Merry Christmas 2005 

Merry Christmas

Each year we send a Christmas card, letter, and picture to friends and family all over the world. For the past few years we have done an A-Z letter listing some of the highlights of the Davis year. Here is this years:

Happy Holidays 2005!
Here’s the scoop from A to Z:

Arden B – Marcella’s favorite store
Backyard – We finally have backyard grass!
Challenger school – Olivia started school this year
Drapers – What would we do without them
Emergency Room – Jake managed to roll a 4-wheeler on him
Freakin’ Frozen Tundra – We still live here.
Great Barrier Reef – Jeff took the ultimate dive
Hockey – Jake started living his dream.
Ipods – We all have ‘em.
Jr. Jazz – both JJ and Jake had great seasons in basketball
Kitchen (as in My Girlfriend’s Kitchen) Marcella’s
lifesaver for dinners for the family.
Lasik – Marcella is free from contacts and glasses forever!!!
Motorcycle – JJ learned how to ride at Sandpoint
Nice and clean – We still LOVE Thursdays after Luci and company come to clean.
Orlando – We surprised the kids in April.
Patio furniture – We finally have our patio
Quick feet – JJ finished his first track season
Respiratory disease – Olivia became child #2 with asthma
Sandpoint – Where we spent our summer vacation
Tinkerbell – Olivia changed her name this year
Utrecht – Jeff and Marcella had a wonderful time in Holland (including Shaving cream)
Viajes – Jeff racked up plenty of FF miles working in Europe, India, Australia, and New Zealand
Washington D.C. – Marcella went back twice this year, once for Ryan’s graduation and the second time to decorate his new house
Xenophile – That’s Marcella and Jeff
Year – Another year has passed and we cannot believe it
Zero more Davis children (guaranteed)

We hope this Holiday Season finds all of you well!

Love,
Jeff, Marcella, JJ, Jake and Olivia

Does anyone know what happens when you put a cheap pillow in the washer? Ka-boom! 

Happy Birthday (39), skinny guy! 

Like Father like Son. Jake is following in his father's footsteps (albeit he's starting much earlier) 

Rakaia Gorge 

JJ's climbing heaven (Kura Tawhiti conservation area) 

Franz Josef glacier 

Christchurch Stake Center 

One of the many one lane bridges (on the road from Christchurch to the West Coast) 

New Zealand Alps (South Island) 

Rangitoto Island (the largest and youngest volcano in Auckland) 

View from Mt Eden (domant volcano). Gee, what a skinny guy! 

View overlooking the city of Auckland from the Sky Tower 

Sunday Church and Sunday Drive

Aren’t Sundays made for going to church and then for a drive? They are if you’re a Davis. When I first got into Christchurch I drove by what was obviously an LDS church. I looked online to see what time the service started and showed up a few minutes early. There were tons of chairs set up and then someone told me that it was Stake conference. There was a visiting authority, the mission president, temple president, and lots of missionaries. It was a great meeting and I was glad I went. I have had many opportunities to worship with saints from all across the globe. It really is a strength to my testimony. After church, I left for my drive. I started for Arthur’s Pass again because I wanted to get some more pictures of the mountains and beautiful flowers. I came across this unique rock area and I stopped to have a look around. Most of the sites like this are Maori sacred areas. I climbed to the top of one of the hills to have a look around. It was so amazing. My ride continued along the Canterbury plains. Much of the LOTR scenes were shot in this area. I stopped at one of the big rivers to climb down to the banks and take more pictures. From there I headed back east to the East coast. I wandered through little towns, lots of pastures and fields of crops and lots of sheep and moo cows. I got to the coast and drove through the main port city east of Christchurch then up to the top of an old volcano. A spectacular view of the Pacific ocean, Christchurch, and the beaches along the coast. The top of the volcano is a very popular place to hang glide from. I drove down the other side to the beaches. Pretty lame beaches if you ask me. Little surf and lots of shells, wood, and other material washed up on the shore. There was a pretty cool rock formation that the waves had carved lots of holes and caves in. This was quite popular for the children. Well, that was about it for my Sunday drive. The rest of the time was spent working with a couple of different groups in Christchurch. For the most part, I really enjoyed the food. Good seafood, good lamb. The Kiwis are big on ice cream and that suits me just fine. I had Thai food one night and that was also quite good. Most nights I would eat by myself and that is one of the pitiful parts of being on the road. I often would just take my book and sit there and read.

Well, after several hours on the plane, I left the nice warm, sunny Southern Hemisphere for the FFT (Freakin’ Frozen Tundra).

The Long and Winding Road......

Well, I didn’t get a chance to finish my trip details here in Kiwiland so since I have an hour or so here in Auckland, I might as well finish. I think in my last post I pretty much covered my North Island activities. I do need to post a picture or two. I had some pretty good meals in Auckland mostly seafood or lamb.

Now on to the South Island. If you are a fan of the LOTR movies, you’ll know that all three movies were filmed mostly on the South Island. The Hobbitville was on the North Island (kind of in the middle of the island, and the volcano scenes (can’t remember where the place is called in the book) were also filmed on the south side of the North Island. Everything else was on the South Island. I got there on the weekend so I had a little bit of time to look around. I went to the West Coast which was beautiful. From Christchurch it is a couple of hours drive. You go over Arthur’s Pass and through the Alps. It is quite incredible. The only thing that I can liken it to are the Canadian Rockies up by Banff and Jasper. The sand on the beaches is black. As you drive south it is all bush (which I would call rainforest). I was going to title this blog entry as “The road of a thousand one lane bridges”. Every few miles (or “K”s as they say here) you have this narrow bridge. Usually they alternate on what direction yields. I’ll have to post some pictures. The only disappointing part of the whole trip was that it was raining the entire time. It is no wonder because you can look at the surrounding area to see how much rain they get. They say that it rains pretty much EVERY day. I stopped in a couple of the small towns to have a look around. The highlight was my stop in Franz Josef. There are two large glaciers here (one in Franz and the other in Fox Glacier). I was excited to see this even though it was raining. So I switched my sandals for my running shoes and set off. It was raining pretty hard but I didn’t mind (at that point). Beautiful, large waterfalls all along were fascinating. The hike to the terminal face of the glacier was a couple of miles up. By the time I reached it, I was SOAKED. There were a number of “smart” people that were part of a tour. They were decked out in their rain/snow gear. Next time I go, I’ll try one of those tours. They actually take you up ON to the glacier. It looks pretty cool. Well, I couldn’t take it anymore and I headed back. Here I was, the stupid American in shorts, walking along with people with either umbrellas or at least winter type gear. Oh well. On to the next site. Close to the next glacier is Lake Matheson. The reason that I went there is this is “supposed” to be one of the picture perfect places in all of New Zealand. From the lake you are “supposed” to be able to see Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman the two highest peaks in New Zealand. Well, you can imagine all I saw was clouds and rain. Not a problem. It was so beautiful, there was no one around and I had nothing better to do. I had dinner back in Franz Josef. By the time I made it all the way back to Christchurch, it was pretty late.

Kiwiland

Okay, it is the night before I go home, and I thought I would maybe blog a bit about my trip here in New Zealand. Right now, I just want to get home. I've been on the road for pretty much the last two months and I'm looking forward to being home for a while.

Because of a scheduling oversight on my part, I had to leave on Thanksgiving for my trip here. Dinner (and pumpkin pie) was awesome and we had a houseful of people to join us this year. The trip was uneventful except for the fact that Air New Zealand lost my bags for 2 days. Luckily, I had an extra shirt and change of underwear to get me through it.

I spent my first day in Auckland (the biggest city in New Zealand). It is a port city on the northern part of the North Island. I went up the Sky Tower which is the highest tower in the Southern Hemisphere. It was quite pretty to see the entire city and surroundings. I taught for a couple of days, attended a decent conference, and met a number of good people. One of my new friends, Trevor Pilar, was there with his wife and I spent a couple of evenings and an afternoon with them. We went on a field trip which included many of the dormant volcanoes that dot the area. I also took a boat trip out to Rangitoto which is Auckland's youngest volcano.

After spending almost a week in Auckland (a fairly big city), I flew to Christchurch. This is the largest city on the South Island and is situated just about in the middle on the East coast. The South Island is quite a bit different than the area around Auckland. It is pretty amazing. There are parts that remind me of Banff and the Swiss Alps, but there are beautiful coasts, incredible bush (I would call them rainforests or jungles), and miles and miles (okay kilometers and kilometers) of Canterbury fields/ranges/pastures/farmland.

I'll try to posts some pictures in the morning and continue on. I hate reading long posts so I'm stopping here.