A new direction

A new direction has emerged and I have started a new blog. We have sold our Catamaran "Cool Change" and have moved back on land. Interested in what I am doing now, check out my new website and blog on www.karunalifeforce.wordpress.com
Hope to see you there
Gabriele

what happened to JUCA

Have you ever wondered what happened to the crew of JUCA? Well we managed to live in on land (New Zealand) for two years until our mind and feet got too itchy sailing again. Once again we sold everything. This time we only took two suitcases each ( mind you we had to leave a few bits and pieces that I miss) and made it back to live on the waters. We bought the Catamaran "Cool Change", a Leopard 47, and boarded our new home after 48 hours flying time from New Zealand to St. Martin. Well worth it, if you want to know more check out our new blog on www.coolchange47.blogspot.com

Looking forward to hear from you and hopefully we might bump into you somewhere along the line or sailing down the waters, following the wind.

A relaxing weekend in Keri Keri

Off Road Racing in Mangawhai

We had a major event happening over the Easter Weekend here in Mangawhai, the “Off Road Racing”. We decided to join the crowds and went along on Saturday morning. The weather was stunning and they could have not asked for better weather. I have to say the event was extremely well organized and had everything going for the visitors, from ice cream and burger trucks to Rubbish bins and enough toilets. The event was held in a huge paddock; where our future Shopping Industrial Park is suppose to be developed. It has been raining lots in the last few weeks so the ground was fairly wet, however we found a great dry spot up on top of the hill and could overview the whole track. Usually I am not that fond of Car races, but they did have 6 different racing categories and each category had to do six rounds. It all happened reasonably fast and there was lots of interesting things happening on the track. We had little push over’s and rollovers, mud flying high into the crowds, cars dying on the track and lots of dust in the air when the cars were flying around the corner. Carlos and I were fascinated by it, Julia was tired and had a bit of a hangover since she had been on a sleep over party the night before and Sven was enjoying the sunshine and the crowds and burgers. We all enjoyed our time on the racetrack and we stayed much longer than planned, it was a great day, something else to do then the usual staff around Mangawhai.

Happy Easter

Another Easter has crept up on us and this time round we are celebrating it again in Mangawhai New Zealand. We decided to spend some time with our friends Kyoko and Tich and their two children Dylan and Marine. Kyoko prepared a lamb and prepared it beautifully with garlic and rosemary. I made a traditional German “Rotkohl” red Cabbage and an Apple Strudel with a nutty crust. Our lunch was simply delicious. Before lunch we had an Easter egg hunt for the kids and it was fun to watch them racing around the garden. The weather has been extremely friendly with us and we enjoyed a very sunny Easter Sunday, with great company and a delicious meal.
In the afternoon we went for a little Tikki tour around the coast. We still need to find a property or even better an area where we would like to settle down for a while. Bingo and we have been lucky; we have found a great spot with sea view, close to the beach, close to Whangarei and good schooling for the children. We will investigate this option a bit closer the next few weeks and see what will come out of it.
The other great news is that I have finally found a cheap flight to Germany, so I will be off to Germany with Julia and Carlos. Yeah, Julia and Carlos can finally spend some time with their grandparents and hopefully bond with them, another goal is that they will learn the German language better and I will get to do my Yoga Therapy Training, which I intend to do. Lots of great things are happening and I feel very happy and uplifted by all these developments in our life. I believe once I have been to Germany and completed my mission over there that I will settle much better back here in New Zealand. I am wishing everyone peaceful and sunny Easter Days.

A Community gets together

Usually events like that only happen on Television, this time it happened in Mangawhai. What a great community to be part of!
What a reward to know at the end of the day to have done something that has been of great help! We all learn it when we are young to share and care for others, but in our busy lives we miss these little things that might create a big difference to someone else. Roger and Kyoko Gayford have been living in the Mangawhai community with their children Marine and Dylan for as long as I can remember. They always have an open heart and I only know them as caring, loving and sharing their time with others. A few years ago Roger, known as Tich has been diagnosed with cancer, but thanks to Kyoko has been very well until recently. They have just finished building their home and it has become harder for Tich to do the hard physical work. Every time I went up to visit my friends I looked at their garden and surrounding and thought to myself, how could we help them. The answer came, when another friend ask me, what we could do to get them back on track, me immediate response was…let’s do a Garden Makeover, just like the one they have on television. Kyokos birthday was just coming up, so the timing was perfect, to create more than a “great” birthday gift. I called a few friends and we started to make arrangement for a Mangawhai Garden Makeover. We started to collect plants and newspaper and I made sure that the ground works was done before the “Garden crew” arrived on the 24th of March. Each day the number of plants in my garden grew, more and more people were willing to help on Saturday. On the day Tich’s and Kyoko’s garden was buzzing with 25 adults and roughly 10 children. Everyone had a either a spade, mower or weed cutter in his hand and who didn’t was busy planting plant that had been thoroughly laid out by Nicki from “All season Landscape”. A finished touch with two loads of Bark was supplied by Jo and Rob from “Mangawhai Transport”. What a surprise when Kyoko came home that day! They were no words, only tears and smiles to be shared. The garden looked stunning and we were now ready to celebrate our “Mangawhai Garden Makeover” achievement as well as Kyoko’s birthday.
Happy birthday Kyoko and all the best to you Tich. We hope that you will enjoy your new garden and that it will give you strength and energy to get better soon! We love you guys and we are all proud of our “Mangahwai community” and happy to share our love and care with others.

Living situation - Limbo!

We have been in New Zealand for four month and we are still not fully settled in. I find it much harder to settle back into the system as getting out of the system.

What has been happening in our life. The children have more or less settled into their new routine and have nearly completed their first term in public school. Another couple of weeks and we are up for our first school Holidays...Yeah!!! A few times I have heard, especially from Carlos who could not wait to get back to school, if I would consider homeschooling him again. I believe him and his teacher are not hitting off that well. I am carefully watching the space and events, but have to say, since my homeshcooling days I am much more sensitive and critically in regards of the education of my children. Julia is very lucky this time round and is continue to blossom. She absolute adores her teacher and I blieve this is on mutual ground. Her teacher is very nurtering for Julia and encourages Julia very much to get more and more involved in her own leraning. Excellent, could not ask for more!

Sven and I are still searching for the right property to settle down. We had a few doors closed on us, but you know us, we never give up. However it is hard to comunicate our process at the moment as it changes with the day if not hour. One day we are buying a dairy farm, the next ad dry stock farm, next minute we are buying property as an investment, the next minute we are moving to Australia or Abu Dhabi. You can tell that we are trying to be flexible, but it is also very exhausting and sometimes I have got a hard time to keep up with all the changes. At this minutes we are settling in Mangawhai...is that what I want....I am not too sure about that. In the meantime I continue to teach my 5 yoga classes in the community and I have just been offered a job as a Teacher Learning Support. I have accepted and started on Monday. I am a translater for a little German girl helping her to improve her english while sitting at school, playing with other children and listening to the instructions from the teacher. It is a pleasant job and I hope that this might open another door for me.

Sven is trying hard to find something to do and just the other day he had a brilliant idea... we will see where this will lead to and I am going to write more about this next time I am here on this page.....so please watch this space as things are happening and I will share them with you........