This week Iz celebrated her 11th birthday as week booked our first week here in New Zealand. She had partied it up at home with a slumber party with her friends and she had received all her presents because she would need them for the long day of travel (ipod Nano and North Face jacket). I still wanted to the day to be special, to stand out for her and to set the tone for our birthday celebrations while here. Her dinner request was pork tacos and she wanted to go to the Splash Palace after school. I spent the day driving among the three markets(grocery stores) in search of ingredients that would make the dinner and cake taste just like home. I came home missing key ingredients for the meal and couldn't find birthday candles anywhere. The chocolate cake recipe was in metric and the oven burned half the cake.

I felt like the mom in "The Poisonwood Bible" who takes her daughters to the African bush with her minister husband and insists she take Betty Crocker cake mixes with her so the girls birthdays would be "just right". What she discovers in the kitchen hut is that she has the cake mixes but is completely without the things that make them "just right". No eggs or oil to be found.

Frustrated, I walked outside to let all know dinner was ready and heard giggles and squeals of delight as they played in the huge yard. And I realized, we're not in the land of Target and Wal Mart anymore and that's a good thing. The birthday celebrations won't be the same. Instead of spending time and energy making everything feel like home, I need to spend that time and energy making this home. Not a hard thing when you look around and meet the people and feel the breeze and the sunshine.

We sat down to a dinner of pork tacos missing the black beans and jalopeno peppers and real limes or cilantro. All three girls excitedly talked about school and new friends and things they can't wait to see and do. The chocolate birthday cake did not have glowing candles. And as we made birthday wishes for Iz, they were not wishes for things, but for experiences here.

It turns out you don't need Betty Crocker after all.