We moved!

On August 31st/September 1st at midnight all of New Zealand except for Auckland (sorry Auckland!) went into Alert Level 3. That meant we could move from our temporary house into our rental house! Leo and Carol (our pastor and pastor's wife) moved out of the rental and cleaned it on Wednesday and Thursday, so we were able to move in on Friday. We weren't allowed to have people helping us move in but that was fine. One friend was able to help move our couches in and we did the rest ourselves. Our crates finally arrived to Hamilton (after a bit of drama with biosecurity) and were delivered on Wednesday (the 1st) so that was great. It was challenging getting them opened, but with some help and tools from Leo we managed. 

It was an exhausting weekend that first weekend because, on top of moving, we also needed groceries and to buy some some furniture for our new house off Facebook marketplace. Marketplace has been very helpful for us and we've even got some free furniture! Thankfully two families from church delivered us dinner during our moving day, which was very kind. We've been here almost two weeks now and are feeling more settled all the time. It feels very nice to be in our own place with our own stuff after so many months of feeling in limbo! We're hoping to finish putting our pictures up in the next few days and then we'll start on unpacking our final boxes (all books) now that we have bookshelves. After that we just need to try and sell our crates- they're a little worse for wear but hopefully we can recover a little bit of their cost.

As Stephen said last night, it will be good to "get our house set up so we can feel relaxed and enjoy doing fun things." We're hoping to get out Saturday afternoon to go for a hike. We did find a park just a 15 minute walk away on Sunday that had a beautiful view (see picture), so that was fun! There is a shopping center with heaps of restaurants, cafes, and two big grocery stores all within a 20 minute walk from our house; Saturday night we enjoyed our first NZ fish and chips from one of those restaurants! We're also very thankful to have a milk bar super close (2 minute walk) and a block of shops about a 5-8 minute walk that has many shops. One is an Asian market with fruits and vegetables which has great produce. There is also a gelato shop which we have yet to try (it is still pretty chilly here). Speaking of the weather, last week was so sunny and beautiful and warmer with highs of 18C (mid 60s F) most days. This week however has been much cooler and raining most days. 

It's great having our stuff again after not seeing most of it since May! One thing Stephen especially missed was his bike. He biked to work on Friday and Monday is is planning to bike again on Friday. It's a 40ish minute bike ride so it's not a small feat. Friday he was sore, sweaty, very hungry and exhausted when he got home. Monday was better. We also brought our tandem bike (a Christmas gift from my parents) and tried it out for the first time Saturday when we went to get our fish and chips. Sadly right as we got to the shops our back wheel messed up so we had to walk it back home. It should be an easy fix, but we haven't had time to work on it yet this week.

A month ago, I applied for a job in the emergency department and then had an interview two weeks ago. Last week, I was offered the job and accepted! It will just be two days a week (8 hour shifts), which is definitely enough for me! I'll have to work some nights and weekends, but mainly a mix of AM and PM shifts. I won't start until the middle or end of October because they're training a lot of new staff right now. That suits us just fine as it will give us time to finish getting settled in. 

Ralph is dominating walking and even starting to run. We borrowed a bike from church the other day and he's enjoying learning to use it :) We were very thankful to go down to Level 2 last Tuesday the 7th and loved being back in church, although it was a smaller group. In level 2 you're only allowed 50 people indoors so our church has split into 4 groups. The plan is that Auckland will finally be able to go down to Level 3 next Tuesday and the rest of NZ will go into Level 1 sometime in the following weeks.

And here are some pictures to enjoy :) 

<3 Tamara, for the 3 of us

                  Ralph was trying to copy what we were doing when we were opening the crates

                                            Ralph was "helping" his Daddy set up the keyboard

                                        Ralph is LOVING having all of his books again :) 
 

The park we found close to our house that has an amazing view!

Our first NZ fish and chips

Ralph enjoying the bike that we're borrowing from the church

The amazing fern garden that Stephen discovered on the university campus just a couple minutes from his office.