We took William out of school for the day, drove down to Auckland, and went to Kelly Tarlton’s World (like the Monterey Aquarium) and then to a buffet for lunch. Very luxurious, but you have to be on the ball when it’s the missus’s birthday and Valentine’s Day. The kids had fun, but all that driving (90m down, 90m back) took it out of them.

I realize it’s been a while since I blogged. We had a bit of family drama over Christmas, when Dad’s business burned down in Colorado. Lots of stress there, and ongoing visits to America for Dad to pick up the pieces. I’ve had to think hard about what I want to do in August when I stop working on conferences fulltime–I may have a lot of dependents!

The fire brought on the lowest low we’ve had since we got here, but around my birthday (Jan 18) we picked up and I started to feel on top of it. I think the key was when Jenine went away for a week, canoeing the Whanganui, and I took the kids for that whole week. I took vacation time from the job, and learned how to be a Daddy. It was awesome. I could do it again and again, and the confidence I have now from knowing I can be super-Dad is great. End result is that I’m now at peace and really enjoying being here.

The only remaining source of stress is the school, and we’re managing that. The boy’s in a different class this year, with a different teacher, and seems happier as a result. He still skips as he walks, which is the only solid measure of whether he’s still happy after vacation ended. We tried sounding him out about bullying and other kids, but he just wants to tell us what we want to hear. So we’re listening carefully to what he volunteers, and will be spending the occasional lunchtime watching the playground. But in the absence of any complaints, and the presence of a happy boy, we’re happy.

I’ve been looking into health insurance, as my O’Reilly-provided American health insurance is no good to me here. It looks like full tip-top coverage will be about $100/fortnight, or NZ$2600/year. That’s not bad–I seem to remember paying US$3-5k/year when I was self-employed back in ‘98 or ‘99.

For my birthday I asked for, and got, a Maori language book with CDs. My spare time should now be spent with flashcards learning nouns, but I’ve taken to spendin the time sleeping instead. Sleeping and reading–I’m getting into Daniel Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell”. Sleeping, reading, and doing sudoku as I find them in newspapers. Sleeping, reading, sudoku, and the crossword puzzles in the papers. Ok, so I’m hard out here.

We’ve also had some good times with our neighbours, Jimmy, Jimmy, and Jackie. The Jimmies have built a farnarkling course (or “sword”, pronounced sw-ord) in their back yard, so we’ve had some great times out there with a bottle of New Zealand Cabernet Sauvignon and a croquet mallet in hand. The Jimmies also play guitar, so the drinking inevitably leads to jamming. I’m getting pretty good at some Johnny Cash songs.