Land of the Brilliant Sunrise

Our first full day in Tairua was a fabulous day. I woke up nice and early (still on LA time) and watched the sunrise, which was beautiful. I went down to the beach to take a better picture but nearly froze my feet off, so I had to be content with a picture from upstairs...After breakfast, I went down to the beach to check out the surf. What I found made me jump for joy: The waves were about 3-5 feet high, built up from about 30 feet away, and crashed at the perfect reaching distance away. On top of that, the beach was steep and the water was warm. Everything came together to make the most perfect conditions ever (even better than Aliso because the water was warm). I ran back and told everybody, but my parents wouldn't let me go alone because there was a bit of a rip, so I had to wait for everybody. It was 45 minutes before I got back to the beach, only to find the most dramatic change in surf I've ever seen. The waves had become about 8 feet tall (with occasional 1 foot) and built up and crashed 150-200 feet out. There were still a few waves I might have been able to get, but were continually followed by 8 footers, so I kept hesitating and missing them. In one hour, I only got 2 rides, both in which I wiped out so hard my head hurt.Later in the day my Great Aunt Elizabeth and Great Uncle Alan came and visited us, who I hadn't seen since last we came to NZ. By the way, people here don't say the letter z as "zee", it's pronounced "zed" -- it feels weird saying "en-zed". Anyways, they brought cookies, fruits, boogieboards and other nice things with them, which was nice of them.
We went back to the beach later and found that it was like it had been the day before - flat and good for flatland tricks. I was very happy when, after dozens of times failing, I was able to do a shuvit mid ride in deep water and keep going. My dad also tried skimboarding and is getting better. We didn't really do anything the rest of the day, except read a little more of that Percy Jackson book, which is actually pretty good.
The next day also started with a brilliant sunrise. I guessed I'd have to get used to that here. It was my Great Uncle Alan's 72nd birthday, but we didn't do much except check out the estuary which emptied out on the beach near us. Wasn't much swimming, but it was really warm.Later, my 1st cousins once removed (we just call them aunts and uncles) Uncle Phil and Aunt Christine and second cousins Georgia and Caleb came to stay at the house for a few days. After unpacking they immediately wanted to go to the beach. Tide wasn't quite out yet, so we swam and body surfed until it was. My Uncle Phil wanted to try out skimming, and was actually pretty good right from the start. Later we barbecued up some lamb and fish, during which I found that burnt blood doesn't smell very nice (I sliced my finger open). Dinner was amazing though... there's nothing in the world quite like New Zealand lamb chops. The ginger beer was better than I've ever had before as well.
One thing I am extremely unhappy with that I just found out about is that I won't be able to watch any of our tv shows we'll be missing on the internet here. It turns out that shows like Lost and Survivor air several seasons after they do in America. It also turns out that abc and cbs don't want people in New Zealand watching episodes ahead of what's being aired here. Apparently there is a way to anonymize your browser so they can't find your location, but I would have no idea how to do that. So I guess I just have to wait until we get back...