Shaky Christchurch Pettys in December 2011

Blooming Lupins near Tekapo

App and videos

The AtMyPace: Statistics app is selling an average of one per day. It isn’t going to make us rich, but we have plans to make it available on the iPod as well, which should increase our market. You can see all about it here:



I’m pretty pleased with my last video, about types of data. It’s pretty accessible. I did most of the editing, and William did the drawings. As it is early in the series, I felt I had to make it as interesting as possible.

Boundary changes

We have been waiting for boundary changes to be approved so we can go ahead with them in the Stake. There were so many rumours going around that in the end they announced it at Stake Conference back in November. However we are still waiting! There was a frisson of excitement just before Christmas when it looked as if they might be there soon, - but no.

Jonathan

Jonathan finished reading the Book of Mormon, as instructed by our Stake Presidency.

We went to meet some teachers from CPIT (Christchurch Polytechnic) about Jonathan’s class next year. They were very nice, and most impressed with the technology that can help them and Jonathan. We are going to start with no extra support for him, and just put some in place if necessary. They have a very small class. As we walked away, Jonathan leaned over and said to me – “What nice ladies”, which is exactly what I had been thinking. Jonathan brings out the best in people.

Activity Day

I had a Christmas party for the Valiants, and we had a chocolate fondue, played a game involving Jonathan playing Christmas songs, and we made bead stars. It went pretty well. Jonathan just loves being involved with the children.

Jessica and William

Jessica and William have bought a cute little kitten called Reiko. It means thunder in Japanese. Jessica has a good casual job and William is making videos for me in between his schooling.

Walk on the Hog’s back trail

Jessica, William, Nicola, Tanya & Steve Bailey

Mark and I enjoyed the countryside where we had the last rogaine so much we invited William and Jessica, and the Baileys to go with us for a picnic and walk up there. The weather was perfect and the views were as wonderful as ever. I got sunburned knee pits and they were all crispy for several days. Mark and I would like to stay at Castle Hill and do some more exploring around there.

Nicola beside some cool boulders

Earthquake damage and more earthquakes

I went shopping in town in the new Restart Mall in Cashel Street. It is pretty cool and vibrant and such a good thing. I walked up from South City, where I had been buying shoes. In some blocks there were no shops left at all on one side of the street. It is hard to believe, even when you see it. It feels as if someone has stolen my city.

I had quietly decided that if we could get to the end of the year with no more bad shakes, then the worst was over. Well on the 23rd December we had two very bad after-shocks, one of 5.8 and one of 6.0. There were a whole lot of smaller ones as well. My mother and William and Jessica lost power so after a few hours I went to pick them up and right then their power came back on. I think a lot of damage was to morale. I think we are now aware that ten years of aftershocks is just nothing in geological time, so we just need to accept them as a part of life. They still get the pulse racing though, and it takes a day for me to recover from a bad one. It is depressing. A whole lot of people in our ward needed their houses shovelled out again too.

NZiDev Conference

Shane and I travelled to Auckland to the second NZiDev conference for people who make iOS apps. People I talked about it to were envious of my redundancy opportunity. It is a great blessing. It was really nice to go to a place full of bright, young, enthusiastic and mostly successful men, who were prepared to try new things and take risks. It was a marked contrast to my work environment where the people are clever, but extremely risk averse, and at present fearful of the future and for their jobs. We came back invigorated and spent a day making plans for Rogo and AtMyPace: Statistics.

One idea was for me to have a blog about teaching statistics, to increase my credibility and help sell the app. I started it a few weeks later. You can see it here. www.learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com.

Garden

The garden continues doing well and the lemon tree is doing fine but has no flowers. Maybe it is punishing me for my drastic attack on it. I bought a swan plant and a monarch butterfly visited and laid eggs so we are now watching the caterpillars destroy the plant.

Christmas

On Christmas Day we went to church, had breakfast at our place and then went out to the O’Neills’ place. It was all very nice.

Visitors

Heather and Art Schwencke visited from Auckland and stayed in the caravan in the front yard. We took them for a drive to see the earthquake damage. They were shocked to see how bad it is.


My aunts Ann Ward and Clare Ogier, and Clare’s sons Tom and Patrick Ogier and Tom’s girlfriend Emma visited us also and we all went out to dinner. The next day we took Ann, Clare and Patrick to see the earthquake damage. They were shocked to see how bad it is.

Visit to Pleasant Point

Mark and I went down for a wonderful few days in the caravan at the end of the year. We stayed in the domain at Pleasant Point for four nights. We could have stayed a lot longer but I needed to get back to work. Next year this won’t be an issue! We went up to the MacKenzie basin on the Saturday and took photos of the lupins. It is amazingly beautiful.

A true railcar, a model T here at Pleasant Point

The old and new year
2011 is over. It has been a very hard year for all of us in Christchurch. However many good things happened as well, especially William’s marriage and Jonathan’s party. We have been blessed in both trials and happy outcomes.




2012 looks to be an interesting one for us. Jonathan will be at CPIT and I’m hoping we can get him to record a CD. I will be finishing work at the University of Canterbury after 20 years and being self-employed. Mark will be working part-time for Sinclairs and part-time for Creative Heuristics, and supporting Jonathan. William will be at NatColl, and Jessica will hopefully get her residency. When I say “will” in the previous sentences, I mean “insha'Allah” or God-willing. And, God-willing, we will have no more bad aftershocks. (excluding the ones on the 2nd which are already history).


Happy New Year to all the family


Nicola, Mark, Jonathan, Jessica and William.

The Train at Pleasant Point