Hello again, Somehow it is Tuesday, the 20th, and we are just amazed at how quickly the time of our holiday has gone. Our dear friend, John Rose, passed away on Sunday afternoon and we will go to his funeral tomorrow. We are blessed to have seen him and have been with the family during this time. Sunday was a family day with the Rangers and we did enjoy being with them. The Pre-Christmas dinner was so much work for Dianne, but was wonderful to have with them. Roast leg of lamb and roast chiken - roast potatoes,kumeras (sweet potato), carrots [View Full Entry]

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Hello again on a damp, but promising Sunday morning. We have returned once more to our home base in Te Aroha. We went to visit our friends on the Coromandel Peninsula beside the Firth of Thames. How often do you get to say Firth of anything in this life? It was very rainy on Thursday when we drove up, so we stayed inside for most of the day. Cliff and his two handicapped children live on a beautiful little bay called Ruamahunga Bay. It is very sub-tropical and he is able to grow most everything. The land behind the house goes [View Full Entry]

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We have returned to Te Aroha from a trip that was from Saturday until Wednesday and we are a little zonkered from so much socializing. I didn't take too many pictures because I wasn't able to use the computer much. We did check our e-mail whenever we could to check up on any news of Barb Decker. Saturday afternoon, we ventured back to the big city of Auckland (actually South Auckland) to stay with our friends Grace and Lifi Ikiua whose daughter Anna stayed with us for a month about two years go. It was great to catch up with them. [View Full Entry]

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We have had a couple of quiet days, but still able to see some former friends and find some new ones. Since we were in town, we went to visit the grave of our dear friend, Frank Ranger, who passed away last summer. While we were there, we were able to witness a very touching and poignant vignette of love and devotion. A man, who looked in his 80's, parked behind our car and got out a folding chair and bag and went to sit by his wife's grave. He then got out some sandwiches and a thermos and proceeded to [View Full Entry]

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Sorry to be so long in writing. We haven't frozen, but it was the worst snowstorm that the North Island had seen in 25 years. They closed quite a few highways just a little south of us and there was snow on the mountain in front of Kenneth and Dianne's which they hadn't seen in the 20 years that they have lived here. We just stayed inside for two days close to the fire and trying to make ourselves go into the rest of the house where we could see our breath. Going to bed was quite an experience until the [View Full Entry]

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Hello again to all our friends that read about our travels. We appreciate your interest and would value your prayers while we are on our trip. We left Columbus on Thursday, 30 Sept., and stayed one night in Los Angeles. We spent the day going downtown and seeing Olvera Street, a little historic Mexican street. It hadn't changed much from when we took the children there when they were younger. We also drove out to Azusa for Jim to see some of his old haunts at Azusa-Pacific College. It had changed so much that there wasn't one building that Jim recognized. [View Full Entry]

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Hello, This will be my last blog on this trip and I wish to thank so many people for reading it and sending comments and messages. Our second day in Dubai, we wandered over to the beach which was quite beautiful, but much too hot to enjoy. On the way through the hotel, they were offering a class on vegetable sculpture, but I had no time to go to it. At the beach, we hung out under a cabana and looked at the view while getting hotter and hotter. July & August are their hottest months which was good in some [View Full Entry]

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Hello again, We arrived home about midnight on the 29th of July - a long, long time on the airplanes, but how else to you get around a 1/3+ of the world in less than 24 hours? We thoroughly enjoyed being in Dubai. It is an amazing experience and I don't know where else you could go to even compare the dynamics that are part of this planned city. Jim was not able to find a room that would accommodate three people and two rooms didn't seem practical because of the cost. So, he looked online and found the Oasis Beach [View Full Entry]

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Hello again, We are having a fabulous time here in Dubai, but let me finish our African Safari saga. We had arrived at our lodge on the rim of the Ngogongoro Crater at what seemed to be sunset, but we couldn't be sure since we were engulfed with clouds. The driver said that we must hurry through the lobby if we wanted to get pictures of the crater because of the fading light. The pictures came out quite well. We probably should have been noticing that the staff were all wearing multiple layers of sweaters, sweatshirts and jackets. Their boiler for [View Full Entry]

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Hi, everyone! We are still here! I'm sorry that I skipped yesterday, but we seemed to need a day of adjusting- we were experiencing culture shock - temperature shock- and luxury shock! I don't know if we have recovered, but there cannot be a better place to try. First, I must write about our safari in the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. We started Tuesday for a 3 day - 2 night safari in 2 vehicles so we had plenty of room. Our first unexpected (this is Africa) event was a flat tire in Mwanza about 20 [View Full Entry]

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