Kiwi Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Woods Family!

Well we spent our first Christmas without snow, although back home they hardly have any either.  But it is + 25oC here, so I guess that is different.  It was great to have Grandpapa here as we missed seeing our friends and family over the holidays.  Christmas is certainly not as big a deal here as it is back home.  Here is a song from Air New Zealand to explain some of the differences.

We spent Christmas Eve at Tree Adventures in Woodland Forest.  The adults had a tough time keeping up with Naysa and Jonah.

The following videos likely can only be seen on a computer.

After a couple hours of adrenaline heights, we continued on to the West Coast to Muriwai Beach and watched the kite surfers.  Then it was all the way back across the country to the East Coast (a mere 45 mins later) to Takapuna to get ready for Santa.

Christmas Day we opened presents and had a nice brunch.  Then like every kiwi...we went to the beach!  Paddleboarding, kayaking and swimming, then back to the apartment for our Christmas feast with a few modifications (no sweet potatoes here, so used Kumara instead).

On Boxing Day we continued to explore the Waitakere Ranges.  This time we went to the very southern tip of the entrance Manukau Harbour to Whatipu Beach.  This is by far the coolest black sand beach we have seen so far!

Although not part of the Christmas holidays, we also participated in a Santa Claus Run earlier in December.  Quite the site to see 100 Santa's running down the beach!  Jonah and Naysa continued their fast running, each winning a prize for fastest kids in the race.

Mount Maunganui & Jonah's TRYathlon

We are very lucky to have Erin's Dad 'Grandpapa' come and visit us over the Christmas holidays.  Our first trip with him was a weekend in Tauranga (Tow Run Ga) and Mount Maunganui (Mon gah new eee).

It's an interesting east coast port city with amazing beaches.  Weet-Bix is a popular cereal here in NZ that features athletes on the box. They sponsor the Weet-Bix TRYathlon series in NZ to encourage kids to try out the sport and be active.  The event Jonah participated in had over 1100 competitors from age 7-15, and they have over 15,000 participants each year! They do not time the event and just continuously start groups of 8 kids in the pool every minute to get everyone through.  It would be great to see something like this back in Canada.

We had to there early to get his bike and run gear set up in the transition zone, then we had a couple of hours to hang out before he started.  Lucky for us there was lots to do when you were not competing, including the velcro suit trampoline!

Jonah's age group had a 200m swim, 8km bike and 1.5km run.

On the drive to Tauranga we hiked Karangahake Gorge.

We also checked out the beautiful beach and hiked up Mount Maunganui while we watched a Surf Rescue Race (25km of running, swimming, surf ski kayaking, and paddleboarding). 

Saturday afternoon was at Waimarino Adventure Park.  Highlight was 'the Blob'.  Jonah got launched pretty high by Mom, then Mom got launched pretty high by Dad.  The weather was amazing (+25oC), making it hard to believe Christmas is less than a week away.

Naysa's Dance Recital and Beach Series

Naysa wrapped up her first New Zealand dance season with a couple of performances.  She performed a Christmas tap routine, and made a very fine Christmas tree!

The kids also participated in another Takapuna Beach Series race.

Track n Field & Triathlon

Earlier in the week, Jonah went to an inter-school track n field meet.  Unfortunately it was only for Grade 4 and up, so Naysa did not get a chance to participate.  He competed in Shot Put, Long Jump, 60m, 100m and 200m events.  It was a beautiful day he performed very well, taking first place in Long Jump, 2nd in 60m and 4th in the 200m.

Then the marathon weekend began.  We took in a Sky City Breakers Basketball Game on Friday night. Naysa had a gymnastics birthday party and Erin took a photography course on Saturday.  On Sunday was the Mission Bay Triathlon, followed by a beautiful beach and BBQ afternoon with Dave Peak and his family at their home (one of Rob's work colleagues).  

Jonah competed in the 'Try-A-Du' Duathlon event (10km Bike, 2km Run) and Rob did a Sprint Tri (500m Swim, 20km Bike, 5km Run).  Once again it was a beautiful day, just really early!  We had to get up at 5:30 to make our way to the venue.  Despite being on a mountain bike and being the youngest competitor, Jonah kept up with the pack and had a great race!

Rob had a great first triathlon experience.  He was quite nervous about the open water swim amongst a large pack of people, but in the end it was the bike he found most challenging.  I guess he needs to spend more time trying to keep up to Erin on her morning group bike rides!  He was 61st out of 227 participants and 14th out of 37 in the 40-49 age group (not officially 40 yet, but Erin is pretty happy about him entering his 40s in any way).