Lockdown

I'm sure many of you have heard that NZ has been in lockdown (eg level 4) for the past almost 2 weeks because covid managed to escape the quarantine system they have set up. Thank the Lord, we will be going down to level 3 next Wednesday, Sept. 1st. Level 4 lockdown is the most strict and means you can't leave your home for anything except essentials (food, medicine etc) and exercise in your neighborhood. Level 3 is the same as level 4, but restaurants can open for takeout and gatherings up to 10 are allowed for weddings and funerals. The government put the whole country into level 4 lockdown on Aug. 18, the day after one person tested positive for covid in Auckland. At first it seemed crazy that they would be locking down the whole country over 1 covid case, but as you are all well aware, when there's just one covid case, it means there's actually more than 1...since locking down, they've found over 200 cases of covid, almost all in the Auckland area. Apparently, it all started when someone returning from Australia tested positive while in a quarantine facility in Auckland; one of the nurses who was taking care of the patient then caught it and spread it unwittingly. 

It has been challenging for us to be in lockdown after moving to NZ so recently. We're sad not to have in-person contact with new friends from work and church. It has also been challenging for Stephen to work from home because we don't have WiFi here, so we've been using a lot of data from our phones. A week ago, I texted one of our neighbours that Ralph and I met a couple weeks ago and asked if we could "borrow" his WiFi for zoom meetings and things that take more internet (like posting this blog) and he kindly said yes, so that's been a blessing! 

Lockdown has meant we've had to push our moving date back a week or so, which has been disappointing. Even without lockdown, however, we wouldn't have been able to move in yet because our crates haven't arrived from Auckland yet. The process of getting our crates from Auckland to Hamilton has been pretty arduous and confusion; we finally figured out that the crates had an MPI (Ministry for Primary Industry)/Biosecurity hold on them, which was why the moving company couldn't ship them down to Hamilton. Finally, on Friday afternoon our crates were released, so we're hoping that by early to mid next week we can get them transported down here. We're still waiting to hear when our pastor and his wife will be able to move out of the house so we can move in. Additionally, we still have some furniture and equipment we need to buy for our new house: bookshelves, a vacuum, a lawnmower, etc, so we'll keep looking for those in the next few weeks. 

Ralph has also learned to walk! He took his first steps a month ago today, then two weeks ago started taking multiple steps at a time (see the video), and then last Sunday, for the first time, he walked more then he crawled all day. It's amazing how much he's improved in the past week! In other news, I (Tamara) have a zoom job interview on Wednesday at the local hospital's emergency department. My plan is to work 0.4, which is two 8 hour shifts a week. I'm hoping to do "kid swapping" with one of the other ladies at church during some of my shifts, so we'll see if that works out. 

We've been taking lots of walks during lockdown, which has been lovely. It's nice to have Stephen home for lunch too. Thankfully, last week I was able to go get Ralph's 12 month vaccines. I have just gone to the grocery store twice since lockdown and both times the store was CRAZY busy. The Pak'n'Save I go to is busy at the best of times, but since the lockdown it's been extra busy (I had to wait in line for 5-10 minutes to get into the store and 20+ minutes to check out!). It was a pretty dry week last week, which meant we could take some lovely walks, but yesterday afternoon it bucketed all afternoon! We bought a little rain suit for Ralph online so he can still play in the rain and I don't have to do as much laundry.

Hopefully by the next time we post, we'll be all moved into our new house and have our crates unpacked!

-Tamara

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The view from our walk along the river last week

Some of the pretty spring flowers in the neighborhood

Ralph showing off his tongue

Ralph in his new rain suit

Ralph showing off his walking skills!