1 Month Gone

Today it has been a month since we left.  My mom and dad went to the zoo again to see the animals actually come out but they left us, the kids, at home to do school and entertain ourselves.  Tomorrow we leave Wellington for this place on the south island.  My dad found out 93% of New Zealand is under water and we are only on a very small portion of it.  We have to take a 3 hour ferry to the south island then we have to drive another 3 hours to get to are next location.  I heard that today was the last basketball game and they beat the other team terribly.  Today was like the first time in weeks that I have had contact with people back home.  All they said was how they miss me.  If you are one of those people reading this than you could talk about stuff not like that.  Just a suggestion.

The Embassy

Today we went to the Embassy to watch The Hobbit.  This is where all the famous people went to watch the world premiere.  It was the most amazing theatre I have ever been to.  They also had the best 3d and surround sound.  Afterwards we went to the Wellington Zoo.  They had animals I have never seen before like the kiwi or african dog.  I also got to get really close to the giraffes.  I think I am going to start sending post cards to people.  I'm sad because I am almost done with math and that means I have to go to english.  I'm not looking forward to that at all.  We leave in just a couple more days.  I'm excited to be getting out of the city.  It is just way to busy for me.

Boringness

Today I literally did nothing.  I did not have to do school today so I just got a day off.  I have been practicing my ukulele though.  I can play a song which just repeats itself over and over.  That is all I have really done today except read.  I do know we are going to go see the Hobbit again where they had the world premere.

Planetarium

Today we went to the planetarium in Wellington.  It was the best one I have been to and I have been to a few.  We watched a documentary on weather in the solar system.  There were some amazing things.  On one moon, I think it's a moon, it rains diamonds.  I also learned about winds that are 8 times stronger then the strongest hurricane recorded.  Then since we are in the southern hemisphere there are different stars you can see.  They do not have the north star here.  They do have a constellation here that is in the shape of a cross.  It feels really safe here even during the night.  I thought walking around the city during the night would be like California.  It's not.  At some point we are going to try and go see the Hobbit again where the world premiere was.  They completely redesigned it and it has Gandalf on the front.  He is about 30 to 40 feet tall.    

Weta

Today we woke up and got ready to go to Weta.  Weta is a bug in New Zealand but there is also a company called Weta.  Weta is where they make props, armor, and bigatures.  They have made props for The Lord of the Rings series, King Kong, Avatar, and Halo.  It was pretty cool going through there.    We also got to see sculptures make the beginnings of props.  This one guy has been designing a statue that will be 100 feet tall and will be built in America.  They were also making trolls and a guy sitting on octopus tentacles. Bigatures are miniature  models of buildings or a prop they will use.  They call them bigatures because they said they are really too big to be miniatures.  Also if you see somebody fighting in what looks like really sharp metal in the background it is really rubber.  They make things look so real.  I have been learning songs on my ukulele today.  The hardest part about playing the ukulele is the strumming.  I also have been trying to draw the mutt in Mockingjay.  I have drawn at least 12 pictures of it and only 1 is really ok.  We leave Wellington on Saturday.  I have decided that I do not really like big towns.  Wellington is basically a little L.A.  I'm not going to miss it as much as Haurata.

The Museum

Today we went to the museum in Wellington.  I am not sure how to spell it and I am not going to try to spell it.  We got in there and ate at there little cafe and decided to go look around.  We came across a colossal squid found in 2007.  I think there is a bigger squid in Washington D.C.  We saw some pretty cool stuff and then we went to this part of the museum where you could ride a simulation to either go under the sea or be a person on the rugby team.  Also during the one with the rugby you jumped off a tall tower.  I hate rides.  I can't even ride kiddy rides at disney world.  My mom, brother, and sister went under the ocean then my dad, brother, and sister went on the second ride with the rugby.  They said it was pretty good.  We then went to the part of the museum that talked about the Maori people.  First of all I do not get good vibes about the Maori people so during this part of the museum I was kind of squeamish.  We got to this little building related to the Maori and went inside.  As soon as I walked in I got a headache that made me want to cut my head off.  I got out of there pretty fast and as soon as I was out my headache disappeared.  I do not know what happened but I did not like it.  Overall the museum was pretty good.  I also found out that New Zealand was, I think, the last place to be found on the Earth.  Afterwards we drove around Wellington.  So far over 1,000 people have visited my blog.  I'm not really sure why I have the most pageviews in my family but I do.   

The Drive

Yesterday we did not do much but I could not write my blog because we had bad internet connection.  Today we left Haurata and were on our way to Wellington.  It ended up being about a 8 hour trip.  It was not fun at all.  I did for the first time make myself sleep in the car without being interrupted by sickness.  When we got here it seemed too crowded compared to Haurata.  We have fast internet here.  We will be here for about 7 days then we will get on a ferry to go to the south island.  After that we will drive another 3 hours to are location that we stay at for the remander of are time here in New Zealand.  What I really want for my upcoming birthdays is to get a ticket to go see the world premiere of Mockingjay.  Probably won't happen but still. 

Piggy and Wiggy

Today, like any other day, I woke up and did my first five lessons of school.  Then I had nothing else to do so I watched a movie.  I watched Bridge to Terabithia.  I do believe this is way sadder than Marley and Me.  I guess I did not fully understand what the movie was about when I was younger.  Then I did my final five lessons and read some of my book.  Speaking of books, in school I have to read a book and I chose The Outsiders.  My mom said it was a good book but I am the type of person who likes sci-fi books.  Then we went to Jane's house (the owner of Haurata) to have dinner with the majority of the neighbors.  Before we ate Jane showed us the baby horse, her pet sheep, and the pigs.  Jane said all of there pigs are named either Piggy or Wiggy.  Except for one who was too fat and not the type of pig you eat.  Anyway she said that Wiggy was over there and they already ate Piggy.  Everybody laughed at that.  You had to hear it in person to understand why it was funny.  We rescued Marvin, who was a sheep, from dying between a fallen tree and a hill.  It was funny because all the sheep looked alike to me but Jane had a name for them and knew who was who.  Then we went to eat and it was pretty fun.  Some of the neighbors were really funny.  Why is it that everybody who can picks on me.  Why me!?  We went home around 10:10 and we were back before I knew it.  Tomorrow we have to start packing because we are about to move on to another city.  I'll be done packing in about two minutes.

The Camo Skirt

Today my dad came and woke me up at 9 I think because lately I have been waking up at 11 and I feel like I waste half a day by doing that.  I did my first 5 lessons this morning then got in the shower and went to my room.  Don't laugh at this because it is NOT funny.  This may come as a surprise to people who know me but I watched The Little Mermaid.  Not my type of movie but still it is not too bad.  I am not like my sister who LOVES princess movies.  Then I did my final 5 lessons of school all on World History.  Then I started watching another movie called Kiki's Delivery Service.  I used to watch that movie over and over on one part and crack up.  Now it is really not that funny.   Also I keep having flashbacks on previous trips.  The one that keeps coming to mind is when we went to Florida and went on a dolphin watch boat.  I remember that it was a glass bottom boat.  I also remember that my parents made me wear a skirt that was camo and had pink flowers on it.  Then only good part about it is it had boy shorts connected to it.  I think that skirt has scarred me for life.

Sting Rays

Today we woke up at 7 to get ready to feed the sting rays.  It started at 9 so we had to leave by 7:20 to get there on time.  When we got to town we missed are turn so we had to turn around.  When we did we saw a truck was coming in the same lane and it took my dad about 2 seconds to realize we were on the wrong side of the road.  When we finally got there we had to get waders so we would not get wet.  We waded out to the reef and stood in a single file line so the sting rays would not go in-between us, get scared, then stab us with there barbed stingers.  When we started feeding them you get a piece of fish hold it flat on your hand and let them suck it off.  It was a little scary at first but then it was getting more fun.  We got done with no accidents and headed back to shore.  When we got in the car my dad decided to go see the longest wharf in New Zealand.  It took about 30 minutes to get to the end.  People were jumping off of it into the ocean to swim.  Others were fishing of the wharf too.  We got tired of that and got in the car again.  My dad then said that he wanted to go see the light house and that we were half way there.  2 hours later we got there and you had to hike a hill to get there and not even go inside.  The only cool part was we were on the eastern most part of New Zealand.  We did not get to surf today because the waves were 6 to 8 feet tall and beginners should only ride 2 to 4 foot waves.  When we got home we decided to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  It is still going but I decided to go ahead and type this blog.  Remember to comment because that is basically the only way to communicate.  Good luck basketball team on the next game!    

A Fourth of the Red Walk

Yesterday I did not post anything because once again we literally did nothing.  Today we were going to go drive around the east coast.  We ended up not doing that but going on the red walk.  Only me and my sister went with my dad.  We did not realize how draining the days before today has been because as soon as we started me and my sister got tired.  My dad really wanted to go on the hike so he could take some more pictures.  This was a 12 kilometer hike and we only reached 1.5 kilometers when my sister wanted to go back.  We were so tired it felt harder than the green walk which was up mountains and over rivers.  This hike was over small hills.  My sister wanted to walk back on her own but my dad would not let her.  My sister kind of got mad and decided to keep going.  When we were headed up another small hill I could not go any further.  Hailey and I started hitting a tree with its own branch because we did not want to go any farther.  We had a discussion and decided to head back.  At the point we decided to turn around on we had gone just a little over 2 kilometers.  On the way back it was all down hill.  When we got back me and my sister were exhausted.  We did school and ate dinner.  Tomorrow we are going to wade out in the ocean and feed sting rays. (They still have their stingers.) Then we are going to see if the surfing is good.  Sadly we are leaving Haurata on Saturday here or Friday back home.  I could live here if we could.

Day 23

Today I did basically nothing.  I got up around 10:30 which is late for me and started school.  I have a schedule and if I follow it I will be done on June 1st.  If I follow the plan I have to do 18 lessons a day. Before I started this I calculated that I had 353 lessons left and 135 days until June 1st.  So I did my 18 lessons today and finished my grammer for the rest of the year.  Then I ate lunch and started to talk to my friends and family.  I have heard that some people at my school have been reading these.  I hope they are interesting enough for you guys.  Then I texted my friend Aryn and we decided to play minecraft on a server.  A lot of people can get on the servers and do things like build or fight each other.  We chose a hunger games server and we both got on.  Of course I died towards the begging so I could be a spectator and watch the games from above or on the ground.  The players that are still alive can not see you.  I watched her and told her where people were.  In the end she won.  This happened several times more.  Then she had to go because it was around 8 p.m. there.  Then my cousin skyped me and she had some friends over and we talked for a little bit.  My mom started cooking a breakfast dinner.  We had bacon eggs and crumpets.  Unfortunately they do not know what biscuits are.  Biscuits are cookies here.  Also instead of hot chocolate they have milo.  Milo is not as sweet as hot chocolate but it is still good.  My dad made a concoction with the milo and made a chocolate gravy.  It was actually pretty good.  My mom started reading my other blogs and she started crying because some were funny to her.  I am about to read some the go to sleep. 

The Green Hike

The day before yesterday we went on the green hike.  I believe it was the most tiring thing I have ever done. (If I have not been using good grammer in any of my blogs I'm sorry because I am not good at that stuff) Ok so on the map it said it was a 11 kilometer hike which is about 6 miles.  It also said it was going to take 4 to 6 hours.  You also have to remember this is in the mountains, through woods, on plaines, and you have to walk through some water.  At the beginning you start off going up some mountains but it is not too steep.  When we got to the checkpoint it started to get steeper and steeper to where we were on cliffs.  My mom is completely terrified of heights so she and my brother went back.  My brother was looking for an excuse to not go on the hike.  When they got back the internet guy was here so we have internet now.  Anyway me, my dad, and my sister kept on going.  Also the owners dog was not supposed to come but she got loose and followed me everywhere.  Of course the dog's name was Lulu.  She was the leader of the pack and she would wait at each checkpoint for us.  We got to this cave and it was pretty cool.  My sister stepped in sheep poop while we were in there.  Then we started moving again and we were just hiking on rolling hills.  It was not that bad until we made it to the waterfalls.  That was when everything started to go wrong.  You could go down this really steep path that was a cliff where you could go down a ladder to get to the waterfall.  I started to go on that path but I kind of slipped and almost fell off.  At that moment I decided to go down my own way.  You could slide down this pretty steep hill if you were careful.  When I sat down to go down I saw it was laced with these little cactus things.  I decided to go side ways standing up.  After 10 minutes of inching my way down I made it.  We hung out there for a minute and then decided to go up the ladder to get back on the right trail.  When I looked at the ladder it was a wood pole with clamps on it.  I wasn't so sure about going up it.  When my dad started to go up first he got to one rung and decided it might be too big of a gap for me.  My sister went up because I have longer legs than her.  When she got the the rung that was too big of a gap it started to slip I didn't mention it to her because I thought it would have freaked her out.  Afte a minute I started yelling at her to come down and she said she almost made it.  I told my dad about the slipping handle and he made my sister come down.  When she was down we looked at it again it had slipped 8 inches.  We had to go up the way we came and it did not take as long.  Then we had to make a decision of either going up and over a hill or on the path I slipped.  My sister went on the path with my dad and I started to go up and over.  When I got to the top my stomach shot up to my throat.  It was a really steep hill that led to a creek that went to the waterfall.  I ended up having to crab walk the whole way down with Lulu and get to the next checkpoint.  I was by myself doing this for 15 minutes.  I was afraid I was going to fall.  But I made it and my sister and dad were waiting on me.  We started hiking again and we reached another weird point.  We started following the arrows and we actually walked the bush walk and the green walk.  We got to some mountains and we saw the owner and her husband coming up the hill to get us.  My dad said he wanted to finish it and he walked the rest of the way.  When we got home we looked across the valley and saw a double rainbow.  When we got inside my sister sat down and cried because it was so hard.  Yesterday we did nothing but hang out because we were so tired.  

Surfing

Today we woke up at 7 so we could get ready for surf lessons.  We had to leave at 7:40 to get to Gisborne, which is a hour away.  When we got there it just opened and she said they tried to call to confirm the time.  If we were in the U.S.A. they probably would have sent us home but they are nice here and called Euan and he got us set up.  We got wetsuits and boards and headed out to the beach.  We went over safety and he told us how to find riptides so we do not get caught in one.  The very first time I got up for 2 seconds on my feet then wiped out.  Falling of the board is the worst because you get dragged under by the wave and you have to wait until it passes to get up.  I tried over and over and just could only get up on my knees.  I finally got tired of getting punded by the waves but one wave came and I went under and the board got ramed into my neck.  I had to get out for a minute to get my bearings again and went back out determined.  Then I finally got a wave and it is amazing to finally ride it.  The waves are powerful and it just pushes you along.  I just rode it and looked at the water.  Surfing is the hardest thing I have ever done.  We had to go back to the surf shop to pay for the lessons and I got a Rip Curl watch.  We were really tired after the lesson so went to town and ate at Two Rivers.  They had really good food.   Then we headed back to are house in the mountains.  Then we ate pizza for dinner and that is all we did that was interesting.  By the way the waves are much bigger than they look.

Singed Hair

Today we were planning on going to the rock slide since we didn't go yesterday but it has rained all day so we decided to just hang out again.  During a small break in the weather my dad decided to surprise my mom and brother by turning on the the hot tub.  The hot tub consists of a tub full of water by a heater connected to a propane tank.  You can just tell there is going to be trouble by looking at it.  I was in my room doing work when I heard this noise.  When I walked into the living room my dad was walking past me and he smelt burnt.  It turns out the noise I heard was a mini fire explosion.  While my dad was trying to light the gas to the propane tank a gust of wind hit spreading the gas and he lit it causing the flame to catch the gas and it shot up his arm and over his chest.  He has been complaining how he has patches of hair now.  When we looked at the instructions at how to start the hot tub there was a piece of paper next to it saying "DANGER You May Blow Yourself Up"  I thought that was pretty funny.  That was the most exciting thing today.  I am excited though because we have surf lessons tomorrow at 9 in the morning so we have to leave around 7:45 to get to town on time.  Tomorrow I should have a pretty good blog saying how terribly I did.

Jacked Up

Yesterday we were planning to go to the rock slide but we were all too drained so we just hung out at Haurata.  We woke up did school and ate.  Then I went and got my sisters card game called Jacked Up.   This game was a little confusing because it was called hearts and you use this phone app with a king on a unicycle playing the guitar.  It was a jacked up game.  My dad couldn't really figure it out.  In the end you did not want many tricks.  I thought I was loosing because I had only 4 tricks.  So I won.  Then after dinner we played spades with teams.  I was on my dads team and my sister on my moms.  We, as in me and my sister, did not know how to play so that's why we were on teams.  In the end if you won you got to get one of the last cookies.  So me and my dad were loosing by 29 so he played neil, whatever that means, and we won that so we got 100 points so that brought us back up.  We were still loosing until the other team lost points and we were in the lead.  Then in the end they played neil also and that was the last hand so we knew it was going to be a pretty close game.  It turns out me and my dad won by 1 point.  The score was 359 to 358.  During one of those hands I got up and went to my room for a second and almost stepped on a cockroach.  I just ignored it and went back to the kitchen.  I told my sister because she HATES bugs.  My mom went to go kill it and my brother and sister went to watch.  Me and my dad were just sitting there and then we heard them all screaming bloody murder.  I went in there and they were all screaming "WHERE IS IT!  WHERE IS IT!"  I was laughing at them.  Then my sister went into the other room and said cockroaches could fly.  My mom kept asking Jonathan if it was on her and he said turn around and it was on her shirt.  That sent another round of caos.  Now she was jumping up and down saying "GET IT OFF!  GET IT OFF!  JONATHAN GET IT OFF!"  We were telling her to calm down and I went over to flick it off and she thought I did so she started running away from me.  I told her it was still on her and she finally let me flick it off.  She said that she sprayed the thing a million of times.  My sister said if it landed on her she would have cried.  Then we went to bed.   

Home Sweet Home

I forgot to blog yesterday so I will fill you in.  We were still at the place in a town I do not know of and we were on the beach so we decided to go to the beach.  When we got there it was empty of people.  The water was warm and really blue and they had amazing sea shells that were not broken into a million different pieces.  We collected shells for a while but decided to cross a small strip of water to another part of land by walking.  My mom and sister stayed on the other side of the beach.  When we got over there they had mini conch shells and we found a jellyfish.  It was almost time for the tide to come in but we stayed over there.  I started freaking out because the water was rising where we crossed earlier and that was the only way back.  When I finally got my dad to take us back it was way deeper.  It went from knee height to lower back height.  I thought I was going to get swept away.  Then we went back the the weird house and took showers and avoided tea with the owner.  That was all yesterday.  Then today we were supposed to drive around with the owner and learn about the Maori people but we avoided that too.  We got to  Gisborne around 11:45 and we decided to look around a bit.  We ate and then went to the surf shop.  We are going to start surf lessons on Wednesday in New Zealand time.  The guy said we should not see any sharks.  I was all good after he said that until he said you need balance too and I don't have a lot of that.  After that we drove around for a bit and headed back to Haurata.  I was sooo happy to get back to Haurata because it is like home now.  I wish we could stay here the rest of the year.  After we got back we just hung out.  Tomorrow we are going on the rock slide again.  I think I might get more bruises if I do what I plan to do.  Read tomorrows blog to find out what that is.  Oh by the way my sister just showed me she did not have on pants.

Mini Trip

Today my parents started looking for a place to escape the rain over the weekend.  We looked for a few hours and we found some really cool places.  We were looking for a place with wifi and on the beach.  We saw really cool places but we settled for a little house thing in a town called I don't know what.  It is bigger then what we stay in the majority of the time but a little weirder.  I don't get a good vibe here but we can learn to surf and see the first sunrise of the day.  We ate a dinner of corn,  Doritos, and a peanut butter and nutella sandwich.  Not the best but still good.  Then we played logos and we went to bed.

Cuts and Bruises are Worth it Sometimes

Today like every other day we got up and started school.  My dad had to go to town to get some groceries while we were doing school and we were finished when he got back around 2.  It has been a little hot in the house since it is in the middle of summer and they do not have air conditioning here so we decided to go for a swim.  They do not have a swimming pool here  so we were going to go swim in a little creek thing.  They do not have really any animals here that can hurt you so you can walk in tall grass and swim in the creeks.  The person who owns the house said the best place to go was at the rock slide.  We did not really know what that was but we went anyway.  So about 5 minutes away there is this creek and it is flat at the top then there are smooth rocks that kind of form a slide into the lower part of the creek.  We were a little afraid to get in but I said who ever slid down the "slide" first would get 5 dollars.  My dad of course went first.(I did not give him 5 dollars) I decided to go and it was a little scary at first because you can pick up some pretty good speed.  We got use to that and it was really fun.  My mom did not want to get in the water because she is afraid she is going to get parasites.  I wore my gopro camera while we were doing this and got some pretty funny footage that I will edit and probably post somewhere.  While we were there the neighbors, 5 miles up the road, came for a slide too.  The only difference is that they brought boogie boards.  When they did it they went really fast and ended up in the middle of the lower pond.  They only wanted to do it for a minute so they left pretty soon afterward.  The only thing is that New Zealanders are really nice and they let us keep the boards.  This is when we started getting cuts and bruises.  When we went on it we fell off a couple of times on the way down.  It was worth it though.  I started trying to do a 360 on the board while going down and I failed a few times.  My mom and brother left a few minutes later only to return when they saw a cow.  They are terrified of cows after what happened on the yellow walk.  They wanted us to get out and go with them.  I was starting to go while my dad and sister got ready.  I still had not completed a 360 so I decided to try 1 more time.  Of course right before we leave I did it.  I got out before my dad and sister still and started walking back.  I got up to where my mom and brother were and there was no cow.  They said it was there a few minutes ago but I think they were hallucinating.  We got back and took showers and hung out the remaining hours.  I never even thought that was going to tire my body but now it hurts to lift my arms above my head.

Mutton

Today we did not really do anything.  We did school for a little bit then just hung out the rest of the day.  I mostly read my book.  And no I did not read Hunger Games again.  Then we went over to the ladies house who owns where we are staying for a bar-b-que.  We ate fresh lamb, eggplant, potato wedges, salad, and this other stuff.  It was a little awkward at first for me.  They call the lamb that is 6 months old mutton.  That is what we ate.  We then went inside for coffee and tea.  They also made us try this stuff that is like hot chocolate but a little more bland.  They have started rounding up the sheep to shear so it has been pretty fun to watch.  Then we came home and started blogging.

The Yellow Walk

Today I had more school and it was really easy compared to yesterday.  I finished all my school work for today and extra in about 2 hours.  The school online for classes that don't count toward college are pretty easy.  You basically fail or you master in the work and you keep trying if you fail.  I haven't failed any so it goes by really fast.  After we finished school we decided to go on the yellow walk.  We are living in the mountains in New Zealand on the north shore right know so you can already guess it is uphill.  The lady who owns this house has a gps for each walk.  The only problem was that the yellow walk was not programmed on there.  So she wanted me to set the route by marking waypoints every so often.  So we started and it was pretty easy at first.  We had to follow a little path for a bit going slightly uphill.  Also the lady said this was the easiest route.  Anyway we were on are way up a big hill or small mountain.  At the end of the easy part my mom and brother were like "Are we almost done?'  We weren't.  We had to go uphill basically vertical.  I had to stop to make waypoints so it was hard to stop and start back up again.  When we finally got to the top of the mountain we had to go down the other side.  It was way harder going down the hill instead of up because there was not really a path and it was all loose rock so it was like walking on ice.  All of us slipped at least one time and when we finally got down we had to go in a pasture with cows.  My brother hated even the thought of getting 40 feet away from the cows.  They were blocking are path so we had to shoo them out of our way.  We finally got around them and were headed down.  Next thing I heard was a scream.  I kind of panicked but turned around.  My mom and brother were charged, so they say, by one of the cows.  My mom freaked out and made my dad go behind the rest of us so we would not get attacked.  When we got down to the road to are hut we looked back up to where the cows were and the cow that charged was standing on the ledge watching us.  My dad said they needed some humor since their lives were so boring.  We ate dinner then started watching this movie called Boy.  I didn't really understand it but I watched it anyway.

School:(

Today we did not do anything but school work.  First I had math and I wish I was in my math class listening to my really good math teacher instead of having to read the assignment  and listen to a robotic voice.  All I really did in math was go over the review and take the semester 1 test.  I thought that was going to be a breeze.  3 hours later I was frustrated and was on the verge of having a mental breakdown.  I got and 83% on that test.  Some things I did not know like some trigonometry called sine, cosine, tangent.  I also had to learn factorials.  That is like 3!.  The exclamation point is there for a reason otherwise you would not know it was a factorial.  I caught on kind of fast to those but still.  Next I had english and that did not go very well either.  First of all I am terrible at grammer and that was what the semester test was on.  I got an 80% on that with 50 out of the 60 questions correct.  This might be tougher than I expected but I can go at my own pace.  Next I had science but I don't start that until tomorrow.  I also had social studies and I am about to start on Ancient Greece and I hope it is like school and I hope my teacher is as good as my previous teacher in public school.  I can finish the 7 grade in like 3 weeks if I try hard enough.  I can be a few grades ahead if I work hard on this trip.  That might benefit me when we move so I will have a head start.  I am about to do my hour of German.  It is not really 2 in the morning here when I post this.  The time here is really only 9 p.m..  I don't have really any other books on my kindle except for the Hunger Games series so I have already read that twice.  That should be a total of 7 times that I have read the series.  I only have 3 movies downloaded on my computer to watch so I am starting to know them word for word.

Gisborne Wifi

Today we went into Gisborne to get wifi so we could contact people.  The drive there from are place up in the mountains was and hour long and was terrible.  When we finally got there we went to McDonalds to use there free wifi.  We all thought it was going to go well but we sat there for three hours just trying to connect.  When some of us did connect (not me) we got books and try to text people  but that did not work well because we had to sit in an exact spot.  I gave up hours ago and I decided to try one more time and as soon as we were leaving I got a signal but we had to go.  My parents had to go to the store so we sat in the car for and hour and a half.  Then we got home around seven.  Also I did a blog yesterday but did it before are big walk.  (If you ask my brother, it was a hike, but I thought it was a walk)  We ended up going in the forest and we were headed to a stream on a path but I made my own.  We got down to the stream and my sister was lucky that I went first because there was spider webs everywhere.  I felt the water and it was pretty cold but we are going swimming in it later this week.  I found some pretty cool trees that I could climb so I did.  I got up to some slender branches and my mom made me come down because she was afraid I was going to fall.  I wasn't afraid I was going to fall because  there is a certain way to climb a tree. I'm not going to go into detail.  We found a place with a waterfall and I hoped around on rocks in the stream.  We also found pine trees that had to be at lest eighty feet tall.  Oh and if you read my previous blogs you know about the "poop stick".  My sister for some reason sticks it in every pile of poop she can find and carries it with her.  While I was climbing one of the trees she ran the edge of the stick across my ankle and I almost lost it.  We were still by the stream so I washed it off.  They tested the water and they said it was pretty clean so I decided to also drink some and it was pretty good.  After a while we started going up the drive way and it is a little steep and my brother refused to climb up it.  He finally came up and that was the end of that day.

Haurata

Today we have sat around and read and watched tv.  Later today we are going around a small part of the property to explore.  I have been mostly catching up on my blogs.  I have learned that I am going to be taking surf lessons and learning to weave in a few days.  I also know we are probably going cage diving with sharks.  We are also doing that in South Africa.  I think we are also scuba diving in a few weeks if we past the tests.  Not much we are doing today.

The Walk

Last day to catch up.  Yesterday we went on a walk on part of the property.  They have acres of land and we walked on a very very very small part of it.  We went through some woods then in a prairie thing with cows and sheep.  I thought I was going to get trampled by a cow so I got out of the fence and walked around the cows and then got back in the fence.  During this time my sister found a stick and started sticking it in cow patties and named it the "poop stick", which is typical for my crazy 15 year old sister.  We went further and saw more sheep and cows and my sister started talking to them.  (baaaing and mooing) We walked a little more and came upon a deer in a field with cows.  When my dad took a picture and looked at it it had a tag on it.  They raise deer here like cows.  It was a really pretty deer too and it looked like Bambi.  Another thing about it is it had a rack like a moose.  It had full antlers and very few points.  At some point we turned around and headed back.  When we got there we ate lunch and headed down to the owners house to use there wifi.  We called very few people but texted as much as possible.  Every morning I wake up the the sound of roosters and look out the window to find sheep mowing the grass.

Haurata

Still catching up on blogs.  This day are family was debating on wether or not we would stay here at Haurata.  We found out that they do not have wifi here so my parents had to go to town and figure out a solution.  They got food too but they got the se hot spot things for are computers so we only have wifi on the computers.  So do not try to contact me for a while.  It takes an hour to get to town from here so my parents were gone all day getting as much as they can so we do not have to go down often.  During the time they were gone I read and watched movies.  We decided to stay here.

Hobbiton

I am a little behind of blogs but this day was very interesting.  We were leaving Auckland and had to go on winding roads over hills and meadows to get to Hobbiton.  If you know what Lord of the Rings is or The Hobbit then you should know what I am talking about.  We got there and ate at the Shire's before we went on the movie set tour.  We toured the area for like three hours.  It was really pretty there and we learned some cool stuff.  We learned that the tree above Bilbo Baggins house is fake and they had to string thousands of fake leaves on it.  Also on are way down to the set we were in there new old bus and the brake got jammed and two people asked if they could get off the bus and I quote "How dare you endanger our lives!  I am calling the authorities on you."
Sadly they were from the U.S.A. and the tour guide said that we sounded like we were from the same place.  After all of that we got in the car and headed to Gisborne.

New Year

First of all, since we are in Auckland, I was one of the first people to bring in the new year in a big city.  New years eve was last night and I got to watch fireworks from my hotel go off on the tower.  If you go on yahoo there is a picture on the middle right section.  Anyway, yesterday we went to Devon Port to hang out for the day.  We were just kind of walking around looking at the amazing trees they have and we walked into a store and my parents started talking to the owner about the town and he said the movie theater was pretty cool.  Half my family wanted to see the movie The Hobbit-An Unexpected Journey so we decided to go see the movie in the oldest theater in New Zealand.  I thought that was pretty cool because those movies were made in New Zealand.  After that we were going to stay and watch the fireworks from there but we got too tired but my dad wanted to still take pictures.  We had an argument and finally settled on just going back to the hotel because we were all tired.  My dad stayed up for the fireworks but I watched a movie and fell asleep.  A few minutes later I heard a boom so I got up and watched my dad take pictures of the fireworks. Then today we just stayed here and started packing for are trip to Gisborne.  We will be there for about a month but during are drive we are going to stop at a few places where they shot the Lord Of The Rings series and the Hobbit series.  The people here are really nice.  I do not think it will be like that everywhere so  I am going to try to enjoy it as much as possible.