annual christmas letter 2018

Christchurch, NZ – November 2018

C H A N G E S ! !

    Changes - always things change – your weather / life / health / waistline :) yes that too! Generally speaking, most folks dislike the changes. Some happenings are good changes. One change that is not going to happen is Mama-bear writing the annual Christmas-epistle. Seems she thinks I am so great with the words that she just “delegates” this task . . . :P

    

Well – this year has seen a number of changes for us. Reinhold did go to the 7 night Scout camp in Staveley last January– and instead of sleeping in a tent – he bunked out in the newly acquired “Bear-mobile”! He then left scouting – having received his Bronze Tiki award for 15 years of excellent service to the movement. Which meant that Reinhold is more at home and not always away with Scouts – a change that took Mamabear a bit of getting used to. Seems she enjoyed the “peace and quiet” at home, while still missing Reinhold’s presence!

     The Bear-mobile then got used on a number of occasions for various trips away – 7 nights in Alexandra / Wanaka and a couple of times at least to our favorite South Island spot – Tekapo.

Thus – we went from sleeping in motels to sleeping on wheels – another change for us. Pam getting used to the “camping” bit and enjoying the home comforts away from home.

     Michael has a passion for Film – photography so we had a couple of nights in Tekapo and did the “capture the Milky-way” on film thing. Very cold and challenging. Mama-bear needed to be exposed to a winter camping experience too– so again we went to Tekapo and plugged the Motorhome into power and spent 2 nights there. Comfy if refreshing!!

     Michael seems to recover well and his weekly check-ups went to fortnightly to monthly. Eventually he was cleared to go back to work and so he started half days – eventually making it to full time by mid-year of 2018. He’s since had his triple-immunity shots (which knocked him a bit back) but seems to be handling everything ok.

     Jonathan enjoyed his time in Japan and had fun ‘tunnelling’ in the snow. Locally the area there seems to get anything from 2-15 meters of snow annually. Once he had returned to New Zealand – he applied for a job in Queenstown as ski – instructor – and just missed out on that. Still he managed to pick a job in the ski-hire business – kitting out the day tourists and sending them to the right ski-instructor for their lessons as well as occasionally giving lessons or helping out with the ski-lift!

   

  Mr and Mrs Bear decided to have another change and we booked ourselves a mid-winter holiday at the tropical Island of Rarotonga. The lowest temp there was 22 degrees at night compared to Christchurch at 2degrees!! Very enjoyable and relaxing – especially the 4pm happy hour time – where we had fun testing the various cocktails! We also had a natural alarm-clock – the local roosters, which seem to come to life by 4 or 5 am!!! Stayed where Pam’s Mum and Dad used to stay so that was interesting and emotional to see the places and meet the staff that remembered them.

     

   

The most important change for us happened in Sep. Reinhold finally decided to make an “honest woman” out of his wife and applied for NZ Citizenship. Not a given – still eventually it got approved and the official “swearing in’ ceremony was held on 25 Sep. This would be the only time Reinhold was allowed to swear at – no wait urm - with no- hmmm ok – FOR ol’ Lizzy (the Queen) :) Reinhold has lived in NZ for 34 years so you understand the comments from his family - “About time it happened” !!

    Highlights for Pam have been watching Michael get better and being able to take breaks in the camper.

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2019 for you all.

Have fun!