20 June, 2008 here, June 19, 2008 there

Well. We have been here a year now. I still have trouble getting my head wrapped around that fact, but here we are. I guess moving is in my blood: I was born in Alice Texas because they had a hospital and the town we lived in, Freer, did not have one. We lived in Bloomington, Texas and Refugio, Texas and almost Harlingen, Texas (dad was transferred there and we were building a new house when he got transfered back, to Refugio, I think). Somewhere in there we lived in Mississippi. I went to college in Austin and Kingsville, Texas. I went into the Army in San Antonio, had basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missourik, then on to Army Language School in Monterey, California, further training in Virginia, then shipped to Berlin for two and a half years. During my tour of duty I visited Ireland, Corsica, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Sweden. After discharge I went to Rome, Dubrovnik, Istanbul, north Africa, Marseilles France and on to Paris where I entirely by chance (divine guidance?) ran into some of the guys still in the army in Berlin, and somehow got to England and caught a plane to New York City and from the central bus terminal (freaky deaky place went to a friend's house in Lynn, Massachusetts, then back home for a few months, then to Philadelphia, Santa Ana, California, Dallas, Texas, Gainesville, Florida, Bostonk, Massachusetts, Baltimore, Maryland and finally (I thought) Topeka, Kansas (I may have forgotten a few other places where I stayed briefly) - whew. Then we up and move to New Zealand after 30 years in Topeka. Who knows where next. We plan to explore this small island nation more in the coming months and years, prompted in part by the desires of whomever might visit us regarding what they want to see and do. I don't think I can get in great shape to do serious multi-day tramps of the beautiful areas in the South Island but hope to do some tours or ecotours, and plan to learn my immediate surroungings and the goings on within two hours or so of Hamilton - which includes mountains, lakes, nature walks, hot springs, lots and lots of beach, and maybe even a farm stay or two. Physically the Parkinson's is pretty stable so far. I have lost some weight and was very good about walking a lot until about three weeks ago when I strained my Right knee and for a while it hurt too bad to walk, now just aches some time. I have decided that our dog Charlie is a watch dog, for she loves to sit by the glass door or big window in the living room and watch what goes by, with some unfathomable decision tree going on in her head regarding at whom she either growls, barks or whines or remains silent. We are in the process of getting a couple of raised beds for our garden in the back yard in an area that gets the most sun. That is a sort of birthday/wedding day/getting here anniversary present from us to us and as you might imagine the children currently seem to be underwhelmed so far but once they get the taste of fresh vegetables . . . We are still running into words we don't understand, and Emily knows how to sing the national anthem - I believe it may be unique (though maybe not) in that it is bilingual, first sung in Maori, then New Zelander English. As a last bit of info, the mornings are cold (40 degrees or less in the am) and the days are short (dark by about 5:30 our time) but winter solstice is coming up, and when it is clear the sky is lovely. All is/will be well my friends. Thanks for reading this, and we send all the best from the Barbers to you and hope this has been a good year for you and will continue to be one. Manford