Studio Blue Fish

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In an effort to preserve our memories of this year in New Zealand we hired professionals, Studio Blue Fish, to take some photos. We chose Otari Wilton Bush for the setting. This botanic garden is one of our favorite spots around Wellington. It is one of the few local places that was never cut for cultivation, grazing, or development. So it still has the native forest. Unfortunately, the photos don't give you a good sense of the place. On the plus side, the green background goes super well with my John Denver hair cut. Zeke's highly gelled do, Rachel’s “all natural” and the girls' barrette look are also featured in the slide show.

Days Bay

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Our ferry trip to Days Bay gave me yet another opportunity to take heaps of pictures of the kids. Per usual, Zeke and Joel are over represented. See the slide show.

Brooklyn Wind Turbine

.It took us a year but we made it up to the Brooklyn Wind Turbine (about 20 minutes from our house). We had a great day with the Turrows, our new friends from Bethesda, Maryland. You can see a slide show of our pictures.

School Farewells

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Today was the last day of the school term. Moriah Kindy presented Zeke with a scrapbook. See the video. At Kelburn Normal Maddy's class held a shared lunch and presented farewell cards. Jordan's class also made cards and group pictures. Then entire school acknowledged the girls at the final assembly. See the video of Maddy singing at the final assembly.

Harbour Capital Marathon & half marathon

Rachel completed her first half marathon in 2:23! While the time was within her goal, I know she could have done it in 2 hours had she not been chatting with her new friends, Fiona Davies, and Matt Churchouse (Maddy’s teacher). But then asking Rachel to go for 2 hours without chatting or making a new friend is about as reasonable as asking me to run a full marathon in under 2 hours. I finished in 3:55 (no chatting). Hey don’t we look good in the above photos? Rachel is trying to convince me to get my hair cut for an upcoming photo sitting she’s booked to complete our NZ album. If you think I should keep the long locks for the photo shoot let Rachel know today – The fate of my hair is in your hands.

Waikanae Beach

We spent the weekend on Waikanae Beach with our friends Kerrie and Iain and their kids Ella William and Freddy. The weather was not great but that didn’t keep the kids out of the water. slide show

Amy's Last Day

We took Zeke and his friends to kindy and then I brought Amy over to my yoga place where there is a massage therapist so that she could get a massage to try to help get rid of the kink in her neck that she had before getting on her plane. When we she was finished there, I picked her up and we went back up to Kelburn to get a couple of last minute things for her to take home and get a little lunch at one of the great cafes. We then stopped back home to get her stuff, and we left for the airport so that Amy could set off on her long trip home. It was really so cool that she came to visit us, and a great part of our memories we will have from this year. Slideshow from Amy's visit

Returning to Wellington

We woke up and unfortunately it was pretty drizzly. We went to the little cafe across from the Pancake Rocks walkway, had some breakfast and bought some cute t-shirts. It cleared up a bit and we went to see the Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes. They are really incredible, and since we got there around 9:30, high tide, we saw some water blowing up out of a couple of the blow holes. It is pretty cool the way the water shoots up. Then it started to rain and it was less cool, so we headed for the car. We drove up the coast, heading for the Westport airport. As we got close, we (or rather, I, as Amy was a bit nervous about time) decided to go to Cape Foulwind to see the fur seals. It was rather blustery there, but we saw them sweetly lying along the rocks. Amy took her requisite photo, and we ran back to the car to get out of the wet, windy weather and get to the airport.
So, we followed the signs to the airport, and then found ourselves at a dead end with a little house-type building in front of us - we looked at each other and wondered if this could be the right place. We got out of the car and walked into the little building, and to our amazement it really was the airport! It was hysterical - it truly looked like a barn or something, with the word Westport written on the roof - nothing about airport. Nevertheless, our 24 seater plane came in and we flew safely off to Wellington.
After a bit of a rigamaroll with finding Tony at the Wellington airport (don't ask - needless to say, it was his fault, but we won't go into that), we went back to our house here in Wellington. Amy and I went back into the city then for a little while, then came back to see the kids, and we all went out for dinner at our local pizza joint, Red Tomatoes. It was fun.

Day 3 on South Island - on Top of Franz Joseph!

Although we had been a bit uncertain about the weather last night since it was quite rainy, today was pretty nice, with just some clouds, so luckily we were able to do the helicpoter ride to the glacier. What an amazing day! The short flight up was very cool - getting to see the around the glacier from the helicopter. -Video Clip- Then it landed on it's square, flat little ice landing pad, and we all hopped out. We had been given special boots and socks (Amy had to wear 3 pairs in order for the smallest boots to fit her!) and were told to just keep walking away from the helicopter once we disembarked so as not to hang around it and lose a limb or anything. Our hunky, I mean helpful, guide, Tim, met us up there, and after getting us all sorted with these little ice-grip things that attached to the bottom of our boots, we were off! The truth is that we didn't go on a massive hike, but rather went around and through the area nearby where we were left off. Despite the fact that we didn't go far, each corner that we turned we saw new ice formations that were just breathtakingly beautiful. Tim told us all sorts of facts about glaciers, and what makes Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers different from most other glaciers in the world (ask Amy to tell you the synopsis). He then decided to take us through some tight little crevaces - I think in part for Amy's sake as she had stated earlier that she was a bit clostrophobic - I think he wanted her to feel that she had conquered that fear - which, by the way, she did. He used his ice pick to give us a few makeshift steps and then we basically had to shimmy ourselves up and through this little opening. It was very cool (literally and figuratively). The experience was truly awesome.
When we came down from the glacier we got a bit of lunch at Beaches in Franz Joseph centre, and then got into the car to start heading back up the coast to Punakaiki. We decided shortly out of Franz Joseph that Amy should take a turn at driving (to round out her kiwi experience), and about 4 minutes later decided that I should perhaps drive the rest of the way. All joking aside, Amy really did well, I was just a bit afraid that she was going to drive us off of the road whenever a car was coming toward us due to her overcompensating around wanting to make sure we didn't crash into the oncoming car. I appreciated that desire, but also didn't want to end up going into a ditch or off of a cliff, in that attempt. We were both glad that Amy did take a turn at driving though, as it added to our list of exciting adventures!
We got up to Punakaiki (also known as the Pancakes Rock area) and had a quiet night at our hotel, the Rocks, which sat right on the beach. We had a nice little dinner there and later went to sleep to the sound of the waves crashing. Slideshow

R and A on South Island - Day 2

We got into Greymouth around 1 pm, and were greeted by a typical kiwi guy from whom we rented a car. We had a bit of lunch in the somewhat quaint, not-very-exciting town centre, and then headed off down Highway 6 for the glaciers. We stopped in Hokatika, which is known for jade, so Amy got some souvenirs there. It is a cute little town. We then continued on down the highway to Franz Joseph village. We stopped into the town to check things out, and then headed to our B&B, Westwood Lodge (not to be confused with the psychiatric institution, Westwood Lodge, outside of Boston!) It was a really lovely place, and we had a wonderful dinner there (including mushroom soup and venison, both of which I ate and enjoyed - a bit of a shocker to some of you who know me well). We met a couple of writers there from NYC (small world!) and two women from NZ Tourism who were there travelling with them. It was a nice evening, and we all planned to go on a heli-hike the next day on Franz Joseph Glacier if the weather was good.