The Smiths Abroad: One year down, one to go!

Wow, hard to believe we have been living in New Zealand for a full year. It feels like just a few months ago that we were packing up our stuff, telling people we were moving to NZ with jazz hands to soften the blow and crying my eyes out as I said goodbye to my parents at airport security in Minneapolis. A year is a long time. 525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. That’s 2,050 hours of daylight, 365 sunsets and midnights, and about 75 cups of coffee (I average 1-2 per week).

How do the Smith’s measure a year?

2 apartments: We stayed in our first apartment for 10 months, then got the heck out of the noisy city and moved to the burbs. Although I miss being able to walk to do all my errands, I do not miss the semis rolling past at 3am and the cramped spaces of our city flat.

Our old place

The new 2 bedroom place!

10 bush hikes: We have really embraced hiking in New Zealand. Prior to living here I may have gone on 5 hikes in my life. There are so many trails you can do and never repeat, unless you want to! Everywhere you go the scenery is breathtaking. We mostly go by ourselves as we are usually last minute hikers and I am afraid to be left in the dust by a big group of fit people, but have gone on a few shorter group hikes which we fun

Hiking Rangitoto

Up The Mount

Mt. Zion track in the Waitakeres

14 beaches: I did a post about beaches already, but just to reiterate: we. love. beaches. We have mostly been to beaches in the Auckland area, but if we are on a trip somewhere, you can bet your bum we are going to be at a beach at some point. This isn’t to say that New Zealand has year round summer (though right now it is seeming like it), we go to the beaches cold, wind, rain or shine.

Hard life at the beach

boogie boarding, a new favorite hobby!

The Smith family going for a swim

8 trips: We have torn it up on the north island hitting the Auckland area, Rotorua, Taupo, Hawke’s Bay, Tauranga, Wellington, Te Aroha, Whangarei and Sydney. In June we will officially set foot on the South Island for a little R and R over the Queen’s Birthday weekend. We are super excited to continue exploring all the great things this country has to offer!

Wellington

Sydney

Thermal pools of Rotorua

Sail away in Tauranga

7 children’s church lessons: Will and I have been volunteering in our children’s church one a month since about August. I am the leader for the “tots” (18mo-3 years) and Will is my helper. They always provide us with activities and lessons but usually its pretty chaotic so we just use it as a rough guideJ We’ve met a lot of great people from doing that and get to play with some cute kids with funny accents.

2 visitors: In our first year we’ve had 2 official visitors. Our first visitors we Will’s parents when they came in January. We had a lot of fun showing them around and they really loved New Zealand. Pretty sure Will’s mom would have stayed here the rest of our time here if she didn’t have grand kids back home to get to. My friend from college, Rodney, came to visit us in Feb and we had a great couple of days in Auckland as he finished off his Auz, NZ tour. We have a few more visitors slated for 2013/2014, but we always have room for more!

Hiking with Rodney

Will's parents at Mission Bay beach

i Friends: We can’t put a number on the friends we’ve met here, mostly because there is no clear definition of “friend” vs “acquaintance” in my mind. When does someone cross the line from someone I’ve just met and liked, to a bona fide friend? I think of friends as a spectrum. We have made lots of great friends here that spread the board. Some we can just call last minute to hang out and see almost every week, others are closer to the acquaintance side of the spectrum, but we still have great times with them and greatly value their experiences. I hate to imagine what this first year would have been like if I could actually measure our friends, and do so with a single digit number. Friendship has definitely become more important to me as I get older (biologically preparing for the day when your spouse kicks the bucket?). I work harder at nurturing friendships like I would a romantic relationship these days. I’m still pretty bad at it for the peeps back home (sorry!) but it is something I strive for and will make it there someday. So this year, the most important measurement for us is in friendships, but beaches and trips are a close second J