Today was a great day to relax after a busy week. After church, I talked to Kerry and Sheryl for a while and I think I finally understand how the internet works now. It's not unlimited like we're used to; they are charged for however much data they use (how much they download). Before we came they were using 2-3 Gigabits of their 5 G plan per month...after we came, however, we used 9 G in January! Whoops! Luckily, they only have to pay $1 for every extra G, but still it was surprising to see how much internet we use.
Since it was a low-key day, I'll play a little catch up. Last night, we had a big celebration for the three girls who turned 21. Only Nicole, Nancy, and Anna have birthdays during the trip, and they all had them within a couple weeks in February. Nicole's host mom wanted to throw a surprise party for Nicole, and then expanded it to a party for all three. Anna and Nancy knew about it, but it was a big surprise for Nicole; she had no idea!
Turning 21 is apparently a big deal here in New Zealand. Everyone gets a key to the house because they are now old enough to come and go as they please. Well, people usually get keys much earlier than 21 these days, but it's still very symbolic to get a key. So, Nicole's host mom made frames with big paper keys in them for the three birthday girls. She was so thoughtful and showed us a traditional birthday party, including presents for the girls, party bags with candy and NZ keychains for the rest of us, and a mini speech about how wonderful each of the girls is. Then she whipped out this gigantic cake! maybe the biggest I've ever seen. They blew out the candles, and then we sang a big Happy Birthday. It was fun to celebrate the New Zealand way :)
Earlier this week, when we spent the evening with the Olson's, their four-year-old son, Vanz, did the haka for us. He did it with such intensity and power. Enjoy the video of it :) So cute!
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