intense game playing, ANZAC day, 21st & mining tunnels

on wednesday we had a girls youth leaders night and it was so great! we ate yummy desserts and played some of the most intense games i've ever played. we started off playing catch phrase. things escalated quickly. once each round was finished we had to let out a huge breath because you didn't realize you were holding your breath and take a wee break to let our heart rates go back down. the next game changed my life. it's called jungle speed. but it's probably only fun if you're playing with highly competitive people. which we all were.
mom, it looks like this if you want to get it for me :)

thursday morning carmen, logan and i went to the ANZAC (stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) dawn service at the mount. it's pretty much the same as memorial day back home. it wasn't super fantastic. for one we were late, two, it was raining, three, we couldn't really see anything, and four there were loud guns that went off which gave me a fright. but it's cool to say i've done it. :) most businesses are closed that day because it's a public holiday but we were open at the gelato shop so i got time and a half, yiyii! and it was SO busy, such a nice change!
jenni made the most delish traditional NZ meal for dinner, roast lamb with mint sauce with all the fixings, YUM. logan was here and joel and millie (carms brother and sister in law) came over for dinner as well. after dessert we headed over to laura h.'s to watch a movie.

the memorial on the beach

dawn rising

friday i worked at gelato another busy day and then hung out at laura's with the BBC crew, van, laura, carms, logan, and nic. we ate pizza, watched a NZ classic called Love Birds..was funny to watch a movie in their accent, and had a spa.

on saturday laura, carmz, loges, van, jono, and i headed to Waihi to walk through the old mines! first jono van and i made a pit stop to massive Martha, and active gold mine in Waihi.

martha 

check out this massive dump truck, puts the mine
in perspective

weeeee

cheeky shot with martha

we met up with the rest at Karangahake Gorge to go on our mine tunnel expedition. it was real cool. there were all these paths and we chose the ones that "a flashlight was recommended". aaand we didn't have a flashlight. it was such a weird feeling, opening your eyes as wide as they can possibly go but seeing absolutely nothing but continually moving forward just feeling your way along. 

Karangahake Gorge

a tunnel entrance

a MOST attractive photo of the crew..to be fair it
went from pitch blackness to blinding light for this photo..

oh heeeeey

toad!! 

this super long tunnel which was sadly lit, apparently not that long ago it wasn't.
would've been much more exciting if not. 

we carved our names in the walllll!

a better group shot: jono, laura h., me, carmz, van, loges :)

SUP.

we ate our packed lunches and went and got some icecream. and got it chocolate dipped. thought that was awesome until i tasted it. tasted like i was chewing on wax. YUM haha. then there was a bit of a mishap involving driving on windy roads, attempting to shake the chocolate off my cone out the window, somebody "helping me shake it off" resulting in it splattering all over me and the car. i really shouldn't eat icecream and drive. but hey i got us home safe :)
once back at laura's we went to play tennis, and while laura and van had an intense match off, jono and i attempted to rally. we made it to 30. that is quite the accomplishment you have no idea. it was painful at times and hilarious at others. next goal is the big money, 50.

that night it was a friend, Caleb's 21st birthday party. which is one of the biggest birthdays celebrated here as i've written about in an earlier post. but this one was legit. they had it at their house which is gorgeous, they have their own tennis court and a fresh water pool and spa. there were so many delicious nibbles and the drinks were in abundance. there were a few speeches and a slide show of photos, but the majority of the time was just socializing and pool/spa time :) a good end to a great day.

sunday was much more chill, i went to the beach in the morning to have some God time, a beauty of a day. and just relaxed until i went to city church in the evening and then we all headed to Wendy's after for some grub. :)

April 15th to 21st

Sooo this is a bit delayed, but i should write down what i did because i'll forget if i don't :)

This week was pretty chill did the fruit and veggie boxes early on Monday morning and made a banoffie pie with Jono that night. a delish nz dessert. ours didn't look quite a beautiful as this one, but it was stinkin good.

on tuesday i worked at the cafe. but really early in the morning (6am) i tried out a boxing class with Christine (Van and Jono's mom) and Jono. it. was. so. intense. i never knew punching was so exhausting. i even almost felt like i was going to be sick BUT i didn't :) 

wednesday i skyped my lovely family hung out with laura h. for a bit and went to youth group at BBC that night. it was the last one before the school holidays (2 weeks off) so we had a bit of a celebration. which was a surprise dance party! we had lights, d-jays, balloons, pumping beats, and scrummy food. and if you know me, i love to dance and i did just that. 

at 6am on thursday morning i went to boxing again with Christine because i got a free week pass to the gym. i did much better this time, no sick feeling :) then i worked a shift at gelato. 

on friday i worked at gelato again and it is sooo quiet right now because it's just not peak season anymore sooo, i created a character. meet cuppie. 

i took a series of photo's of cuppie doing odd jobs around the shop, which entertained me for about a half an hour..trust me. i have done everything that can be done, the boss even told me i could read i book..but i did this instead :)

that night was city youth and we went to posh little place down by the strand (the waterfront) after for drinks and chats. 

saturday was one of the most lazy days i've had in a long while. i went to the hills house to watch a movie, then we watched another movie..and i was supposed to drive to hamilton that evening for blair's 23rd birthday but it started to torrential downpour, then it started to rain even heavier if that's possible, and it wasn't stopping. i got convinced that it just wasn't safe to drive there, by myself and in the dark not quite knowing where i was going, in the pouring rain. bad combination. so i just stayed an hung out. then van, laura h. and myself had a spa (hot tub) for ages. it was quite relaxing in the pouring rain. we put up an umbrella to keep mostly dry. then since the boys were gone to a friends to watch rugby, we watched a chick flick. what a lazy day spent with good friends :)

sunday i went to BBC in the morning after i climbed the mount with van. and then in the eve went to city church and we had an "encounter night". it was really cool. there were all these stations set up using different ways to connect with God. some cool stuff happened that night. then a bunch of us headed to a flat and we played a very loud game of cranium. :)

french, bench races & the goat track

this past week i picked up a ukulele! stoked! i bought it from the sweetest man at his books and musical instruments shop. i originally bought the cheapest one, $35 cause i just wanted something to jam on. but it ended up going out of tune super quick so i phoned him up and asked if i could come back and put the $35 towards a better one. he was so accommodating and he just really wants people to want to play music. so he let me choose one and gave me a sweet as deal! i chose one that originally sells for $95 and he sold it to me for only $55 total! i didn't ask for the price to be lowered or anything. he just did it, what a legend.

what a beaut!

i also made some tomato sauce from scratch because of all the lovely fresh free produce we're getting from campbell from when we do the fruit and veg boxes. first time making it from scratch, yum!

FRIDAY night i went to city youth for French Cuisine night. we all had to get dressed in our frenchie best and had a dinner of baguettes, french fries and creme brulee for dessert. there was a game with questions pertaining to frenchness and you had to answer them as a table and i knew a few just from taking french in school. it was hilarious hearing them trying to say things in french, they just cannot do the accent haha. 

baguettes

one guy made over 80 creme brulee, and they were so tasty!

our table of mademoiselles 

a bunch of us went to a flat where about 5 girls from church live to hang out after. we ended up watching Shooter, but it was lame because people kept talking and commentating through it, it was freezing and a light kept shining in my face everytime the door opened..which was a lot. haha which in hindsight all made for a funny night.  

SATURDAY i worked at gelato and when i went to leave i just happened to look at my tire, and it was flat to the ground. SUPER. i just kindof laughed to myself and called home to see what i should do, but as i was on the phone an elderly couple were walking by and had stopped in front of my car. he offered to help me out, and i said i had AA (which is just like CAA) but he insisted, he was there, so he wanted to help. they were so sweet. they weren't even from Tauranga they were just there enjoying the day off together. I discovered their names were Bev and Neil. She was a nurse and he a police officer. what a better couple then them to be walking by right when i need it. God cares about the littlest things! he put the spare on and made sure everything checked out and they sent me on my way. chivalry isn't dead! 

in the evening BBC had a youth event called bench races that i went and helped out with. it was so fun/intense! for those of you who are unaware of what a bench race is as i was when i first heard of it, i shall explain. we're all separated into teams and each team has one chair per two people. which you have to carry around with you while you are running everywhere. there are people going around in cars with flashlights and if they shine one on you and you are not standing on your chairs, you loose a life. each team gets a list of tasks that they need to do, for example: go into the grocery store, find something that begins with the letter E, costs as close to $3 as possible and buy it as close to 8:28pm. 

a photo in a bus shelter

planking photo

it was right after the planking photo when some cops showed up and asked to talk with us. i was semi-terrified..but they just gave us the "we're looking out for your safety" talk and told us to be careful. we found out later that they did it to every group and that it was planned, they were some friends of one of the youth leaders and they told them if they had nothing to do to come around and scare us a bit! it worked! and probably kept us safer too haaha. 

SUNDAY went to church in the morning at BBC and David Pierce was speaking, a guy who has seen some crazy stuff in his time and had incredible favour on his life. lives life to the extreme. reaching people through his crazy rock/death metal band. 

after church i met up with jono to go eat some "greasy duck" or more commonly known as KFC haha, and then us and two of his mates, michael and luke, climbed the mount. so beautiful up there. and then we climbed down using the "goat track". basically a path that goes straight down the mountain instead of around. since it hasn't rained for ages it was so dusty and slippery, especially since none of us had any grip on our shoes haha, but it was much more exciting going down then using the conventional way. my legs were so sore from it tho. watched some rugby after then headed to city church went back to michael because his mom cooked us a mean feed and then we headed to the girls flat again and watched hilarious youtube video's ie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itAXpbwHlvQ&list=PL4041CF224FF2490D&safety_mode=true&safe=active&persist_safety_mode=1 (family, pay special attention to the cat dance) 

we then played this game where a select few of us ended up cheating, some MUCH more than others..which turned a potentially boring game into a competitive cheating match, which was of course, quite entertaining. :)

paragliders on top of the mount

 

easter camp

sorry about the tardy post but here is one from easter weekend. easter camp happened that weekend. and let me tell you it was incredible. way back in canada i remember carmen telling me of this camp called and i pictured maybe 100 kids and it was this cute little thing. but boy was i wrong! it's one of the best run camps i've ever been to!
our BBC youth group headed to Mystery Creek (where it was located) on thursday evening. our campsite was already set up very kindly by a group who went up the day before to set up for us. we had a big marquee tent where we could hang out with couches, ping pong table, foosball table, and ambience lighting :) and a series of other tents where we could all lay our tired bodies for a few hours of sleep each night.
once settled we went out to the first evening meeting.

4700 people attended easter camp! 

A day set up looked something like this: Leaders meeting at 7:30 am where we got a briefing on the happenings of the day. Then we'd go back, make sure all our youth were up and getting breakfast and then we all headed to morning session. which usually consisted of worship singing and a speaker. Then they'd release us to all go back to our own campsites and have small groups with our kids to further discuss what was talked about by the speaker. lunch was served at 12:15 and all 4,700 of us would line up to get our delicious feed. in the afternoons it was basically "free time" with many things to choose from. such as a talent quest (which the final three got to perform in front of the masses), several different seminars on different topics from anything between girl/boy stuff to the Holy Spirit, there were dance workshops (which were a blast for the 15 minutes i attended one), sports competitions, movies, paintball, and blowup bouncy castle maze thingies (WHICH WERE INCREDIBLE.) so plenty to occupy oneself with. dinner was served, more free time, then off to evening session which had much of the same set up to the morning sessions. each evening there were different events after the session. on friday night it was a Hoedown Showdown. picture thousands of young people trying to figure out square dancing and that's what you get. tons of laughs and confused faces. on saturday eve it was a massive dance party where people dressed up circusy or animaly. and on sunday night we just had time to pray with each other and it was amazing. God did some incredible work in so many lives.

playing "big booty" in the lunch line

face stuffing at lunch time 

reflective art space

hoedown showdown!

"the village" a place to hang all times of the day with
cool shops and yum food to purchase

a challenge, get the person in the sumo suit from the stage to
the top of the bleachers and back down again, both safe and fun HA

dressed up to go to the elektro circus dance parry

dan sparty

dance workshop proskies

being leaders

easter camp as a whole for me was such a great experience. i got to know so many more of the youth and leaders better, as you do when you're hanging out straight time. i had many laughs, learned, grew, was stretched, and experienced God in a new way. i am so grateful for my time that i got to have there.