My Last Week at Ranui

There is no way I can possibly explain to you how amazing this last week has been. I have never felt so much love and appreciation in my life. These kids are just beyond adorable.

Kahu and Me. I love this kid.

Kahu, Cyprus, Kaipara, and Tuafono after lunchtime swimming

Can you tell how high-quality our "pool" is?

Aren't they just so cute?

Most of the class chillin in the pool!

Our Hero Quilt. Some of the heroes featured include: Sir
Edmund Hillary, Whaea Del, kids' family members, and God

All week, I had kids coming up to me (both from my class and from other classes/grades at Ranui) asking me if I really had to leave at the end of the week. It was really sweet. But on Thursday, I was just overwhelmed with the amount of love these kids showed for me.
Thursday morning when I walked into the school, I was immediately attacked by multiple kids asking me if today was really my last day. I had to fight them off just so I could get some things ready for my last few lessons. Blessing came up to me and gave me a flax bracelet and 2 flower leis that he had bought with his own money. It was so cute! Then he gave me one of his rubber bracelets (these are the HUGE fad here. It's out of control) that said "love" on it and gave me the biggest hug ever. He was not named Blessing by accident. I love that kid.
Once I got to class and the bell had rung, I took the roll and then we did circle time. The kids wanted to do high point low point and literally every one of them said that their low point was that it was my last day. It was really cute.
At lunch, we had a shared kai and so many of the kids had brought a bunch of food to share with everyone and we all ate together in the classroom. It was a lot of fun, and there was a lot of food. I brought some chocolate chip cookies and the kids were all obsessed with them. Blessing came up to me and said "Whaea Emily, those cookies are lovely, just like you." I swear, if I could adopt that child, I would in a heartbeat. Kaya bought me an iceblock from the iceblock sales at the beginning of lunch. (I'm not a huge fan of iceblocks, but it was so cute of her, I had to eat it). We had a lot of fun eating together and then we went outside to play for a bit. The kids would not leave my side. It was seriously so cute. They were just holding on to me and holding my hands. Even kids from other classes kept coming up and hugging me and saying they were going to miss me. One girl from another class even brought me a gift! I seriously love those kids.

Tutu and Stephen on Peer Mediator duty

After lunch though, was just amazing. I took the roll and then read them a book called "How to Live Forever" about how living forever is really not living at all and sometimes we have to just grow up and move on. It was the perfect book to read today. After we read, we all got in a circle, and Whaea Del had them go around and say one thing they've loved about the time I've spent here. At that point, I couldn't hold it in anymore and I started crying like a baby. Pretty soon, about half the class was crying. They presented me with a book that they made for me that had cards from all the kids in it. It was seriously the cutest thing ever.

Then they gave me a bar of kiwifruit chocolate (which I'm bringing home to share because it's so yum). Kenny raised his hand because he had something else to give me too, but by then he was crying so hard he couldn't even talk or give it to me so Lazarus brought it up to me. It was this cheapy little ring with fake diamonds and it was so cute. It hardly fit on my little finger, but I was so touched. You could tell he thought it was really valuable.

Isn't it beautiful? Haha

After that, I gave them all the cards that I had made for each of them. Then we went outside for a game with the parachute. It was so much fun playing with the parachute. We played "Shark Attack"--where 3 kids go under the parachute and 3 kids are lifeguards and the "sharks" try to pull people under the parachute while the "lifeguards" try to save them. They kids LOVED it. It was really cute.

Whaea Del and some of the kids

Eliezer getting pulled under the parachute by a shark!

Malachi practicing his lifesaving skills

Being a lifeguard is tough when you're tiny

Then we went back in the class and took some pictures. By this time, so many of the kids had been giving me their bracelets that I ended up with 17 of them on my wrist. It looked pretty legit, not gonna lie.

My WONDERFUL class!

My 17 bracelets (notice that most of them say
"Bob Marley" haha)

After the bell rang, the kids all started crying again and running towards me. It was a very emotional day, and I'm really going to miss those kids. It was such an incredible experience that I will remember forever.

Neeley, Nicole, Me, and Whitney in front of the school

Last Weekend in Auckland!

So this was officially our last weekend in Auckland. And even though this makes me a little sad, it was a wonderful weekend.
On Friday, we didn't really do a whole lot during the day, but in the evening we had a huge sleepover planned for all 16 of us at the Talamaivao's house. It was a lot of fun, and I brought a cheesecake and the guitar. We had a great time just playing guitar, eating dessert, and talking for hours. But then everyone decided to leave at 11:30 because it was easier than sleeping over and figuring out buses in the morning. So Whitney and I were the only ones who ended up sleeping over. But it was a lot of fun! We always have fun when we all get together. It's great.
Saturday morning we woke up and got picked up by a taxi to take us into Auckland. We all met at the Skytower and we got to go up to the top where there is an observation deck and you can see the whole city. It is amazing!

Our feet on the glass panel on the observation deck!

the harbor bridge

another beautiful view from the observation deck

aaand another

here I am!

here is someone doing the "skyjump" (are you surprised it
isn't me jumping off the building?)

You can see Rangitoto here! 

Jess, Heidi, Nicole, and Me

Then we got to have brunch at the Orbit Restaurant--a revolving restaurant at the top of the skytower. It was seriously amazing. I have never had a meal that fancy. I loved it!
The waiter started out by bringing us complimentary danishes and croissants with honey. Then we got to choose from a bunch of different juice flavors (I got pineapple). Then we ordered our first course. I had a fresh loaf of ciabatta bread with 3 different kinds of spreads. It was amazing! Some of the other things they had were: toasted muesli (kind of like granola) with fruit and greek yogurt, a fruit bowl, calimari, and I don't remember what else. Then it was time for the main course. I had steak with asparagus and squash, but I was tempted to get either the chicken or the smoked salmon. I was very happy with my decision though. We also split sides of french fries and steamed vegetables. For dessert, I split the selection of ice creams and sorbets with Nicole. They brought us 4 scoops of ice cream (1 chocolate, 2 macadamia, and 1 passionfruit sorbet) on a boysenberry sauce with a wafer stuck in the top. It was seriously delicious. The passionfruit sorbet was incredible. The entire meal took 3 hours because it was so involved and amazing. I couldn't believe how good everything was. I loved it!

Our table! Me, Anna, Kara, Nicole, Allie, and Diana

Mr. T wrote the description of Pavlova

After our meal, we came back home and took a nap/did homework. I was very very tired. But then our friend Derrick picked us up and we went with him to the Auckland Blues vs. Wellington Hurricanes rugby game. It was a lot of fun! The game itself wasn't quite as exciting as the last game, but it was nice to have some friends there with us. After the game, we all went to Burger King and had a good time hanging out there for a while. It was a ton of fun and we were dead tired when we got home.

Here I am with my FREE Blues flag!

Whitney and Me getting excited!

Nicole and Me at the game!!!

I love it when they do this

Every time the Blues score a try, there is fire.
This is my kind of game.

Sidenote: the moon looked really cool

Isn't the sky so pretty here??

Stephen Brett...so hot right now.

That's my boy!

Sunday we went to church for the last time in the Swanson Ward. Bishop Talamaivao met with us after sacrament meeting and invited all of us to dinner at his house this Tuesday which was super nice of him. It will be a lot of fun. He is great.
It was great way to spend our last weekend in Auckland though, and I'm really going to miss it here! It feels like home!

A Family Home Evening Straight Out of Little House on the Prairie...

If the Ingalls family ever had family home evening, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what it would have been like. Monday evening, the second counselor from the Primary Presidency invited us over for FHE at her house. First of all, let me tell you what I already knew about her and her family. She is half Samoan--but she's also probably a size 1 and has long blonde hair. She is super pretty and has island looking features. Her name is Heidi, and her husband Nathan is pretty attractive as well. They have 4 kids. Leia is 10 and she somehow got her mom's Samoan genes, but she's the only one who did so she looks like she's adopted. Ella-leigh is 8 and reminds me so much of me at her age. She is pretty shy at church, but when we were at her house she was crazy! She is adorable. Lily-rose is 4 and just a doll. Ethan is almost 2 and he is very adventurous--always climbing on things and getting into some kind of trouble. Anyway, Natalia took us with her kids Bella and Junior over to the Christy's house. It wasn't too far away, but it was off this dirt road and when we pulled up I was just in awe. They live on this huge piece of land where they have a pasture with 11 cows, 7 sheep, and 2 horses. It was picture perfect.

View from one side of the house

view from the back of the house

To start FHE, we all sat down right by the fire pit in the back and Leia got up to conduct. Ella conducted the music and we sang "I Am A Child of God" and it was so cute. After the opening prayer, Nathan gave a little spiritual thought, and then Heidi gave a lesson about looking for the good in things. Then she pulled out handmade gratitude journals for all of us. They are so cute! After the lesson, we closed with a prayer and we had 3-legged races with the kids. It was so cute! Then Nathan offered to let us all have a ride on Lacey--one of their horses.

Gettin ready for the race
(From the far left--Ella and Leia, Lily and Bella, Whitney and
Me, Neeley and Nicole, and Natalia holding Junior, and Heidi)

ACTION SHOT! (can you tell we're winning?)

one of the horses--we couldn't ride this one because Nathan
is still in the process of breaking him

Here I am getting ready!

I think it's been like 8 years since I've been on a horse...haha

After I got back from my ride on the horse, Heidi had brought out dessert. Not only did we have marshmallows to roast over the fire, but she had 2 fresh cakes. One of them was a peach-apple crumble (and it was amazing) and the other was a blackberry cake (which was also amazing--and the kids had picked the blackberries for it that day!). It was seriously the most picture-perfect evening ever. And when we went inside the house, I fell in love with everything in it. It's all decorated with the antique farm-house style that reminds me of Mom. It was seriously adorable.

the beautiful dessert table

Ella, Leia, Me, and Bella

Lily and Ethan

Ethan and Ella (he wouldn't smile, so she helped
him out a little. hahaha)

As you can see, it was an amazing evening.

This week at school has also been a lot of fun too. I had my last observation on Wednesday and I taught a great lesson on adjectives. I loved how it turned out, and so did the kids. (And my professor was very impressed too). Here's what we did:
I started by asking them all to describe chocolate. We listed their adjectives on the board. Then I gave them each a wrapped piece of chocolate (they weren't allowed to eat it yet). They had to give me more adjectives that described how it felt, looked, smelled, etc. Then I told them to eat it and they had to give me even more adjectives describing how it tasted, felt in their mouth, etc. We listed all these adjectives on the board and then I described 3 different assignments and assigned each kid to one of the assignments. The first assignment (which was for the kids who are in the low language group) was to make a poster collage of adjectives cut out of magazines (just so they could get practice deciding which words are and are not adjectives). For the second assignment (for the middle language group), I gave each kid a picture of something (a tree, a sunset, etc) and they had to list as many adjectives describing that picture as they could. The last assignment (for the highest language group), was to choose one of the pictures I provided and write a story using the picture as inspiration, incorporating as many adjectives as they could into the story.
The entire lesson went so smoothly and the kids loved every minute of it! It was adorable!
And since my last day is coming up next Thursday, I'm starting to make cards for each of the kids. I wanted to put a picture of us me with each of them in their card, so I started getting those pics last week. Here are a few of them:

Victoria is one of my favorites. She was on the
swim team too, so we are buddies

Elly worships the ground I walk on. I love
this girl and I'm going to miss her like
CRAZY!

Malachi REFUSED to smile. this was one of
3 tries. He is such a butt sometimes. But I love
the kid.

Thursday we got to a go on a big field trip to Polyfest. It was a lot of fun! All the high schools in the area compete in a huge dancing/singing competition and there are tons of booths set up selling all kinds of cool stuff. I was put in charge of a group of 4 girls--Elly, Lotus, Gardenia, and Melissa. It was a great day! We walked around, shopped at the booths, watched a Maori performance by one of the schools, and they spent their parents hard-earned money on utter garbage (just like I'm sure I did when I was 9 and 10). It was a lot of fun though! When we got on the bus to come home, Victoria had saved me a seat because she was so sad she didn't get to be in my group all day. It was cute. We talked the whole way home and I gave her some peanut butter M&M's (which they don't have in New Zealand) and she was very impressed. Haha.

Melissa, Gardenia, Me, Lotus, and Elly (who was apparently
trying to block the sun)

Part of the Maori performance we watched

The intimidating Haka

Me and Victoria on the way home

It has been a fantastic week so far, and we have some exciting adventures planned for the weekend (which I will blog about at a later date). I can't believe I'm almost done here in New Zealand. It has been a great trip so far and I have been learning and growing so much. But I'm excited to come home soon and see all of you! I miss my family and friends HEAPS!