A fun weekend and playgrounds

I bet when you hear people talking about New Zealand, someone says something like, "It's like California in the 1950s." In many ways this is very true. For one thing, there aren't many lawsuits. As a friend of ours said last night, "No one is liable for anything here!" This to me is kind of neat. In the area of children, this place is definitely caught in a time warp. First of all, I just got a job teaching swim lessons. I'm so grateful to have found a job so quickly because I love to work. It equates a large degree of my self worth. Last Saturday was my first day of training. After the session was over, the main thing that my boss told me was that I needed to not be afraid to actually touch the children and physically manipulate them so that they swim correctly. She said she knew that in the states you cant do that. But here its no big deal. In addition to this, all of the little kids were very independent. I tried to help them float on their backs, or hold their kick boards for them. And every time I did, they would snap at me and say, "I want to do it myself!" On my way out to the parking lot, I saw a stone wall about 12feet high made out of what looked to be cinder block turned on their sides. Out of the wall grew large trees that were cut into stumps. This little boy, no more than four years old had climbed the wall and was standing out on the edge of one of these stumps and was calling for his mom. His mom was busy, rustling through her car, paying no attention to him. But after a little while she looked up at him and in a very enoyed tone told him to get down. If this little boy had climbed this wall in the states, the mom would be freaking out, the boy would be crying, and one of the neighbors might have called CPS. But...this is New Zealand.
Last weekend we went to visit the animals. It was good to see them again. Our cat has been pretty sick with anemia and we have been worried her, especially because she is in quarantine. But she looked great. She was rolling around, pouncing, and biting. Tobi was really happy to see us. All she wanted was to be hugged. She isn't a normal dog in that way. She much prefers a big squeeze to a good scratch. Then we drove around until we found a beach and a place to camp. Along the way, we stumbled upon some of the most awesome playgrounds. They usually have a skate park, a GIANT slide, a zip line that goes forever, and lots of stuff to climb on. When you go to these playgrounds, there are almost no adults. The little kids just hop on their bikes after being kicked out of the house, and run around like crazy people. I bet you New Zealand has a lower percentage of kids with ADHD. They are usually barefoot, and usually screaming. Its so awesome to see. Anyway, here is a little video from a few of the playgrounds that we found. We also found a great camping spot right up the way from the beach. We walked through a little wetland to get to it. Along the way we saw Maori tromping through the shallow water in the moonlight looking for eels to spear.