Snow Day(s) Sunday, July 24 and Monday, July 25

When it rains, it pours, or in this case, snows...

For those of you who are parents and friends and family that are following the blog, yes, we are supposed to be in Kaikoura today...

It has been 24 hours since our students were supposed to arrive back from their three-day free weekend in Queenstown; however, New Zealand has just experienced the largest and far reaching snow event in 20 years and all of the flights from Queenstown and Christchurch have been cancelled.  There has even been snow on the North Island which is highly unusual.  We have just received calls from the students that they are coming back via buses that are leaving now.  Everyone is fine, and we believe that they have had fun on their free weekend with the exception of the past 24 hours.  At least the airlines fed them well and put them up for the night.

Meanwhile, here in Christchurch, our kids are enjoying the snow (which at 2pm here is continuing to pour down). Yesterday at 2pm when our students were supposed to be arriving back, it started to snow with the sun out.  It did not last long and nothing stuck.

View from our flat Sunday, July 24 at 2pm as snow came down with the sun out.

Overnight; however, Christchurch even experienced ice and snow at the beaches and Lincoln University is closed.  Christchurch and Lincoln are usually only a bit more cold than Gainesville, FL in the winter, so to have snow, and in this quantity, is not a common event.  A resident friend here tells us every three years or so a sprinkling down to the level of the plains here is not unusual though.  Here is the same view from our flat  this morning:

We are bummed that everyone has to experience this unusual event and that it, once again, puts a wrinkle in our plans, but we hope that everyone remains bundled up and in good spirits.  Safe travels to all and we will post an update of the students safe arrival as well as our plans soon.

Stay tuned, and if you could, send some unusually warm weather from the States and we will send you some unusually cold weather from here! Cheers, Meryl : )

T and J with their "snowsheep" mid morning, Monday, July 25.