Its official, our jeans will never fit right again. There are no dryers so we are constantly pulling up our drawers, it’s the new norm. We spent part of this week at Sue’s and part at Ian’s, house sitting while he was out of town. Our poor baby cows are growing up so fast. They finished up their last round of milk and are on to grain and they do not appreciate it. 

Well, we got dumped off on Sue and she is awesome and lives in paradise! It is so pretty and there are baby cows—so perfection. Sue actually has a collection of animals: dogs, cats, cows, goats 4-legged and 3-legged, horses and chickens (the one animal Mags is not allergic to; it’s a miracle). I for one am terrified of chickens, ask Teresa, I tried to feed her chickens and I nearly jumped out of my skin. 

Ian is a half Māori have Irish older man with a very cool past! He worked in construction but for large band venues he has met everyone from AC/DC to Guns and Roses, to Metallica, to ZZ Top. He now lives in a river front rancher and he needed help fixing it up.  He can essentially live off the grid at his house. It’s going to be all solar powered and he uses tank water not from the city (there is no city we are kind of in the middle of nowhere).  He grows everything—bananas, oranges, apples, peaches, peppers, beans, lemons, herbs, etc. and he has chickens for fresh eggs. 

Well we did laundry folks, it’s a miracle. And we did it like peasants, in the most adorable way. It is very uncommon for people to have dryers so you hang dry everything on a line, and it is so cute! However it did take us an entire day because you have to stick around just incase it decides to rain, and rain pops up all the time!!

So we are finally getting things done to be official members of New Zealand. We have our bank accounts, visa, and now we wait for our tax numbers. This is all so boring it’s exhausting.

The most important part is that today in New Zealand is the best day in Ash-tober because it’s officially my New Zealand birthday. See right now we are a whole day ahead of America so I’m taking full advantage and having a NZ birthday and an American birthday, why? Because Ash-tober is the best. So of course I read the birthday card Ma' sneakily put in my backpack, and I will read it and be just as surprised tomorrow! 

The day started great with actual breakfast, we were starving after not eating for 24 hours. Then with a couple hours of failed research trying to find a campervan, we took a break to go to One Tree Hill.  One Tree Hill is now an inactive volcano that was Mauri land. 

After a few delays we finally made it to Auckland! Our first steps into the country and Maggie eats it, fall straight to the ground. However the New Zealanders gave her a round of applause, we immediately knew these were our people. Not 5 minutes later I also fell to the ground. So suffice it to say we let New Zealand know we were here the best way we knew how, with grace and poise.