December 20

Wow it has been a busy two weeks. I cant look at the damage on the Queen Jane without getting sad. Jordan ’s Mom came on December the 7^th and we have been wrapped up with that. Jordan spent the first week trying to get a car and he was finally successful and bought a lovely large sedan Nissan at a car auction. Its hard to find large comfortable cars and most of the second hand cars we saw were really beat up. We got a really good deal on it and should be able to resell at our cost which will make it lovely.  

Rita and Harvey ( Jordan ’s Mom and Step-Dad) rented a lovely suite apartment on the beach where we all stayed. Jonah was thrilled to see his Gammy and Zeda – he demanded to know when he was leaving for NYC! We celebrated Hanukkah with them and he loved it. He got lots of great gifts – beautiful books, a nerf shooting toy (oh thanks), Lego’s and a brand new two wheel bike with training wheels. I was pleasantly surprised by a lovely gift of fabulous earrings from Rita. We explored the area of the Bay of Plenty where Tauranga is located, enjoyed the beach when it wasn’t raining and played in the heated pool.  

We went to Rotorua for the day and did goofy things like a hedge maze and a farm exhibit where they shear sheep and other things. One thing was they let participants feed lambs, they lined the folks up with bottles and opened the gates for the lambs. Rita and Jonah were down there and the lambs came storming out and jumped up on Jonah. He freaked out and screamed and cried. These lambs were rather eager and about the size of a medium size dog with hoofs. I ran down to get him and carried him back while he sobbed indignantly about everyone smiling and laughing. Back at the seat he declared them to be evil lambs and that they needed to calm down. Its hard to not laugh sometimes but Jordan and I managed straight faces while we comforted him.  

We all went to Queenstown via air for a week. Queenstown is on the South Island in the mountains. It looks like Switzerland and is really quite beautiful. The unfortunate part was that Rita was sick for most of the trip. She was cheerful despite having to spend a couple of days in bed. We managed to go to ton of really nice restaurants and we stayed at a lovely Hotel. The hotel was right on the lake with a view of the mountains beyond. It was quite spectacular. Jordan and I did pretty low key activities. We did do the Shotover Jet Boat ride which was very cool. We did a small road trip to surrounding areas. We managed to locate another maze which Jonah loved. We played mini golf (Jonah’s first time and he was in heaven), rode the gondola to the top of a mountain, spent way too much time on the Luge. We watched bungee jumping at the place where they particularly invented it, a steep river gorge and you jump from the bridge. We could not goad each other into trying it. Hell it was scary watching it. Everyone jumping was around 25 years old. Otherwise we relaxed, sat in the hot tub and pondered the problems of selecting the next place to eat. I think I gained 5 pounds.