7 Months and visiting the Coromandel

I have had a few setbacks with my baby blogging.  First of all, we came back from the US and I was so overwhelmed by all the pictures that I took.  I'm embarrassed to say but it was somewhere close to 800!  You would think that I was visiting a country that I had never been to before.  It was such a special trip because Grace met her family for the first time, and I took probably 50 pictures every time she met someone new!  Secondly, I'm so sad because we lost our camera!  We are sure we left it at a park and it has yet to be returned to us.  We lost several pictures that we had not backed up yet and couldn't take new pictures until a generous study abroad photography student loaned us one of her cameras (thanks Michelle!). Thankfully, I'm a facebooker and instagramer, so I have a few pictures from the ones I had lost. Grace is almost nine months and I'm just posting her 7 month update.  I hope to get an 8 month update out soon and sometime in the near future I will post a highlight blog post from our trip to the US (Grace's 6 month).  For those of you following, I'm sorry I'm so behind!

We started solids this month!  We decided to wait until our trip back from the US just to make things easier.  We are doing a bit of a combination of puree and Baby Led Weaning.  This month Grace loved to eat kumara (basically sweet potato), carrots and banana.  She also loves making a mess with her food!  We usually strip her down to eat, then give her a bath before bedtime.

Grace started sitting up on her own this month!  She loves sitting and the change of perspective she has.  Plus it is much easier to reach her toys!  She can sit for long periods of time without getting tired.

Since we gave up a month of our summer to enjoy a white Christmas with our families in the US, we were sure to take a few beach days when we got back to NZ.  Grace isn't a fan of the cold Pacific water, but she loves trying to eat the sand!

One of the students in Navs invited us along with her family to spend a few nights at their family bach (beach house) in Moehau.  It was gorgeous- real raw beauty of NZ.  It was a refreshing and relaxing time, and we loved getting the time to bond with her family!

Beautiful Moehau

After we left Moehau, we drove 3 hours to the other side of the Coromandel to Whitianga, Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove.  Petrol is so expensive in NZ so we wanted to make the most of our first family trip to the Coromandel! It is gorgeous!  North Islanders love to holiday there and they don't know how good they've got it (actually they do, but I'm just saying).

All ready to hike to Cathedral Cove.  You can see Grace's arm- she slept most of the hike!

Grace at Cathedral Cove.  This spot was made famous by one of the opening scenes of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  (the whole beach was actually really crowded but Andy cropped out the other people :))

Grace and Andy at Hot Water Beach.  This is where a geothermal river meets the surface and by digging down a few inches into the sand you can get the hot water to spring up creating natural hot tubs! So cool!  Grace felt the water a little bit but once again preferred the muddy sand.

And just a few more cute pics of Grace from her 7th month of life!

Love her rolls!

I love this sweet smile! Thanks for the bumbo Becca!  

Launch!

It has been a while since we've updated this blog, sorry. Please comment below if you'd like to be added to our monthly ministry update emails as well. I do have aspirations this year of being much more active on here!

We are already into the fourth week of the semester at Auckland Uni. Several encouraging things have been happening! To try and keep from overlapping too much I'll share stories via pictures here!

Here's what we've been up to...

Two weeks before the start of the year we took a group of returning students (and one American study abroad student involved with the Navs in Missouri) to Tauranga for a weekend of visioncasting, planning, and relationship building.

We had a really encouraging time with Glen, our National Director, who hosted us at his home for our meeting times.

This was the first marker that the rush at the start of the semester was about to start! Exciting times. A few days before the start of term the University put on a Fresher's day where new students get a chance to tour campus, interact with their respective faculties and meet some of the clubs available on campus. We had a great time chatting to students about faith! We gave away ice creams and a chance to win tickets to a local pro basketball game if they'd fill out a simple survey.

Coupled with Orientation Week, the first week of the semester, we interacted with around 900 students! It was an exhausting yet encouraging week!

We had several new students during our first Navs group and we have had a few more each week! It has been fun watching students build relationships; our returning students have done a fantastic job relating with new students as they've come along.

After the first week of classes had finished we went to the beach to go paddleboarding and have a BBQ! It was great; afterward, everyone came to our place for a movie!

During our weekly Nav Nights we have been taking a look at a few main themes of the Bible -- Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Destiny. Last week we discussed the now all pervasive sin of Adam and Eve and how that wreaks havoc in us and in the world. This isn't a popular topic by any means and as one student put it "it's a bit depressing". Tomorrow night we will be looking at how God has responded to this throughout history and what it means for us today. How encouraging to get to interact with genuine questions and concerns that arise from reading the overarching story of the Bible! In two weeks we will be using these themes to help us wrestle through the nitty gritty of our daily lives and see how they provide a framework to view and interact with the world around us. Kathryn and I are excited to see how God will continue to work in those times and in the students that are a part of it.