The Ostrom Family Adventures

And welcome to the family our adopted vehicle whom Mason and Leif have lovingly named, Gnar Gnar MitsubiSon! (like “MasonSon”)

Leif started school this past week in Year 8, the oldest grade at Hamilton West school. He road his bike to school Monday – Wednesday with his buddy and our neighbor, Theo. It was both extremely liberating for Leif and a proud parent moment for us parental units. And, we were extremely relieved when he walked back in the door in the afternoon.

It’s about 2km to school and they made it in less than 10 minutes! :).

Thursday, 6 Feb is Waitangi Day, the national holiday in NZ. My work scheduler gave me a couple days off so we could drive about 6 hours north to the beautiful and historic Waitangi Treaty grounds and the celebration there.

The festival started at 0500 and we were amazed at how many people were there and how polite, patient and quiet 10’s of thousands of people could be.

It was an interesting day, celebrating the amazing country of New Zealand, including the traditional and strong Maöri culture as well as the European influence colonization brought, but we all felt the tension of the day. We have many questions still, but Leif learned at school that the treaty signing was complicated by the fact that many of the tribal leaders who signed could not read what they were signing and the agreement was written in both English and Te Reö Maöri, which was not really a written language at the time. Much of the treaty was very vague and like many colonial treaties, did not greatly favor protecting the rights, land, and culture of the indiginous people.

We were pretty exhausted after driving until about 2330 and then getting up at 0400, so took a lovely nap in the shade of some trees next to the beach.

We then got up and walked around the festival, which was huge!! One of the most interesting parts were multiple huge tents for forums of various people on stage and crowds discussing the complicated tension between preserving the Maöri culture and other influences (European, and many others). These forums went on all day, and so much was discussed, language, religion, faith, family, traditions, etc.

It was a long day with a huge crowd though and we finally headed back to our little lodge across a road from Haruru Falls, rested a bit and then went over to see the falls.

But, we did hike upstream a bit and found a little beach to get in and then swam to the falls and sat under them for a little massage :).

We spent today in Paihia and explored the Bay of Islands while having a ton of fun on some jet skis.

It was an amazing weekend. We’re back to work now,

Mason is going to be helping build a program to mentor at risk high-schoolers with weight training at Cambridge high school starting next week.

More to come on our new house and upcoming plans.