The Cat's away, The Mice will Play

Whangarei Falls is the city's claim to fame.

The stream reminds me of the mountains at home plus some ferns.

Whale bay is just another beautiful deserted beach right outside of town.

The kids love to play with Naomi, Champ, Kiarra, Danna, Brooke, and baby Samantha.

Miguel who played college baseball has organized the Northland Baseball League. He bought the kids this huge plastic bat for after church parking lot play. Anna and Andrew will be starting T-ball and Lynn and I will be the T-ball coach. It is really a community out reach program. On the last trip to the US Miguel brought the equipment and programing back for Upward Basketball next Spring.

Anna starting the 100 yard race.

Athletic Club is at Phillip's school but is composed of students from both. Lynn is coaching the high jump. I take a pilates class in town that night. There is a sausage sizzle every week at Athletic Club and plenty of opportunity for grill side conversations and getting to know people. At such a time a teacher recently poured her heart out to me about the NZ problems of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and school violence from first hand experience. It happens in both countries and is always hard to hear.
Lynn did such a great job managing the kids while I was gone. I found these beautiful pictures of his Sunday afternoon hike to the falls and walk at Whale Bay with the Abascal family after church. It is breath taking.We have started a new sporting season with baseball for Phillip, T-ball for Anna and Andrew on Monday and Tuesday, Athletic Club (track and field) for all 4 on Wednesdays, and karate for Andrew on Thursdays. It could be a busy time until Christmas. Thanks for the packages and letters from Rheba, Mom, Susan, and Nanny. We love hearing from you.

Nelson, Wellington, and Halloween

The Wellington harbour is beautiful and reminds me of San Francisco. The playground in downtown Wellington has a great clean beach beside it.

We drove an hour north of Wellington to Martinborough where boutique wineries reminded me of Napa valley

Cheryl Crow and John Melloncamp are doing an outdoor concert at this vineyard later this month.

Rus was a great tour guide and companion while I was there.

As always, the roadside scenary is breath taking in NZ. This road to Martinborough shows the panarama.

There is something special about grapes on the vine growing within the rows of the vineyard which reminds me of Jesus' words in Matthew "I am the vine, you are the branches, remain in me and bear fruit (love,joy, peace,patience,kindness,goodness,gentleness, faithfulness and self control)."

While I was away Lynn did a fabulous job with the kids including getting them ready for the school community Halloween party where they enjoyed the candy and time with friends.

Aurora is pictured with her friend Brooke who had a great spider costume her mom, Rene, had made out of pantyhose.

Many thanks to thise of you who prayed for the lecturing opportunity I had in Nelson at the NZ Pathology Society's annual meeting. There were about 70 pathologists there from all over NZ including some trainees. I felt middleaged in an intellectual trough realizing I have been in practice long enough to have forgotten a lot of the esoteric initial training but not long enough to have the depth of experience of the long termers. On any account, the 2 lectures I did seemed well recieved and confirmed my impression that there is a teacher/lecturer buried within me despite the nerves that kept me up until 3:30Am the night before I spoke. I am asking God in what arenas will I swallow my jitters and become vulnerable enough to communicate pathology, biblical truths, or editorial writing. I seem to have a stir of thoughts and ideas accumulating in my head with need of time to sit down and write/organize. I wrote one entitled "The Pros and Cons of Capitalism" yesterday as I reflected on the US election, our American values, my Christian perspective, the more socialist NZ mindset, and the upcoming NZ election today. I can e-mail the essay if anyone besides Summer is interested. Anyway, it was good to be in Nelson and back deeper in the field of medicine I like so much. After the conference I flew to Wellington, the NZ capital city, to see my brother for a few days. He has a beautiful pent house apartment and I was quite charmed with Wellington as a trendy city. It is very compact with walking, biking, and busing to a variety of beaches,waterfronts, shops, and ethnic restaurants. We had my favorite, Indian food, two nights and shared pasta and a bottle of wine at a great Italian cafe another. He took one day off and we drove to the wine district of Martinborough to enjoy walking the vineyards and winetasting. Wellington provided better Christmas shopping so we did a bit of that downtown. We wrapped Christmas presents and watched movies in the evenings. It was just good to be together. He also treated me to an early Birthday present with an entire morning at the Day Spa. Fantastic!!

Labour Day Drive Through Northland's Wild West Coast

World's largest Kauri Tree

Opononi- previous home of Opo the friendly dolphin

Koru (baby fern). Maori symbol of new life/new beginnings.

Ngapha (pronounced nafa) natural hot springs. We smelled like sulfur for days.

In the Kauri Forest

World's most famous restrooms designed by a Dutch artist. Go figure.

Massive sand dunes.

Primeval.

Forestry is big business in Northland. Unfortunately, it's not too pretty.

Quaint churches dot the countryside. Mostly Anglican. We hug in front of all of them.

Andrew enjoyed his visit to the Hundertwasser Toilets- remember to flush.