The Proposal!

Sarah and Reece are now officially getting married. They are engaged and set a date today for June 30th. The proposal was on Wednesday, and it was a complete surprise to Sarah, perfect! we dont actually have pictures of the actual proposal because we weren't supposed to be there, but we have some from after when everyone was celebrating. Ephraim has most of the pictures but here a a few that I have.

The original plan was to propose at One Tree Hill after institute. The boys, Brit, Cheyenne and I went up early and set up these lights to spell out MARRY ME SARAH but while we were fixing SARAH the generator they were hooked up to stopped working. we spent a lot of time trying to fix it and then looking for another one while Reece stalled and then took her to the museum where a romantic dinner was set up for them in a gazebo. They were supposed to go to it after the proposal but it ended up being the place cuz the lights never worked.

These are the boys; Dominic, Jershon, Ephraim, and Marin. They tried very hard to fix it but it was to no avail :(

When we left One Tree Hill we went to meet them at the gazebo. We snuck up to it and sat around the bottom during the proposal. Reece saw us, but Sarah never did. We went back up the hill where his mom and bishops wife Monique were waiting (they set up the dinner) and gave them about 20 minutes before we all ran down to congratulate them, and to finish their engagement lasagna :)

THEY ARE GETTING MARRIED!

This is the group, from left to right, Dom, Sarah, Reece, Marin, me, Jershon, Brittany, and Ephraim at the bottom. It was a great night! we had so much fun!

Bungee jumping!

On Saturday the 10th of March we caught a bus and drove into the city to meet most of the other girls in our group to jump off of the Auckland Harbour bridge. 18 of us showed up and we were very proud of ourselves because we were all on time. We met at the Maritime museum and were picked up by two employees who drove us to the bungee place. We all got harnessed up in there before going out onto the bridge.

we looked so good! We had to wear helmets on the walk out across the bridge for safety reasons, we were also connected to a cable all the way across so that we couldn't fall off before the jumping part came.

We wore these harnesses so that after the bungee we could pull a chord and get pulled back up in a sitting position rather than by our feet.

The view was so pretty out across the bridge. Disregard the helmet hair, it looked good before we had to put those on.

Sarah was a spectator (hence the lack of harness). We had 14 jumpers and 4 spectators in our group. The spectators just had black belts they connected to the cable so they wouldn't fall on the way up. The brand on the belts was "aspiring", they weren't quite to the jumping level yet.

The incredible city of Auckland New Zealand! Oh how I am going to miss this place.

This is me about .5 seconds before I jumped. I was so terrified, I almost didn't jump. When he was strapping my ankles together and attaching me to the the cord I thought I was going to pass out. As I waddled out to the edge of the platform I decided not to jump and told the guy I couldn't do it. He probably hears that a lot, he did a very good job of talking me into it because I got to the edge and then realized that if I stood there I would change my mind again, so I jumped. the rule, which he went over before anyone jumped, was to wait till he counted down. That is for safety reasons because if a boat goes under the bridge when you jump there is the possibility of hitting it. I jumped before he even started counting down, he was still checking the screen to make sure there was nothing there. So it is lucky that there was no boat and that I survived that jump. It was so cool! Probably the biggest adrenalin rush I have ever had in my life. I LOVED IT! I would do it again in a heartbeat if it didn't cost so darn much money.

This is the guy that pulled me back up after. I thought he looked like the guy that helped us into our harnesses at the swing, but I didn't think to ask if they were related till after we left the platform, now I will never know.

I loved that we all got to go up together, we had to split up at the swing but this time we watched and cheered on everyone as they jumped. We had a blast all together.

Erin broke his hand

Wednesday March 7th we were getting ready to go to Institute (which is awesome) but Cheyenne had to stay home and wait for her parents to get home from the hospital because the girls were home. That's all we knew. Apparently Erin hurt his hand in the morning and finally went to get it checked out later that afternoon. He came home with a cast on his hand/arm because he broke 3 bones in his hand. It is especially sad because he can't go surfing for at least the next 6 weeks. Luckily he can still ply the guitar though.

Well, almost 2 weeks ago our whole group (except Sarah who was sick) went up to Whangarei where James and his wife Janet live. We had a fantastic time up there and met some pretty cool people. The coolest was Sid Going. If you don't know who he is you should look him up and then start watching Rugby religiously. We went to the farm that his son owns and got to milk a whole herd of cows while we were there, it was super fun.

us with Sid

There was cow poop everywhere! it was rather sick. The thing was really hard to get to suction onto the udders, at least I had a hard time doing it, the guy that worked there did it in about 3 seconds for each cow.

the next day (Saturday) we all had surfing lessons. I stood up several times and can now say that I can surf without fudging the truth a little bit.

Pretty sweet eh?

Probably the best part of the weekend was our huge Karaoke party on Saturday night. We pretty much went crazy singing anything and everything at the top of our lungs. This picture is from the theme song of the titanic, Steph and Brittany were the front of the boat at the bottom. I had a blast! One of James's friends that hung out with us all day was the High Priest group leader and decided that we should all sing something at church the next day. We all thought it was a joke, but turns out he was dead serious. We sang How Great Though Art as the prelude music for sacrament meeting the next day. Church was fantastic, and then dinner with Janets family was great afterward before we headed back down to Auckland.

Dancing with Nan

This past Saturday night, the 25th, we went country line dancing with nan. Roses mum lives in Auckland, not too far from us and so we see her quite a bit. She happens to be one of the best line dancers in NZ and she took us out for a night on the town. It was fantastic, although i had a hard time picking up on the dances. Next time we go I will have to have a lesson or two first so I can at least pretend I know what I am doing :)

Goodbye grandma and grandpa.

Monday was a sad day because it was the last day we had grandma and grandpa with us. We all went out to eat together for FHE and had a great time as a family. Grandma and grandpa have adopted the Josephs, they now have 22 grandchildren. We all miss them a lot and wish they would come back and bring the rest of the family with them!

weekend part 2

Saturday the 18^th was a great day! First of all, we slept in, that is always promising. We were supposed to leave at 12 because Reece and Irae picked us up when they got back from the temple but they were later than planned so we didn’t leave till 1:30. Funny story, they were in the same session as grandma and grandpa who had gone to the temple in the morning on their way back up here. I told Reece to look for them on Friday and he assured me that they weren’t there, but later we found out that grandpa sat directly in front of them in the temple. Anyway, we went to a YSA activity that we missed the bulk of so we just hung out with people and played volleyball for a couple hours and then stopped off at home to pick up grandma and grandpa before heading out to Mission Bay.

There were a ton of people at Mission Bay, but the water was nice and we got to go for a swim. We also played ninja attack, grandpa joined us for that, and were serenaded by a few people. They sang the Barney theme song to us on a dare. There was a huge fountain in the park and we all climbed on it for some great photos, including a couple that a complete stranger took of Brittany at the top with the sun behind her. They came and found us and got her email so they could send her the pics.

We randomly saw a ThermoFisher Scientific van across the street from the place we parked and grandma freaked out about it. She wanted grandpa to put a note on the windshield, we just took a picture instead.

Of course grandma and grandpa took us all out to eat. We went to a fantastic Tai restaurant and had a grand evening. Everyone seriously loves my grandparents, they were so funny. Grandma couldn’t understand Reece and Irae because of the slang they use when they talk to each other, I had to translate a lot. They told us all about their trip and asked a ton of questions about New Zealand. We were at the restaurant till almost 10, it was a beautiful long day.

On the way home we stopped at a monument up on the hill that had a beautiful view of Auckland for more great pictures. By the time we got home grandma and grandpa were all tuckered out so we dropped them off and went to Reece’s house to watch HP7 pt 2. I voted for anything else but it was Iraes last movie before his mission so he had the last word. Sunday was a beautiful day, they came to church with us and the Stake Patriarch spoke the whole meeting. After church we made dinner and sat around and talked until 5:30 when we all went to Iraes setting apart. Here those are more like a baptism, everyone comes and there is a program and everything. The family all came home after the setting apart but the YSA in the house (and Reece) stayed for a fireside that immediately followed. the fireside was all about dating, again reminding me of Provo hardcore. It was a pretty entertaining evening.

the weekend part 1

After our first day of school we went and played tennis with our friend Reece. Sarah and Reece planned that outing, followed by him asking her out the next day. They are so cute! The first week of practicum went by smoothly and we all loved it. That Thursday evening we had a game night and had Reece, Marin, Jershon, and Dom over to hang out with us and Cheyenne. We played crazy uno and apples to apples. Most of them left at about 11 but Reece stayed to play a few more games and then watch Ever After with us. I love that movie! Sarah and Reece got pretty comfy during the movie, wink wink. We don’t have school on Fridays because they are reserved for adventures and fun trips. That first Friday we went to Tawharanui beach with all the BYU girls and James. We left pretty late though because Ramona’s kids went to school Friday morning. The Hobbits met us there again, it was their last day in NZ. They got lost though so by the time they got there they had to turn around and go take their van back to the rental place. The highlight of that beach trip was Brittany Babcock teaching me how to do a cartwheel. Anyone that knows me well knows that was an impossible task. I did improve a bit though. We also played volleyball and just chilled on the beach, it was super fun. After the beach we all went out to eat in a small town and then Sarah, Brittany and I split from the rest of the group for the rest of the evening. Everyone went to see “The Vow” but James took us to a chapel for a farewell dance for Irae. That was a blast! The decorations were huge missionary name tags with all the missionaries and soon to be missionaries in the stake on them and the flags of the countries they are all/will be serving in. We had a lot of fun, especially Sarah and Reece J. sorry there aren't any pictures, my camera was dead and I haven't gotten any pics for anyone else.

Pomaria Primary School

The day that grandma and grandpa left to go work was our first day of teaching. Grandma insisted on getting a picture of us at the school. We have been at Pomaria Primary school for two weeks now, only four days a week though. We love it! My teachers name is Whaea Janet, she has the reputation of being the mean teacher in the school but she is really a softy and I can tell how much she loves her students. There are a lot of things that are different in schools here than in the states. First, hats are required whenever students are outside, and shoes are not worn indoors out of respect. I love walking everywhere barefoot, the first day I walked the 20 minutes home the ground was super hot and I got heat blisters on my heels, but they are fine now. We also say Maori prayers when we arrive, before lunch and morning tea, and before we go home. Morning tea is at 10:30 every day, the students are required to eat at least a piece of fruit and then have time to play outside like a recess break and the teachers all go to the lounge for 20 minutes. Every second Tuesday a group is assigned to provide a big feed for everyone, last week it was soooo good! Our school has PLGs (professional Learning Groups) made up of a class of each age. Within those PLGs there are house captains and deputy house captains and the whole school has a head boy and head girl. We just missed the assembly where they announced who all those children were this past Friday, but I was there to hear all the speeches the students wrote and to vote on our house captains. I’m in a year 5-6 class, the oldest, so all of our candidates are in my class, I voted for Steven because he had the funniest speech, everyone vetoed it though because they would have to deal with him the rest of the year. I understand now, that kid is a handful! I really do love all of my students though, they are so cool. A lot of them have been through more than I can even imagine. I have students form Tonga, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Solomon Islands, Fiji, India, China, the Congo, and South Africa at least. Most of them speak at least 2 languages, some 3 or 4. They are all surprised that I only speak English. Almost every student has asked me if I know Justin Bieber or any number of famous people, they don’t seem to grasp hos big America is. The school is really cool because they focus first and foremost on the values of the school, everything they teach somehow connects back to Respect, identity, or something else that helps the community of the school. It has really worked too, everyone at the school is conscious of everyone else and there is a feeling of family. The principal, Kevin Coromanski is from is really cool. He is from South Africa and has been at Pomaria for 7 years now. Apparently, before he got there the school really struggled, no one wanted their kids to go there, but now it is a really good school. I am really excited for the next 4 weeks that we have in the schools, hopefully I will get some pictures so you can fall in love with my kids too!