Hello, Baby!

Firstly, Welcome to the world, niece Ellinor. We can't wait to meet you! It's hard being away from family at times like this. Sigh...feeling just a little homesick.

Jason went kayaking in the ocean near Christchurch with a new kayaking friend, Adam. They were catching waves and surfing in to shore. They had a blast.

(Adam and Jason trying to scooch out to sea. Pretty funny watching them inch along like crabs.)

(Jason's in the middle. Adam is off to the left.)

We travelled back out to Diamond Harbour to stay one night with our new bowling friends, Morris and Christine. They have a rental cottage that we stayed in that was wonderful. We bowled the next day with some other bowling club members and had a great time.

We left Christchurch for a few days to visit friends of friends, Colin and Hilary, on their farm near Rakaia Gorge. They have 1400 deer, 9000 sheep, and I don't know how many cattle. It's a big place. We helped Hilary clean up the shearers' quarters (a 19 bed complex where the shearers sleep and eat when they are here that also gets rented out to various clubs or family reunion groups when not being used by shearers). It was a lot of work for just one person, so we volunteered to assist. There is another guest at the farm while we are here, an Englishman who comes to NZ every year to go fly fishing. It's been fun getting to know some new people and seeing a beautiful new place.

Rakaia Gorge is near Ashburton, the home of the Ashford spinning wheel factory. We popped in this afternoon to check out the wheels and tried unsuccessfully to get a tour of the factory. But I (Meg) did get a chance to test drive some of the wheels. No "souvenirs" were purchased at the Ashford store, but there's still plenty of time to find a spinning wheel to cart home.