Goodbye Auckland...

Today was my last day at work at the Carlson School for Cerebral Palsy. I started working there around mid-march, and spent most of my full days there. I became really attached to all of the students and staff, so today was a sad day for me. I was good all day, and then at the end of the day when we had our actual goodbyes, I had a bit of a cry.

My class threw me a party, where they fed me amazing new zealand meat pies, sausage rolls and pavlova...I was given a one-off shirt from a new zealand company, a greenstone necklace, which was picked out and blessed by Maoris in my school, and a bottle of wine. My card is amazing, with pictures of the kids, some of our favorite activities and so many nice words. The next BU student that gets to spend time at Carlson is so lucky to be around such amazing people.

My last day (tomorrow), I have a massage practical final...then I pack up and move out on saturday morning. I had a great time here, and although i'm happy to see everyone at home, i'll miss New Zealand and the people I met here sooooo much!!

australia trip

so...my dad and I are going to australia tomorrow at 3 am!! (in 4 hours). we are flying into brisbane, and driving up the coast to cairns, to do some scubadiving. :) that should be really fun. i'll write more when it happens :)

Internship

Well, I haven't updated much about my travels, but they have been good.

Last weekend (Easter) I went with Alex and Ben to the Great Barrier Island. We camped for 4 nights, and mainly spent the whole time relaxing on the beach. On Easter night, we stayed at a christian campground, but we happened to be there for their annual Easter Camp. There was late night Jesus rock and then a polar bear plunge at about 4 in the morning, proceeded by more Jesus rock music. Pretty intense. The last day, Alex and I tried fishing and snorkeling. We didn't catch anything, but we were offered a huge fillet of smoked snapper, so we took that and had a nice dinner.

Since then, I have been to my internship, which has been quiet a good time. I am enjoying it very much. It is a school for cerebral palsy, and I am a teacher aid, which has already been rewarding. Next week we have an overnight camp, and that should be interesting...

Bruce in NZ!

bruce's visit to NZ went really well...i didn't write anything, but he wrote tons and put up pictures.

for pictures, and blog

enjoy

South Island Trip

So I just got back from being on a 10 day trip to the South Island with Nicole and Cindy (Roommates) and Alex. It was pretty good...

We went from Christchurch to Kaikoura (seals!), to Nelson (wine country!!) to the Abel Tasman National Park (rained out our kayaking plan!), to the Franz Joseph Glacier (OMG so much hiking and climbing!), to Haast, to Wanaka(sledging) to Queenstown, to Milford Sound (diving), to Dunedin (speights brewery and the cadbury factory), Timaru and back to Christchurch. And i did all of the driving. phew.

Here are the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/naomibutler/SouthIsland

I'm a real photographer now

I am a photo finalist for the school for field studies calendar..I won a nalgene...and I guess if i actually get put in the calendar I will get that too. haha. here's the picture...i think there were better ones I submitted, but okay...

pictures from the trip!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/naomibutler/RoadTripWithJohnny

soooo....the trip was great. after skydiving we went to wellington, went to a nature sanctuary and saw sooo many cool birds, then went to the south island in akaroa, where we went on the Fox II and saw Hector's dolphins (smallest and most rare dolphins in the world!!), some fur seals from far away, a single swimming blue penguin (!!!!) and so many shags (birds..like cormorants) ...

good times! we drove sooooo much!! just look at the pictures..it's better than my writing. :)