I met a Spaniard but he wasn't tall, dark, and handsome.

Let me back up, then I'll tell you about it...

We all went "tramping" from Sunday to Tuesday (That's Kiwi for hiking). It was heaps of fun! Here's our group at the end. Kelcey was the only one who didn't come because she's on crutches and that would be rather difficult. 

We went up Mount Somers and it was beautiful every step of the way.

The first day was very uphill hiking which was a struggle for this girl who's not the most in shape, but taking a water break here on this awesome rock overlooking the hills was worth every step!

Another water break was when our trail went underneath this awesome little waterfall! 

View from the bottom looking up

River crossings are always more fun when you have your balance thrown off by a backpack, but we all did quite well staying dry.

When we made it to our hut the first night we left our backpacks there and were free to go exploring. So me Davey and Schaeffer went out to find stuff to climb on.

And then we went higher, can you see us? We ended up going almost all the way to the top of those hills you can see.

The next day was super foggy and misty. While it did block out most of the scenery it was in a sense it's very own scenery. It reminded me that God created everything and not just the stuff we think is cool and that I should appreciate it all. 

Our team in the mist.

Here we are about to get to our 2nd hut. This one was much bigger, but the toilet smelled much worse!

From here we went exploring again and went to some water caves. Amy and I held up the rocks so Erica could pose for the picture.

They were super cool to climb over, which we did on the way up the river and were nice and warm staying dry. This was when I met my Spaniard. But instead of a man it is a plant over here. A plant that is very sharp and pokey. While I was jumping over the river and trying to catch hold of a rock my forehead bumped into one and it poked me right in the middle of my forehead. I knew it hurt, but didn't realize it had cut me and I turned around to warn the others and their faces were hilarious, because I had blood dripping right down the middle of my forehead, and then I could feel it and had to wipe it off and stick my head in the river to make it stop, but it was funny. And I survived, but we didn't get a picture of that. 

We all picked a rock in the river when we got through all the caves for a picture.

Then we decided to brave the glacier water of the river and go through the caves on the way back down instead of climbing over them.

We found some fun little water slides.

And climbed behind freezing waterfalls.

And slid through little rock openings into pools of water.

Later that night when we were dry again we went out to have a little class and we had to cross this really long and skinny bridge that only one person can be on at a time. It was fun because it wiggled under each step.

That night all the girls took their mattresses out to the porch and slept under the stars. We were all bundled up like Eskimo babies!

And here's us on the last day of hiking. Was it beautiful or what!?!?!

 

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans! We are even celebrating it over here in New Zealand! We were away at camp for Canada's Thanksgiving, so ours is the one we'll all celebrate (and there's more of us anyway). 

Yesterday was workday and Davey and I were in the kitchen helping Drea. We cleaned the kitchen for the first couple hours but then moved on to baking! I made the pumpkin by from scratch and then Davey and I learned how to lace the apple pie. It was really fun, and turned out beautifully! 

The day started at 6am with the "first annual turkey trot". I guess the Turkey Trot is a 5k they do in Minnesota, but we brought it here to New Zealand and increased it to a 9k. That's just over 5 miles for you Americans. We had 3 runners (Erica, Amy, and Dave), 3 bikers (me, Gen, and Drea), and 1 human cheerleader (Kelcey). Many sheep and cows were along the sides to cheer us on too. 

Coming to the finish

"Turkey Trot Style"

The Runners

Runners, bikers, and cheerleader 

We still had the normal breakfast and class (it's not a holiday over here after all) and then everyone did homework in the afternoon and beautified themselves. Erica is a professional when it comes to make up, so she did everyone's make up and then I helped out with the girls' hair. We all wore dresses and then took family pics. 

We had appetizers to snack on and then had an amazing dinner! It was delicious! Very similar to what the rest of you probably had in the States. Then we enjoyed the delicious pies and ice cream! 

We all helped clean up because the poor dish duty people would have been in the kitchen for hours cleaning up. So all 8 students were dancing away washing, drying, and putting things away to the sound of Christmas music. It was a wonderful day over here. And I can tell you this, I am so thankful. I'm thankful for my wonderful family and that Luka is a Caraway this year. I'm thankful for my amazing friends both over in the USA, in Tanzania, here in New Zealand, and other places around the world. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be at this school where I learn so much every single day. I'm thankful for the beauty here. And I'm oh so thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who makes life worth living. 

A Weekend to Remember!

My oh my what a weekend this was! 

Sunday we went to Mt Sunday. Now that doesn't sound really cool to you guys, but let me put it in terms you would understand. Think Lord of the Rings for a minute. Okay, now think Riders of Rohan. Okay, here it is... "Mt. Sunday was the set for Edoras, the fortress city of the Rohan people in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"...well, that's where I was! We went there and had a lovely picnic at the base of it. Then we climbed up. Jess, one of the girls here, turned 21 today, so this was part of her birthday surprise. We kidnapped her and threw her into the van. We all put white hand prints on our faces like orcs and made crazy noises (like orcs) on the ride there. She didn't get to take the blindfold off until we had her in the perfect place to see the amazing view of Rohan! (Pictures to come later on facebook)

Today we went white water rafting! We went on the Rangatata River - check it out... http://www.rafts.co.nz/ (Yes, that is the same river that they filmed part of Lord of the Rings where Froto and Boromir are - but we were in a different part of it.) We went over multiple rapids. Some grade one, grade two, grade three, and GRADE FIVE! There were two sets of grade five rapids. We made it over the first one soaked, but with smiles on our faces! Then we came to the second one. To put it simply I will say that I rafted half of this rapid and the other half I clawed at the water and fought for my life! Steve, our guide warned us about a certain spot that if we were to flip the raft it would be there. I was on the front right of the raft and all together there were 8 of us in it. We were supposed to paddle for all we were worth, so I leaned over to paddle and when I glanced to my left I was actually looking straight up at the sky. Well, kind of. Josh, who was originally on the other side of the boat, was about 2 inches away from me. In the next instant all 8 of us were in the river and the raft was upside down! There were so many things to remember:

• Relax. 
• Keep your feet up.
• Hold the boat.
• Hold your paddle.
• Try to grab the boat (if you aren't already).
• Try to swim to the edge of the river.

Knowing that was what I was supposed to do, here's what actually happened in my head:

• air....air....I NEED AIR!
• Ah, there's air, GULP, too late, I was back under water just before I got the gulp.
• Ouch, something hit me...oh, it's someone else's paddle. I'll just grab it for them.
• How do I swim with a paddle in each hand? 
• air...air....I NEED AIR

Eventually, I bounced up again backwards, and turned around just in time to see a huge rock about a meter in front of me. I quickly got my legs in front of me and kicked off of it to save my body. But that sent me back into the rapid and for another underwater adventure. 

After I found air again, I swam with all my might to the side of the river and tried to grab on. I saw other people floating by me. Then the other raft with all their people went by upright still...yay for them! Then I saw Steve, our guide, climb up onto our upside down raft and surf through the rest of the rapid. He flipped the boat back right side up, but motioned that I should stay where I was, then he was out of sight. Eventually, the third raft with the camera/rescue crew came down the river and got me and then brought me to our raft which was by now parked just a little farther down the river. One fun fact...I was the only person who kept ahold of my paddle! 

We climbed back in and that was the end of the really big rapids so we only had little ones left. We stopped again to do some cliff jumping which was sweet! I think it was about 9 meters (27ish feet). Tons of fun!

It was crazy, and scary, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! If you ever want an adventure check out white water rafting on the Rangatata River!

Everyday Craziness

What should I tell you about this time...how about just us here...our little family that each day grows closer together. You'd think living in a house with 12 people who didn't know each other before hand would be rather difficult. You'd think having 5 girls ages 19-24 share a room would be tough. But it has truly just been a joy as we grow closer together, challenge and inspire each other. But we are no average family. Let me tell you about our random quirky fun times in the past week or so...

We had family night last Thursday. (We have one about every other week) This week's family night we played "The Crossing Idol/The Crossing's Got Talent". There was a pile of little phrases or words that all had been said or an even that we had done and each person had to pull one out of the pile. They read it to everyone and then got to pick anyone from the crowd to be a part of their 'band'. They went into the next room and had 3 minutes to put a song together. There was not much talent that came out of the night, but there were a ton of laughs!

We are having to get more creative for our daily roomy pics. This was a fun one in all the upstairs windows. 

On Sunday it was pretty cloudy all morning. It continued to get darker and darker as the afternoon went on. Eventually at like 3 or 4 it started pouring down rain! We all stopped what we were doing and went to play in the rain. It was cold but so fun! We ran, hopped, frolicked, and slipped all over the yard. We got the rugby ball out and played a little, but no one could really catch the ball because if you ran you ended up flat on your back in a puddle.

 We declared Tuesday "Schaeffer Day". Schaeffer is one of the boys here. He is from Texas and has an accent we all love and try to copy. He typically has the colors red and black on. So for "Schaeffer Day" we all dressed like him. 

 And then we had to take a "twins" picture, because we both have red pants.

 In one of our classes we were talking about the temple and the importance of all the parts of it, so we acted it out. Davey and I were the altar. Solomon was the lampstand. Kelcey was the wash basin. Lenore was the table and consecrated bread. Schaeffer was the altar of incense. Erica and Amy were the chrubim over the ark of the covenant. Josh was the high priest and our teacher was the Jewish man who was bringing the offering. - it sounds like just a crazy thing, but it was really cool to see how Jesus fulfills all the parts of this. He is the light of the world, drink from Him and you won't thirst again, the bread of life, the high priest, the sacrifice...wow. So cool to see!

The things we do don't always make sense. The other day the boys came down to class and walked in all with sunglasses and their hair slicked straight back...why? Just because. Someone gave them hair gel, so now they will try random styles till it is gone...the real question should be why not!

So yeah, we are weird and crazy, but we are some type of family and we really do love each other. There are challenges, but the joys far outweigh them.

Wednesday is Workday

So Wednesday is workday and this week I was in the garden. I will tell you this was the first time in my life I have ever newspapered the outdoors. This was not a prank, like toilet papering, but a great gardening technique. (I'm sure some of you handy people know) but anyway, here's me newspapering...

We then covered the area with newspaper and the newspaper with sawdust and now it looks great. I guess it makes it hard for the weeds to grow. While I was spreading out all the sawdust I definitely felt like a hamster, but I survived that and in the middle of the afternoon we take a break from work and go have tea. Somehow we started talking about electric fences and getting shocked and decided to go grab the fence as a group. So we all held hands and made Dave (he was more than willing) grab onto the wire. The most people we could get the shock through was 5. Why did we do this?? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. We do have plans to find a higher powered fence and see if we can get it through all of us, but we had to go back to work, so that will be a story for another day. 

Also I weeded the rhubarb, garlic, potatoes, strawberries and more. Then planted pumpkins, squash, and onions. I repaired a whole in the netting over the strawberries, because we are trying to protect them from the birds. It was a fun workday and the sun was shining for most of it. 

I would like to have my own garden someday. They are a lot of work, but they are very rewarding and exciting to see everything growing...even if the weeds seem to grow at a much faster pace than anything else! 

DREADLOCKS!

So yesterday I saw this girl with dreads and I've been looking into getting them so I've been trying to muster up courage to ask people where they got theirs done. I decided I had to go chat with this girl, so a couple of us went up to them. There were two girls and a guy hanging out by this van. I walked up and awkwardly asked her if she got her dreads done here and she said no. She had gotten them done in Finland, but she quickly followed that with, "but I know how to do them, I could do some for you!"

I was really nervous. I didn't know how to react. So I just got her number and decided to think about it. I got the courage and then we had to work out the timing. It takes hours. It ended up working out that we both had a free afternoon today so I headed over to the van that the 3 of them are currently living in (gotta love the backpacker lifestyle) and they were just cooking lunch as we started.

Sitting in the road in Queenstown, New Zealand is about the best place ever to get dreadlocks. =) They were so sweet and even shared their lunch with me and made me some tea and they did it all for free!

Unfortunately they do take a while to "lock" so they are a bit fuzzy right now, but don't fret, after a little tender love and care and a small chunk of time they hopefully will be looking great!

 So this is my new look. Hopefully you all still love me? hehehe

Good Eats in Queenstown!

In an effort to make our travel weekend cheaper, our gracious and wonderful cook Drea allowed us to take the leftovers from school with us instead of freezing them for our return. 

Our first night in Queenstown we had 6 burgers (the size of sliders), 2 pieces of chicken and 2 pieces of pork. To share between the ten of us. So we each got one piece of meat. We had no buns or toppings to go on any of the meat. We also had some left over salad so we all got a small portion of that which equalled approximately 4 bites each. Lucky for us there was some tomato sauce (ketchup) in the free box that someone else had left here, so we added that to our meal. It was a wonderful first meal.

When the morning came it was time for breakfast. We had a ton of eggs at school, so we were allowed to buy them at 10 cents an egg! So we bought 60 eggs and each get two for breakfast each day. And we had a loaf of old bread. We did not have oil or butter or anything like that though. So we took my leftover fries that I had bought on the car trip to Queenstown and heated them up in a frying pan so get some of the grease off of them and onto the pan. Then we poured them onto a plate and threw the eggs in the pan. It didn't quiet make it un-sticky, so they ended up scrambled instead of fried, but it was worth the try. Then we took the stale bread and toasted it. Again we had nothing to put on it. Quote of the morning, "If you think of it like a cracker, it's pretty good." 

Our lunch was left over fried eggs (one each) and bread. yummy yummy yummy! 

Supper was leftover chili! That was so good! And some coleslaw and a half a piece of pineapple upside down cake each!

So you see, we have some delicious meals we are sharing together! We are all excited though for our big night out tomorrow night! We are going to eat at a place called Ferg Burger. I guess it's super famous and has really big burgers. So we will get all filled up there from any hunger we have through our condensed size meals. 

 

Enjoying the student/backpacker life style! Hope you're having a great weekend too!