligated to read it all...I am mostly doing it for selfish purposes so that I can have this all recorded. :) So I am living with Paul and Pamela Reid. They are the grandparents of all the kids in the polka dot group. They are amazing people. Pamela is one of my heroes already. She is so incredibly talented. Every meal I have is made from scratch and is pretty healthy, she sews like crazy, she is an author, a master at family history, sings and teaches the institute class I go to. Paul is awesome as well and treats Pamela like a Queen. They act like giddy teenagers when they are together sometimes and its adorable. I can already tell I am going to learn a lot from them. The house is great. The family room has all glass doors and its such a beautiful view its awesome.

This is Charlotte and when I arrived here the Reids all had a cake for me and I got to meet everyone. I left my cake on the floor where I was sitting and then all of the sudden we look over and she had the whole piece of cake in her hand and sucking it like a bottle. It was so funny and cute. We all got a good laugh. 

We had an engagement party for Jordan (Paul and Pamela's son) and this is only a fraction of the food that we had there. And nothing here is store bought. Even the carrots were peeled and sliced. No baby carrots here! I was pretty stunned.

Keri is the other nanny here and we get along so well. We will be talking late at night and then stop in mid conversation saying...it's weird we have only known each other for a week. Our ideas are never ending on what to do with the kids and our nanny plans. We are currently starting a project with the play room downstairs. We cleaned it out today and we decided that we are going to transform the play room into an underwater themed room. There is a little nook to the side of it and we are going to turn that into a pirate ship. Pamela of course jumped all over it and has been loading us up with fabrics and supplies.We are so excited. As we were cleaning things out we came across a lot of old dress ups. I of course jumped all over that. I got all dressed up and then pretty much forced Keri to do the same. We went and snuck up on Paul, Pamela and Carly and we thought we were pretty funny. Anyways, she is wonderful and we have been setting goals and helping each other out in reaching them. It's been great.

It is freezing cold here!! The houses don't have heating systems either so I am constantly wearing slippers and a sweatshirt/coat while inside. I've gotten used to it though and it has rained so much! I love the rain! It is  so nice and green here. I went on a run this morning and it was just beautiful. I do have to say that wherever you go you are either going up a hill or down a hill. Its a pretty good workout. haha

this is the little path I found while running today. So pretty. 

I just feel like this whole experience can't be real. I just hope I can make the most of it and learn all that I am supposed to learn. There is no doubt in my mind that I am supposed to be here and its kind of exciting to me to find out why. Life is just amazing and is definitely meant to be enjoyed. :)