Cast Off!

Finally in mid May, Jack was free of his cast.  Nurse Lorraine spent fifteen years in Arlington, Texas. She was really nice and very competent.

Cutting off the cast

Happy to have his hand back

Laura convinced Lorraine to travel to Hawera to do a casting tutorial for the Ngati Ruanui clinic where Laura has worked the past year.

At least I can still pick my nose!

Learning the ins and outs of casting from nurse Lorraine

Another Trip to Welly

Ah, Welly, one of our favorite places in New Zealand. We went south for another visit the last weekend in May. One goal was to hit the underground market for some early Christmas shopping.

Underground Market

Another was to see the ANZAC display at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand. There are two ANZAC displays in Wellington, one at the old Dominion Museum and the other at Te Papa. Both are products of Peter Jackson and Weta Workshop and both are great to see. The focal points of the Te Papa display are larger-than-life mannequins modeled after real participants in the campaign. The ANZAC campaign still looms large in the minds of Kiwis.

Waiting in line

Jack putting the surgeon mannequin to scale

Kiwis also talk about their farmer / aviation pioneer, Richard Pearse. Some parts of his machine are in Te Papa, including a piece of his crude propeller.

Pearse's propeller

Wellington is great. If you make it to New Zealand, put it high on your list of places to visit.

Jack's favorite Kiwi food, a mince pie

Blown away by Wellington

Standing by a baby Kauri

Wellington Botanical Garden

Cleaning the bathroom

We generally try to clean up around the house on Fridays, one of the kids' favorite activities. Jack went a little crazy with the sink cleaner.

More time at the park

We hopped over to the TSB Hub to watch some little league netball one Saturday. Netball is a girl sport similar basketball, but without a backboard. Later, we met the Myer kiddos at King Edward park for some outside time.

Little league is little league world wide

Exciting day at the park

Kids on the swing

More swinging

Kids on the horse

Water Tower

Our little town of Hawera has a turn-of-the-twentieth-century concrete water tower. It's no longer in use, but is still part of the sky line and for a couple of dollars, you can get the key from the i-SITE store and trudge up the steps to the top. Laura volunteered to collect donations for the Salvation Army in the morning and later, we stopped by the park and let the kids romp around for a bit.

No bells allowed

Monkey with a broken arm

Da boys

Our home town in Alabama

Base of the water tower

Windows on the way up

Looking out across the town

The view from the tower is nice, but windy in typical Taranaki fashion.

Pano of Hawera

A little windy

Broken Arm

2015-05-08

Jack and Steven enjoyed and survived camp with no issues or injuries. I was a little surprised to get a call from school their first day back. Jack had taken a spill off some playground equipment and needed to go to hospital...with a broken arm.

Kiwi splint

With typical Kiwi ingenuity, the staff splinted his arm with a magazine and we were off to tell Laura and to spend the afternoon in the emergency department. Jack was most excited at the prospect of going under anesthesia. I'm glad they knocked him out as the ED doc, an expat American, had to tug fairly hard to set the fracture.

Looking forward to anesthesia

Awake, but not with it

We borrowed a friend's puppy over the weekend. Jack was happy for the company.

Our loaner puppy, Ariel

Youtubing is easy with a broken arm

Tanner

We left our beloved dog, Tanner, in Alabama when we came to New Zealand. It was hard to leave him, but we were looking forward to seeing him again when we returned. Unfortunately, he became seriously ill in May. He had been in great health but he declined rapidly and we had to have him put down. It was a sad time for us all and we miss him terribly.

In Memoriam