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!