i was just logging on to blog about how absolutely wonderful my week has been and received an email from missy telling me about an awful car wreck involving four girls who are seniors at broughton. not sure how everyone is doing most of them with broken bones and such but one girl is having more serious problems. anyway it just really made me stop and breathe and remember how precious and wonderful this life is. and how important it is to be thankful for everything i have. gosh it just makes you take a step back huh. so if you're out there reading this please keep them in your prayers, because prayers are powerful.

it's been a glorious saturday here, very relaxing yet fulfilling. i slept in and started my day with fifty shades of grey.... continued my entire day reading fifty shades of grey actually. but it was absolutely wonderful weather, very springy here, so i discovered it would be even better if i was reading on the porch in my tank top and shorts soaking in some rays. i realized this a little later than i would have hoped so i didn't really gain any color but that's ok, got some good vitamin D in me! after i finished my book (anxiously awaiting fifty shades darker now) i ran down to the net ball courts to watch olivia's game. it was a nice run, not too long not too short and not too hard. very satisfying. and well that's all i've done haha. friends are coming over to watch the rugby game tonight so that will no doubt be fun!

go all blacks!

also for your listening pleasure, because i am currently listening to it.

also i finally got a full video of the boys doing the haka!! they are so precious. i'll have to upload one of the all blacks doing one before a game so you can have a comparison. basically its just a Maori intimidation/welcome chat,dance thing, but its AWESOME! and the boys did such a great job with theirs!

two of the all blacks hakas, so cool!

happy international day from owairoa primary! what a fantastic day was! the theme of the day was "we are many we are one" (camp 4 tribe anyone?) we began our morning with a parade around the school in which everyone walked with their country. how cool to see all the different cultures represented. i mean it amazed me how many children were dressed in their countries traditional dress and how decked out people got. some of the outfits were just gorgeous, it made me feel like we don't appreciate and respect all the cultures that make up america. i mean why not? we want to americanize everyone so much, and i think it is important to accept the culture of the place you are living but why not be proud of where you are from and showcase it once in a while. these children were so happy to represent their country, especially those from new zealand. hey could boost some patriotism huh? and i had an awesome time in my red white and blue, waving the american flag!

then we had a concert in the hall in which students performed from some of the countries that make up the school. it was neat to see the different dances and songs that they had, some of them were truly beautiful. my sweet little Mihailo from Serbia sang the national anthem with his sister. oh my goodness i was tearing up the whole time. he was absolutely precious and held the mic the whole time. hopefully my video will upload so you can see it. i was so proud! and what made me so happy was how proud the other children in our class were. they were so excited for him, what a special thing to see.

how wonderful is he??

"the Lord says, 'I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.'" -- psalm 32:8

its been a good tuesday here considering tuesdays are definitely the longest days due to morning staff meeting, morning tea duty and lunch duty plus professional development meetings after school. actually its really not that bad i feel like everyday goes by so quickly here. there was a bake sale today so the kids were wired off of all the sugar but all in all great day. it was strange not being in full control, but a nice break got to get some artwork finished up while sally taught. just another day of realizing how lucky i am to be here and how much i'm going to miss these kids....

we were going over olympics news and our medal graph today and out of nowhere one of my students who is kind of in her own world sometimes said "miss anderson are you going back to america tomorrow?" i responded by explaining no, but i would be going home in a little bit, to which the sweetest/brightest little boy raised his hand while saying "excuse me miss anderson but i think that you should have a think about staying in new zealand, its quite a nice place," aw melt my heart. so sweet. just thought i'd share. i wish i could give you all a snapshot of each of my students because they each have their own little quirks and awesome personalities that make them unique and funny and so special. they're just wonderful.

ps. a volcano erupted here today. a small one and it was just ash and stuff. but still intenseee.

good morning from what has been a great weekend and wonderful weekend here! this was the end of my two weeks in full control, everything went well i think and i hope we had some fun stuff happening and it was so awesome to be talking about the olympics with these kids. they have the best things to say about the athletes and the way things work in the olympics. one little boy in my class loves michael phelps and even wrote one day about how he was the world's best swimmer, it was awesome and so cute! we have been building an olympics wall with headlines from the newspaper each day and discussing events from the previous day. its been cool. and its been fun to see it from new zealand's perspective of being such a small country, i forget how huge america is compared to most places around the world and even though its so big i still get so excited about the little things because i'm so far away from home. been cheering for the kiwi's though which has been lots of fun too!

on thursday we had our "olympicathon" which was awesome. we had an opening ceremony in the hall with everyone where they lit an olympic torch and played some videos and such, it was really neat and well put together. the students wore their house colors which was cool, made me feel like i was in harry potter again. basically the year levels were divided up and did a rotation of activities for 8 minutes each for an hour. we did "horse racing" i'll post some pictures. it was hilarious though because it was all of year0 and some of year2 the kids were cracking me up. they got really into it which made it even better. my class was obviously first at our rotation and after one down and back run some of them were saying "miss anderson i'm a bit tired" haha they're so tiny. i'll post some pictures. i had a great time getting to see all the other classes and encourage them to cheer each other on and such. it was a little drizzly (because it rained allll week, nothing new) and the seniors were on the field and were so so muddy. they were just having the best time though. it was an awesome day!

the kids were exhausted after a long day on thursday but fridays are always fun with year0 assembly and then we got to go outside of the hall and do jump jams. i got some videos the kids are so cute doing them! it was a fun start to the day. later we worked on graphs and made a graph of all the countries that are represented in our room. first though i showed each flag (which i had tried my hardest to replicate on small little pieces of paper) talked about the country and some of the students who had actually lived there came up to tell us something about their country. it was adorable they were so proud of where they are from, and they had the most random things to say about it. what a great opportunity for them to share with their peers though! then we made our graph, a little funny since america had 37 medals at this point and new zealand had 3, serbia had 1, samoa had 0 etc... so we had a chat about sportsmanship and how its a honor to be in the olympics no matter what and we should be proud of everyone who is there. we gave a cheer for each country after we talked about their medals, it was great hearing "go china, go china" or "go south africa, go south africa" they were awesome about it all.

afterschool we headed to the pub to have drinks for caitlin's last day. it was a lot of fun to have a big group together. its so strange that she's leaving ah i can't believe it! i only have 4 weeks of teaching left, i'm trying not to think about it quite yet. wanted to share some videos of my kids and i finally got a recording of everyone singing the national anthem. check down on previous posts because i'm going to try to upload the kids doing kapa haka when greeting the international students last week.

lighting the olympic torch.

horse racing...

year 0 jump jams!

some of us at the pub on friday.

saturday we went shopping in town which was fun because i got to see some of the cute little back streets with vintage and boutique shops. it was Sue's birthday so we all came back and went to her house to celebrate which was of course lots of fun! (i'm adding a picture of the 2footer box of premade shots, provided a good bit of fun) sunday was full of family activities, a big breakfast, a huge grocery shop, laundry etc. great weekend here!

lunch on saturday. happy birthday sue!