First Day in New Zealand

Well 25 hours of travel and 14 hours of sleep (post travel) and we're here. The flights over were about what you would expect. I travel pretty well, but I forget that the rest of my family can't just fall asleep in 2 minutes or less like I can. Still they survived and seem to be all good now.

Wellington is (I'm told) at the height of its beauty right now. Mid-summer is all sun shine and cool breezes on the sparkling harbor. Morning mist barely veiled the far shores. I still look at it all like I am only seeing it on TV. I have gone through so many changes to arrive here that I feel almost like I can not take these moments. But I am sure that will pass. This is only the first 30 hours of being here!

Virtually every experience is a little game of "find what is different". Ketchup here is sweeter--like a sweet pickle in tomato sauce. Everyone has an accent except me. Some changes are bigger like it is summer here, they drive on the left and there are mountains and oceans in the same view. Other changes are very slight but still ever present.

All my phones work fabulously to call home. I suspect I'll be calling lots of folks lots and lots.

The apartment they gave us is very modern, but certainly smaller than we are used to. Gabe asked to have some kid playmates in the first 12 hours of arrival. However this downtown location has nearly all conveniences except other kids to play with. We are starting our look for more permanent homes tomorrow.

We have been given a few bags of starter groceries. Apparently Kiwi's are mad for orange juice as we've been gifted about 2 gallons. They also must love a curious little substance called Marmite. I'm not entirely sure what Marmite is... it came in a jar roughly the size of a jar of peanut butter and has roughly the same consistency only it is dark brown and not in the least bit sweet. It might be described as worchester sauce in paste form. I am not sure what you would eat it with. The bread here is better than I've tasted in Kansas. The eggs were so fresh that one still had feather fluff on it. They also had flame orange yolks. I guess I think they were still chicken eggs... They tasted normal.

I am typing to you now on my new work issues T61 laptop. It seems alright--a little quirky.

Amy is whipping up some spagetti in the micro-sized kitchen. The first day seems a complete success. Tomorrow our "relocation consultant" is picking us up at 10 AM for "orientation." I think that is code for city tour and possible house hunting.

See y'all later!

On the Eve of the Move

Tomorrow our packers arrive--4 of them. I'm guessing it will take them all of about 6 hours to box up everything we are taking. On Friday they load our container. Friday night and beyond we'll be living solely out of our 2 suitcases each until we arrive in Wellington on the 10th.

Another upshot of all this is that my cable box will be turned off and turned in tomorrow evening. My computers will be packed up for shipping to NZ. I won't see them again until late Feb if not March. My new job will be giving me a new laptop on the 14th so I won't be completely isolated for long. They also said they would be bringing me a new cell phone when they fetch us from the airport. *grin* I'm liking these guys (and gals).

We have far too much left to do for me to write on about it all night. But I figured I'd take a moment to let you all know we'll be talking to you soon. I will try to make time to post, but I imagine I'll have many other priorities at first.

May wisdom and good fortune bless us all. And now on to the next adventure...

No longer employed (sort of)

I've worked my last day at Sprint. I am technically on vacation until Jan 2nd. After this I will be unemployed for exactly 12 days until I start with Telecom.

The relocation company has been contracted to complete packing our home by Jan 7th. Our flights leave at 2:54 PM on Jan 8th. We will arrive in Wellington about 9:30 AM Thursday Jan 10th. That will be about 4:00 PM Jan 9th to y'all here in the States.

I have booked a 2 bedroom "service apartement" in downtown Wellington through the 31st. I would book longer but there is some crazy rugby tournement and all of Wellington is booked in Feb so we are "winging it". We will get two 23kg bags each and the rest will be on the 2 month boat ride to Wellington. Pretty crazy, huh?

Very bizarre indeed. Meanwhile... Sprint has selected its 3rd CEO in 3 years, the Lakota nation declared its independence from the US, thousands of US prisoners are being detained in and outside the US without warrants or due process, the dollar is falling sharply and they've decided we need 1700 mile wall to keep out Mexico. A good time for a vacation I think.

Merry Christmas!

New Zealand Immigrants

As most of you already know, but I'll update here anyway, we have been fully approved to immigrate to New Zealand. The final word came back around Dec 7th so about 6 weeks after we applied. That was a long 6 weeks.

Now that the paperwork is over it's all easy.

HAHHAHAHAHAH!

Just had to do that... Noooo, now we get to really move. "Relocation consultants" arrive on Friday to provide estimations. We were given the NZ customs requirement (OMG). Those will be fun to live by. There some other details still hanging out there... like we haven't "officially" sold our house... we still need to sell our two cars... oh and I think it's Christmas... maybe I should do something for that...

I've turn in my notice at work. This is my last week. There is a going away thing/lunch on Dec 17th. And then quite possibly I will never see any of them ever again... I don't plan to move back to Kansas City. But anything could happen. While I never enjoyed the corporate culture, there are many people I really enjoyed working with and knowing. Many are helping me now in this move. I find myself unexpectedly sad to leave. Not in any regretful way, but just that wistful way we all wish there were no downsides to anything.

New Zealand Update

Well all the medical checks, xrays, FBI checks, birth certificates and paperwork is done. We sent the package to the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC. Feels weird to send stuff to an embassy! Silly little thing I know, but seems so official.

The embassy says they'll look at the application next week. We're hoping for a pretty quick turn around just to have the step completed. They we can focus on the next steps... House and Packing...

Wife has been sick for a week. The youngest 2 kiddos are great. Oldest is having some school issues. Cat is great.

Parenting gone Wild

Have you ever gotten a simple question from the kiddo that just ended up going completely wrong in the answer? Somewhere on the way to explaining politics or religion you end up suddenly talking about penis's?

My wife, bless her truthful earnest heart, has recently walked in to the most amazing verbal mine fields I have ever witnessed...

Fatal Knee Surgery

Some family friends probably 1 or 2 circles removed from us recently had the most awful luck with simple knee surgery where through a bizarre chain of mistakes she ended up in a coma and is now pretty lucky to be alive and even now is not out of the woods with recovery. A scarey reminder that all surgery is surgery and can be risky. But of course the reality of statistics is hard to convey to a 7 year old... They don't really play the odds. So when my wife casually mentioned that her knees hurt a lot and some day she'd probably need surgery the first thing our boy said was "That's okay momma, nothing goes wrong in the hospital." To which my wife felt obligated to honestly reply, "Oh no, sometimes things go wrong..." and proceeded to tell the tragic story of folks we knew. Now this was right at bedtime... and immediately I see where this train wreck is heading... MOMMA IS GOING TO DIE FROM KNEE SURGERY. I start giving the "oh please stop" signal to Amy who is apparently convinced I am only shewing a fly... and I can see the 7 year old panic set in. Where finally Amy sees where this is going and tries to wrap up "so she may die... but nothing would ever happen to Mommy."

In case you wondered... Don't tell your kids that mom is going go die from knee surgery... hehehe.

Boy Scouts

Well as you may have read, the Boy Scouts are publicly stating they don't want to have gay scout leaders... something about pedaphiles and all that. Of course any person who knows gay men or women also knows that "gay"means you like the same sex... not sex with children. So the notion is pretty foolish, but religion and politics rarely make sense. So when the boy announced that the Boy Scouts were forming up in school and he wanted to join... again my wife was there to field the questions. So after about 45 minutes I go to check in on the conversation to catch my very confused and flustered wife saying "... and so we just don't let other people touch our penis's..." I just giggled and walked away. Interestingly enough Amy tried to relate her dilemma to another Mom who simply said "We just told our boys that the Boy Scouts don't believe in the same things we do and we were not going to support them."

The Risen Christ

My favorite story... For a time, due to the extreme shortfalls of the public school system, we considered a private school. Well the only private school around was a Catholic school. So we thought we better start talking more about Jesus and the ideology of the Catholic church and what we believed and what we didn't and why we'd send the boy to a Catholic school without being Catholic.

Some of the conversations went rather well if a little humorous. When we told him that Moses talked to God as a burning bush the kid fell over laughing. We had to explain that Catholic people typically don't react well to bursts of laughter over momentous religious events... hehe... even if it is pretty funny.

But again at bed time, the perplexing question of Jesus came up. Nobly, my wife tried to jump in to the theory of Jesus and the whole new testament in about 10 minutes... at bed time... "So Christ was killed by the Romans and then was put in his grave for 3 days where he rose from the dead and spoke to his diciples about heaven." Throughout the story the small 7 year old boy is looking more and more distressed and the wife is somewhat confused about why this story of salvation and life isn't having the calm effect she expected. Finally at the conclusion the boy bursts out crying... "Jesus is a zombie raised from the dead and he's still walking the Earth looking over us!" Much re-disscussion was necessary...

I'm hoping the therapy bills will be covered by insurance...

General Update

Hello friends, admirers, family and random guests... KC is finally beautiful. We're hitting a high of 67 today which is just about perfect for me. I am most pleased as I think this is exactly what I imagine the weather to be in Wellington virtually every day.

Today is Wednesday and that meant there was a staff meeting this morning... woo. Last weekend I had the extra kiddos and we mostly played around the house. We packed up all their clothes to send home with their mom. We decided we will start purging our regular stuff in preparation for our move. While it was just a few clothes, it was really one of the first real actions we have taken to leave. And so it really begins... We will now really start getting rid of things we won't move and making all those permanent decisions that will lead up to our move in January.

This list seems pretty endless. But the most important detail is the completion of our immigration paperwork. That secures my offer and make the whole shabang very real. So we have all the forms and most of them filled out. It turns out we'll need to apply for a "Talent visa" with TNZ as an "Accreditted Employer" to get approval in 10 days. I have to be approved by November 1st to accept the offer. So that's the big deal now.

Chandler's birthday is tomorrow. He'll be 10. I can hardly believe it. For some reason, for many weeks now I have been remembering the moment of his birth over and over. I remember the way he looked and carrying him in to the weigh room. He didn't look like a newborn at all. He was 9 pounds after all. He looked like a normal baby. Probably the most perfect baby I'd ever seen. 10 years... There is so much I'd like to explain to him. But even at 10 he's still just a kid. There is no way I could tell him how that day felt. No way to begin to describe all the feelings I've had watching him grow up. How I feel even right now would be hard to explain another adult. This makes me think of my own folks and how for years they must have felt the same inexpressable feelings. I bet they just looked down and thought the same thing... someday you'll know. And I do... I know now. 37 mom... Sorry it took so long!

Chandler shares his birthday with my mother-in-law and one of Amy's aunts. So while he celebrates at his house, we'll be in Lawrence celebrating with Amy's folks. But Chandler won't miss out. Sabrina's birthday is the 20th and we'll have them that weekend for a double birthday event.

Gabe's big event is Halloween. I think he ranked it as his favorite holiday even before Christmas. We picked out a good ninja costume after much deliberation. I came through with an awesome one-handle cickle that has a secret dagger. Sure to be all the rage with the stylish ninjas.

The ever beautiful and desirable, Amy is doing very well and helping out with all the immigration stuff. She and Gabe are both immediately granted access once I am. Amy will be able to seek employment anywhere in NZ. Which we will need. I will be paying taxes in both countries and with the exchange rate we'll be living on a little bit less income. We are hoping to be able to skip owning cars and cheaper over all healthcare. Even so, a whole new 2nd income would rock!

That's about all the news that is news... cya around!