Update by Chenda

Thank you!  Thank you! Thank you!  For all the comments to the recent blogs.  The kids (and B and I) really appreciate all the feedback. 
Just wanted to update everyone on our status from my point of view (yeah, what's really going on!)  We just moved out of the earthquake dammaged house I rented for us, sight unseen (except for pictures of the house bf the quaking that was sent to me-anyway, that's behind us now and we've forgiven and have moved on) and into this cute house with no dammage and now that we've figured out how to turn on the oven, is perfect!  And comes with 3 bikes that we're making full use of and a single kayak that we have yet to take out (wating for a calmer day at sea, storm's coming in!  surf's up!). 

All the kids are still in school, although I've started to get the phone calls and warnings that we either take care of the Visa issue (like get a working one already) or their time is up.  Mia's 28 days ends next Monday, and for some reason, Z,K,&S have until the week after.  I'm thinking, come clean with the school and tell them our true intentions (that we're traveling around the world and might come back in a year with some kind of working Visa), take some pics with them and the school for our blog and record keeping, and have the kids "visit" (ask another school that we'd like to try to let the kids visit for 2 weeks) another school and then travel and do more writing and home/library school for the duration.  That's the plan anyway.

As for Brian and I, we are planning the rest of our world tour (the picture of Sarah pilotting and me looking not so sure pretty much illustrates our state on this matter at the moment!).  Usually people get this portion done before they purchase the round the world tix, but we are flying by the seat of our pants, but how else are we suppose to do it if we are under time and family constraints!  So we've nailed down the rest of our NZ stay; Sidney and Cairns, Australia; Bali, Singapore, and almost Cambodia.  Now I'm needing some serious help with India.  We are landing New Delhi in mid January and our intention is to see the Taj Mahal and the Himilayas (along with the culture, architecture, food, etc.) and to stay safe (just got word that the High Court in ND just got bombed last week...)  With that said, do any of you have a contact person/local travel agent we could trust in or near New Delhi?  Also just filled out the online visa applications for all of us!! Yahoo-that was a lot and just the first step.  Have to wait for an email reply and further directions before we can have the priviledge of sending in our passports with photos, copies of birth certs, the original printed applications I just submitted online, and the $165/person bank check into the High Court in Wellington for the actual visas.  That's if all of us gets approved. The kid's and I shouldn't have a problem, but I worry about Brian's caucasianess being a possible problem (JJ! I'm usually the one that gets patted down at the airports, border crossings, etc.).   After all that, hope we don't have a problem with the postage and we get it all back before we leave for Sidney in October!!!

Other than that, we've been watching lots of World Cup Rugby and feeling the nation go crazy over this game.  It's really very cool!  Going to Dunedin this weekend to see England vs. Georgia!! 

Gotta get back to being a mom!  Cheers, Chenda