Gramma Barb's Visit 2010, Part IV

If we could live in New Zealand forever, Wanaka would be one of our first choices. Like many towns here, it's tiny, but it is built on a beautiful lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

The kids loved the playground downtown and watching the water skiers and kayakers on the lake.





























The weather wasn't great, so my mom took the kids to see The Frog Princess (Liska's first movie in a movie theater) at the local cinema, Cinema Paradiso. It was filled with comfortable chairs and couches and each movie has an intermission so you can have a treat, including freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. We also took the kids to an indoor climbing gym. They had never been to one and really enjoyed it.























My mom got caught in torrential rain and island winds walking into town one morning. On her way she saw an arts and craft market where everyone's wares were getting blown away. Even the tents-the kind with steel poles- were getting knocked down by the wind. Barb, who has one of the kindest hearts I know, spent over an hour chasing down hand-knitted tea cozies and the like for the artists who were trying to close up before their work was destroyed. Once she made it into town she ducked into a store to escape the rain and the shopkeeper asked her to mind her shop for awhile. She cheerfully obliged, not exactly sure what she was supposed to do and trying to imagine that ever happening in the US. Eventually I went to find her, concerned she might be soaking, exhausted and stranded in town. No, she had dried off and was happily shopping, excited to tell us about her adventures.

One of my favorite parts of the whole trip was when the five of us biked around part of the lake, away from town. It was gloriously beautiful and peaceful, a bike ride I will never forget.