Jenny's Jabberings

Where does the time go

2011-08-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

So I realized that effectively it's been 6 months since I posted and the thing I posted about was from 1 year ago (well other than my little parenting insight rant but I'm not really counting that).

Life marches on at a crazy pace and even more so now that I have constant teens and activities going on. I can't just put them to bed at 7 and have "me time" anymore but that's OK since I love having them around and they will be gone all too soon :-(

I did realize the other day though that the blog was just as much for the girls' grandparents as it was for me. It kept them in touch with the girls' lives. It gave them a sense of connection even though they are far away.

Soooooo, I will try and be better and get back to posting....I have a lot of catching up to do =P

I was the perfect parent with all the answers...until I had kids :-)

2011-05-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

So this is a post I've been sitting on for a long, long, time. I have re-written it at least a dozen times in my head and tried to figure out how to put best what I'm thinking. I hope it doesn't offend anyone, it's not meant to, it's just my thoughts on this stage of my life and observations I have made on my parental journey.

I thought parenting was pretty black and white. You set up the rules, it's all pretty clear what the rules should be...pretty easy right. Any of you that are parents should be laughing by now. Parenting is so gray! So many things are not clear cut. It's constant negotiation and re-evaluation, even when you thought you knew the answers, it's exhausting!

I am discovering that being the parent of teens is making me less judgemental of other parents. Why are we so hard on each other as parents? For the most part parents are doing the best they know how. Don't get me wrong there are some who have checked out and their kids just run free but that's not the ones this post is about. Might I also point out, before delving into my grayness, that I do have some hard and fast rules. You may not ever be alone in the house with a boy and you may not wear clothing that makes it look like you could earn some extra $ if you were in the right part of town...just to name a couple, but this post is mostly about those grayer areas.

Parenting is a tough gig! We don't know all the answers (shhh, don't tell the kids that) but we gather in all the information and do the best we can with it.

I may not make the same decisions you would make for your children and that's OK. For instance, there are some who can't believe I let my Freshman daughter hang out with Senior boys. Well, when those "adult" boys are at my house 99% of the time, making gingerbread houses, playing Chutes and Ladders and watching Extreme Couponing...ya, I'm not so worried about those Senior boys. They are some of her best friends, call me mom and watch out for her like the big brothers she doesn't have but probably needs so ya, I'm OK with her hanging with those Senior boys. We tend to judge based on what we see from the outside and as a general rule we probably don't know all the details. (and might I just point out that the "facts" that you get from your teens probably aren't the most reliable either, I include my own teens in that by the way, it's the nature of the beast. In the above example you would probably get from your teen that Miss M has this Senior, non-member boy that is always at her house and that she is always hanging with at school and hugging, all true but not an accurate portrayal of what is really going on...see what I mean?)

You may not agree with every parenting decision I make and that's OK, you don't have to. I may not agree with all of yours either. For instance if you invite my 13 year old to a sleepover where you will be watching "What Happens in Vegas", we will just graciously decline and you are free to let your child watch it.

If you see my kids allowed to do something you would "never let your kid do" know that a lot of negotiation, tears, prayer, thought and discussion probably went into that decision and we made the decision we felt was best at the time. Sometimes it may not even be what we think is the BEST decision but a situation where we feel like they needed a choice and they will learn from it good or bad.

My kids have been raised with good morals and standards and there is constant checking going on to make sure those are still intact, to make sure they are bringing others up instead of letting others bring them down. They are good, strong, spiritual, smart girls. If I had kids I thought couldn't/wouldn't hold their own, some of my parenting decisions would be different.

I'm a very involved and pretty informed parent. I get details, weigh the pros and cons and then try and do what works for my family.

Growing up I saw the kids whose parents ruled with iron fisted strictness and no negotiation, I also know what those kids were doing behind their parents backs. I also saw when those kids got to college the chaos that ensued in their lives because they had no idea what to do with freedom and choice. My parents did not parent like that and neither did Treg's. They trusted us, they gave us a voice, they let us make choices and I think we turned out pretty OK. Were all our choices the very best, probably not, but that's all part of who shapes us into who we are right, all part of that pesky free agency plan.

I have a few friends who are often the target of judgement for their parenting, but you know the more I talk to those friends, they're on top of things, often in ways I am not. They are raising awesome kids. Their methods may be a little un-Orthodox, and from the outside they may not look like the best options but you know what, it's working for them and they are some of my favorite moms and their kids are going to turn out just fine! I feel bad for them, it's exhausting feeling like you have to justify every parenting decision you make.

And finally to my awesome friends, if I ask for your input on something...and then do just the opposite of what you suggested :-) it's not because I don't value your opinion, I absolutely do and it all got put into the big melting pot of the decision making process. If in the end it turns out you were right and I should have listened to you, please just take me out to lunch and let me cry on your shoulder instead of saying "I told you so"...we're all on this long parenting journey together and we need all the support we can get :-)

Sometimes you just gotta write...about teenagers

2011-05-04T00:28:00.000-07:00

I've been dying to write...which is ironic because when I was in college I tried to avoid writing at all costs. Perhaps it was because someone was telling me what I had to write and now I get to write whatever I like.

I've been dying to write, but mostly I've just been dying. Between fundraising, Maunia's musical schedule, our drama program and just being the wife and mom, life has been exhausting. But tonight I decided to heck with it sometimes you just gotta write :-)

Tonight's topic is teenagers...dun dun dun...that topic dreaded by many parents. I have to say, teenagers get a bad rap!

Are they loud?...yep, are they self-centered?...at times...aren't we all?, Are they crazy...most definitely! Are they exhausting...unquestionably!! BUT they are also fun and energetic, crazy and goofy, creative and smart and they see endless possibilities in their world. They are enthusiastic about life, like we used to be before life made us tired :-) They are pretty sure there are at least 90 hours in a day and they can fit in everything they want to...provided their moms shuttle them all over kingdom come and let them sleep until mid-afternoon on Saturdays to make up for it ;-)

I always thought Treg was going to be the one that was better with the teens. In our early years he always seemed to have the magic touch for communicating with those squirelly 13 year olds or connecting on a deeper level with the older teens, I didn't get them, I liked the babies. But as we have grown I have to say I rather like the teens. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be the mother of great masses of them...but that was not in the master plan. The necessity for in vitro left the final count at 2. So, I have "adopted" several more. :-) I love them like my own (well almost, I still love my own the most <3). Maybe God knew that I would do well to love, nurture and enjoy them en mass and then still be able to send them home when I get tired :-)

I am thankful every day for my two amazing teens. They never cease to astound me. They are smart and funny, creative and thoughtful, talented and incredible on so many levels. I can't tell them enough times in a day how much I love them.

We hear so often about the teens that cause trouble, have no ambition, put themselves in dangerous situations and make very bad choices. As a society I think this is what we have come to expect of teens. To fear that they are our future. I have to say, that is not representative of the teens I have the pleasure of knowing. The kids that hang at my house are funny and kind. They would do anything for me (they have taken out trash, changed light bulbs, taken down Christmas lights, and pulled weeds just to name a few haha). They are grateful and polite. They don't mind having grownups around and "in their business". They are easy to talk to. They are all awesome teens!! It warms my heart to see them come barrelling towards me at school to say Hi and collect hugs. They don't care about looking cool in front of everyone else and they haven't decided yet that parents have the plague (and most of them are 17 and 18 years old so I'm pretty sure I'm out of the woods on that one).

I feel like someone needs to stick up for the teens. Let those who fear and dread them know that there are some pretty fabulous teens out there. Very few moms want their "babies" to grow up, but I can't wait to see what mine turn in to. To watch them grow into their own person is truly an incredible and humbling experience. Do I do it all right in raising them...oh heck no...I'll put aside money for their therapy, but I'm pretty sure they still like and respect me, and at almost 16 and almost 14 that's saying something. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the "best friend" mom that just lets them do whatever they want so they'll like me. Just ask any of their friends and they'll tell you, I'll let them know what I think haha. I call it like it is and set them straight for sure, but at the end of the day they know I love them.

So this is a shout out to all my teens. You are amazing. You have the world at your feet. I would be proud to have you in charge of our future. Thank you for letting me be your "mom". <3

Hello, hello, hello, is there anybody in there??

2011-04-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am still in cyber land. I do still have a blog. I think about it daily. I know all kinds of profound and/or witty things I would like to write about, but......life gets in the way. I am currently busy with a different project. You can check it out at www.lfmsdi.blogspot.com

Sierra's Destination Imagination team took first place in their State finals and is moving on to the Global Finals where they will compete against 30 other countries...how dang cool is that????

The not so cool part is that it will cost $10,000 for the team to get there so we are fundraising central at the moment. I have been busy trying to put together a Bingo fundraising night and helping Sierra make and decorate 105 cupcakes to sell at a bake sale...yes 105...yes that is a lot...and yes they sold every one of them! (well all but 1)

On top of that, Treg and I still teach our drama class and are putting on two productions in June. I am trying to get all the costumes sewn for that and run rehearsals.

Add to that daily candy sales to raise funds for Globals, church callings, laundry, cooking, a puppy (who almost died from eating snail poison the other day, that is a story I will have to tell one of these days), and keeping up with a high schooler's life....well it leaves little time to be profound and witty.

So, in the meantime, check out the kids' blog and follow their journey to Globals.

And the point is????

2010-12-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason (well actually I know the reason, early morning seminary and the mental energy required for teens are kicking my butt) I am not on top of things this season. Usually my shopping is done by Oct.....I still have no idea what I'm getting the kids (yes, Christmas is in a week and a half). Christmas cards were a no go and several other things have fallen by the wayside...hopefully my friends will still love me anyway :-)

So how do I deal with it? Humor of course...what else...crying is exhausting!

So several months ago I ended up in the emergency room. Treg had had his turn, Maunia had gotten to have an MRI and seen several specialists so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. We hadn't given nearly enough money to Kaiser, figured they could use a few more bucks.

I had taken a new migraine medication and had one of the "serious side effects" that pretty much said "go to the emergency room or death is imminent" :-) (I thought it was really no big deal, the phone nurse was freaking out, the ER doctor said...it's no big deal...I knew it!!!)

So here is the humor in the situation. Treg and I sat in the waiting room fooorrrreeeevvvveeerrrrr. While sitting there I was watching the check in desk. It looked like this.

So it had this lovely security system on the door with a code and all, but as you can see it's a half wall. So people were coming up to it and just reaching over the door and opening it from the other side...that is some awesome security there. If I were behind that desk I would totally feel safe...and rest assured no one can get to your personal information that's back there because there's a security lock on the door ;-) OK, you might not find that quite as funny as we did because you weren't there to watch it but what really made us laugh was when we finally got to the back. This is what we saw...

Full doors on the cabinets with security codes and all. "Sure crazed lunatic, reach over the door in reception and take whatever you want, take the receptionist hostage feel free, but you are NOT stealing our linens!!"

Yep, better security on the linens that at the front desk...Phew, I feel sooooo much better knowing that the linens are secure! Hahaha

A Yankee's guide to New Zealand

2010-11-29T18:20:00.000-08:00

Besides just being unbelievably gorgeous New Zealand was definitely a cultural experience.

Just because they speak English doesn't mean we speak the same language. A Yankee's guide to speaking "English" in New Zealand:

motorway=freeway/highway
carpark=parking lot
tramp=hike
good as gold=you're all set or it's all good
chips=fries (my kids got so sick of fries!! who knew that was possible, but they serve them with everything!)
toilets=bathrooms
toasties=toasted sandwiches (i.e. cheese toasty=toasted cheese sandwich)
lemonade=Sprite (they don't have American lemonade there, the girls thought that quite sad)
spiders=this was one of the most interesting ones. ON the kids dessert menu they had listed "spiders" we tried to venture a guess but came up with nothing. We finally asked what it was and they said "it's ice cream with Coke or lemonade"..so spiders is a root beer float with Coke. I was totally grossed out by the lemonade thing until Treg told me "lemonade" is Sprite
lemonade=Sprite. We only found American lemonade at one place the whole trip
American hot dog= is a hot dog that is like the American style, otherwise it's sausage
bacon= Canadian bacon or ham
streaky bacon=American bacon, this was our favorite name for a food "I'll have streaky bacon please"
salad//rocket=lettuce, like on a sandwich (i.e. do you want salad on your burger)
serviette=napkin
napkin=diaper...don't ask for a napkin with meals, it's really not what you're looking for ;-)
tomato sauce=ketchup, although not really like ketchup, tastes more like tomatoes than sugar, Sierra rather liked it.
have here or take away=is food to stay there or to go
ya or yep=they rarely said yes always ya or yep
mate=friend/co-worker/partner
sweets/lollies=candy
pram=stroller
lift=elevator
crumbed chicken=breaded chicken (it was extremely yummy I might add)
mash=mashed potatoes (as in served with mash or chips)
all in=includes everything (That will be $25 all in)

Sometimes it would take several tries before we could convey what we wanted and often it involved some form of charades.

They served pumpkin steamed as a vegetable and thought it was verrrry odd that we make it into a dessert.

They don't sweeten stuff very much. The first bite my kids took of whipped cream was a shocker to them. The locals looked puzzled when I mentioned that we put sugar and vanilla in ours.

We quickly learned that just because it looks the same or is called the same as in the US does not mean it's the same. Coke and Snickers do not taste like Coke and Snickers.

They don't have anything smaller than $5 bills there so $1 and $2 are coins. It took me forever to pay for things because they had $1, $2, $.50, $.20, $.10 and $.5 coins...that's a lot of different coins.

Hot and cold water faucets are separate there. So you can either freeze your hands or scald them. The family each came up with their own creative way of making "warm" water...some plugged the sink and used it like a wash bowl, some would get a handful of cold and then add hot making warm...some would just run their hands really quickly from one to the other...it was interesting.

The girls wanted to know why everything was "upside down" the light switches turn off opposite of ours etc. and the Te Anau house even had a dryer that was hung upside down. I told them it was because THEY were upside down....we were towards the "bottom" of the world after all...they didn't buy it.

You had to turn on any outlets before you could use them. We would plug things in and wonder why they didn't work until it dawned on us we hadn't turned the outlet on. This applied to everthing...fridges, ovens, washing machines...they turn off all their outlets when not in use.

There is no central heat in most of the homes there. Space heaters just don't quite cut it when it's -1 Celsius. Electric blankets were our friends!!

Driving on the opposite side of the car and road were quite interesting. Treg repeated "left, left, left" about 100 times every time he got in the car to drive.

Day 16 (Aug. 17th) Auckland and our final day in New Zealand (sob, sob)

2010-11-29T18:09:00.000-08:00

Auckland, our final city

The City of Sails

Our final day in New Zealand was spent with Treg's friend Stephanie (who brought the girls a HUGE bag of New Zealand candy just like Paula). She introduced the girls to the $2 stores (which are like our $1 stores) and they found the contents of those stores quite hilarious.

This one was particularly creative. They combined SEVERAL $2 items to create this baby.

This one was our absolute favorite though. "Hit the Pest on Your Mushroom" the must have toy for every child. Sierra found this one so hilarious that she actually bought it for a friend's birthday present and carried it on the plane.
We headed up to one tree hill with Stephanie (it's where we were trying to get last night)

We went for a walk on the beach and found this beauty. The sign above that grate reads "Hey Kids, don't swim or play here this water is polluted"...and the water goes....

Straight across the beach and into the ocean!! That made us laugh... and weep a little.

We visited a vintage bookstore where Sierra found an original copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". It was later changed to "the Sorcerer's Stone"in America. Apparently they thought Americans would get it confused with our definition of Philosopher which apparently then ticked off the Americans who thought it was insulting to their intelligence that we wouldn't know the difference....but it never got changed back in the U.S.

We visited a beautiful botanical garden

Oh my gosh, we so want to grow one of these in our back yard...imagine your own cocoa plant...mmmmmmm

How fern leaves start out...all curled up

We found the way out...you know just in case you were looking for one.

And finally we headed to the airport :-( We were exhausted and ready for our own beds and our own food but at the same time we were ohhhh so sad to be leaving New Zealand.

Sierra found these in the airport. How creepy are they?????

We ate McDonald's in the airport (they actually had amazingly good chicken sandwiches...ones we have yet to find in the U.S.) got on the plane and proceeded to have groundhog day...that is we got to do the day over when we got to the U.S. We went to Treg's brother's for dinner so we wouldn't go to sleep and completely mess up our internal clocks. That worked for everyone but me. Everyone else fell right back into their normal rhythms...it took me about 3 weeks.

Our beautiful girls in their New Zealand lava, lavas

This was an incredible trip. Truly the trip of a lifetime. We did so many things while we were there and yet we only scratched the surface. We love Treg so much and are so thankful he worked so hard to get us there and are so thankful he shared that beautiful place with us. I think if there is an Eden on Earth...New Zealand is it.

**Our favorite quote from the whole trip. There was apparently LOTS of time to think in the car. Maunia out of the blue says "Are sheep flammable?"

After we stopped laughing we said "What?"

"Are sheep flammable? I was just wondering because there is a fire in that field over there" (she had never seen burning leaf piles before) "and there's a bunch of sheep by it so I was wondering if they were going to catch on fire?" LOL that made us laugh really hard

But the joke was on us. A couple of weeks after we got home we were reading scriptures and read Job 1:16 "The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!"

"I KNEW IT" Maunia yells "sheep ARE flammable" Hahahahahahah

New Zealand, Day 15 (Aug. 16th), Keri Keri, Ranbow Falls, Wharepuke Falls, Auckland

2010-11-29T18:08:00.000-08:00

So it was take two on the dolphin cruise. We were really hoping to swim with the dolphins today. Treg decided to stay behind and pack up the car so I headed out with the girls.

Bay of Islands

Maunia watching for dolphins

Yay dolphins!! We got all suited up and ready to swim. Our particular tour will not get in the water unless the dolphins show the initiative and want to swim with you. The dang dolphins acted like they wanted to play then they took off and again we did not get to swim. We were soooo bummed.

When we docked on the island, the girls and I didn't feel like hiking so Maunia took my camera and took bird pictures instead while Sierra and I shared yummy fries and chocolate cake.

This picture cracks me up...that seagull looks so funny.

When we got back on the boat, Sierra and Maunia were feeding the seagulls. They would come take the food right out of your hands. They wanted me to try it. I wasn't there for the speech about how to feed the seagulls. I didn't want my fingers bit off so I grabbed a bigger piece than the girls had been using. Just as the seagull swoops in and takes it the girls yell "no Mom, little pieces, little pieces, he'll choke" at which point the seagull flew off and did not return so they are convinced I killed the seagull.

Ever wondered what the inside of an island looks like? Well this time we got to go through hole in the rock and I snapped a picture. So there you have it folks, the inside of an island.

After we finished the cruise we set off for Auckland. I kept seeing these trees on the side of the road. I love the blossoms on them.

These yellow trees were absolutely breathtaking

I kept seeing these cows. Oreo cows I would call them, so funny looking.

Deceiving...we never saw a kiwi

We saw a big sign like this over the freeway that cracked us up. "Merge like a zip"

We wanted to go to the Waitangi treaty grounds and look around but it cost lots of money...so we decided to skip it. We did grab lunch there though. Maunia didn't like anything at the cafe where we were so we went to a different area to get her something. She decided she wanted a panini. We approach the counter and the guy just ignores us. We stand there a few minutes and he says "did you want something?" awesome people skills this one. We tell him she would like a cheese panini and he rolls his eyes, kind of sighs and goes to make it. In the meantime some other lady comes behind the counter and says "I thought you were leaving" "well, she wanted a sandwich" he says with some annoyance in his voice...Haha, ya we felt loved. When she got her sandwich it was heart shaped...too cute..

Indoor skiing center. Yep, the whole hill is enclosed.

Really cool store front.

There was one more hike Treg wanted to do. The girls and I were so stinkin tired we sort of hemmed and hawed but decided if that's what he wanted to do on his next to last day we would be good sports about it. It was such an incredible hike. One of my favorites I think. It was the Keri Keri River track to Rainbow Falls (sadly we didn't make it all the way to the falls)

Maunia attempting to climb a moss covered tree. Didn't work.

Bromeliads were growing on everything

This little bird was so cute

Wharepuke Falls

The girls found some vines and wanted to try swinging on them. Sierra was concerned that she didn't know "the sound" though. "The sound?" we questioned. "Ya the guy swinging on the vines sound" "Oh Tarzan" Haha

More cool mushrooms :-)...see I told you there were lots of cool mushrooms.

Sierra deciding to give the vines a go.

Waterfall in the forest

We're not sure what this sign means. Just don't do....anything.....just to be safe!

Boredom set in and the girls resorted to making shadow puppets on the seats.

The picture does not do this tree justice. I loved these trees so much I bought a water color painting of one in a local shop.

This is a Kauri tree. It's one of the largest trees in the world. The park where it was located was closing in like 5 minutes so we zoomed in and Treg yells "hurry Maunia, jump out and get a picture!" and we raced back out before we got locked in. She did a pretty good job under the circumstances.

We continued on to Auckland for what would be our last night in New Zealand. Auckland was a beautiful city but it's a big city. It was crowded and hard to drive in.

Treg wanted to go to Mt. Eden. We could see it but we couldn't get to it. When we finally got to it...it was closed. Guess we'll try tomorrow.

We told the girls they could choose where we went for dinner our last night in New Zealand. They chose...Denny's...yes really.

After dinner we went on a driving tour of the mansions in the area, some pretty amazing places.

We got back to the hotel (a high rise in the city) and told the kids we had to take everything out of the car because it all needed to get packed up to go home tomorrow. Sierra made good use of her pockets.

What exactly did she have in those pockets you may ask...well...ALL of this! LOL

Sierra had finally tired of sleeping in beds with her sister and opted to line the couch cushions up on the floor and sleep on them instead. Not the most comfortable of beds but the better alternative I guess. Tomorrow we tour Auckland then head back to the good old US.

New Zealand, Day 14 (Aug. 15) Bay of Islands

2010-11-29T18:07:00.000-08:00

Today was our cruise through the Bay of Islands. Next to Milford Sound I think this is what Treg was looking forward to the most.

The Bay of Islands has over 100 islands in it.

Just a little shack on one of the islands.

I love the little peek hole at the top of this rock

I love this picture

Doesn't look real huh? So amazingly beautiful.

Remember the picture of the "wrinkled" hill? Well this is why it looks that way. The sheep walk on the hillsides and makes these little mounds and from a distance it makes it look wrinkled.
Hole in the rock. It may not look that big but we drove our great big ocean liner through it with tons of room to spare.

We were supposed to swim with the dolphins on this cruise (yes we were going to brave it even though the water was like 20 degrees) but we did not see one single dolphin! They have a guarantee that if you don't see any dolphins you get to go again for free. The girls and I scheduled to go out again tomorrow morning and try out luck again. We realllllly want to swim with dolphins in the wild.

Chickens run wild in New Zealand.

Sierra trying to make friends with the chicken...the chicken was not interested.

Coral on the beach.

The sunset view from our hotel in Paihia

Sunrise view from our room

Sierra rescuing starfish on our beach. She looks highly concerned.

We found many starfish that needed rescuing.

We went to a super yummy barbecue place for dinner. Guess we'll be up bright and early again tomorrow to try the dolphin cruise again.

New Zealand Day 13, (Aug. 14) Warkworth, Whangarei Falls, Haruru Falls, Paihia

2010-11-29T18:06:00.000-08:00

We left Coromandel and headed to Warkworth. We were bound for Sheep World! We chose SheepWorld over the Astrodome because they said at Sheep World you could feed the baby lambs...I really wanted to feed the baby lambs.

Gorgeous red tree we saw along the way

More mushrooms

We crossed the bridge to Auckland. We didn't understand the toll system and ended up having to negotiate with the toll authorities when we got back so we didn't get charged fees.

Our favorite crossing sign so far!!

Sheep World!! Supposedly a few years ago the main sheep guy (he's further down in the post) painted the sheep the colors of the rugby teams that were playing each other. The owner was out of the country at the time. When the owner came back he was so angry and told them they had ruined his sheep!! He demanded they sell the sheep. Almost immediately he started getting calls from people and tour buses asking where the painted sheep had gone. Now they have the bright pink sheep all the time. The sheep guy (I guess I should have asked his name) says he has to paint those dang sheep every 3 weeks!!

This was a cute dog hanging out in the parking lot just waiting for anyone who was willing to throw his stick.

I can't remember this dog's name. He was one of the sheep herder's dogs.
'I think this one was just named dog. He would just lie there all bored looking until he was told he could go get the sheep then look how attentive he is!

Main sheep guy :-)

For whatever reason he took a liking to the Julander girls. I got called up to help sort the sheep. Harder than it looks. I was afraid I was going to squash the poor things in the gate. Their heads were painted different colors and I had to sort them by color.

These are his sheep shearing shoes. If you drop that sharp tool on them, you don't lose a toe.

Shearing the sheep

Then he got Sierra up on stage to help shear her.

He "pulled the wool over her eyes" (literally laid wool over her eyes) and she didn't move a muscle

The alpacas were very wet and from the look on Maunia's face, very slimy.

I don't even know what this thing is. Talk about the ugly duckling, it looked like a cross between a duck and a turkey vulture.

Feeding the baby lambs

I got to feed the calf with the giant bottle.

The lamb thought my umbrella looked tasty

This is a very confused sheep...he thinks he's a cow

This bunny was so cute. He would stand on his hind legs and beg for food.

I mentioned the guy liked us, he's just walking past and shouts back at the Julander girls "well are you coming to help me feed the emus or not?" ummmmm.....OK. They were kind of violent little things.

He ate 1/2 my fork
A New Zealand possum. Their tails are much superior to US possums I must say.

They put their rocks in cages by the side of the road...haha...I have no idea why

Whangari Falls. They were pretty ugly since it had just rained. All the falls were muddy.

Haruru Falls. Also muddy.

We drove to Paihia to stay for the night. The place we stayed had an absolutely beautiful waterfront view. The owner was highly cranky though. We tried to go down and get towels so we could use the hot tub but the office closed at like 7:30 and they refused to answer the phone or come to the door.

Treg and I went for a walk on the beach. I found a giant starfish that I rescued and threw back in the ocean.

For dinner Sierra and I were in search of crumb chicken. We found a little place downtown that was serving it. Maunia ordered pasta plain with butter and salt...again the blank stare from the waitress..."nothing on it? nothing at all? hmmm..." and walks away. She was laughing when she brought it out and stopped by while we were eating to ask how her weird pasta was haha.

New Zealand Day 12 (Aug. 13), Coromandel Peninsula

2010-11-29T18:05:00.000-08:00

We stayed the night with Treg's friend Paula and her son Davis. She spoiled the girls with LOTS of sweets. Toffee Pops made the top of their list for favorite New Zealand foods. (if you can really count cookies as a food)

The girls had a great time with Davis and loooooved his car. Maunia especially because purple is her favorite color.

We were headed to the Coromandel Peninsula for the day. We really did luck out as far as weather goes on our trip. For going in the middle of winter in New Zealand, we really experienced very little rain. Unfortunately, today was one of the 2 verrrrry rainy days. The greenery was absolutely beautiful to look at though. I was enjoying the ride (I love the rain) when Treg tells me he would like to ride with and chat with Paula would I mind driving the car myself. Gulp!!! I had driven a little in NZ but it wasn't my favorite thing to do, but I'm a good sport so I said sure. Holy cow, I'm surprised my knuckles didn't fall off by the end of the drive. It was really rainy and the roads were sooooo narrow, as in holy cow, I hope I don't cross over that 1 extra inch of space I have and fall off that cliff kind of narrow. Add to that driving on the wrong side of the car and wrong side of the street and it made for a fun ride. Paula took us the "scenic" route and the 2-3 hour trip took like 5-9 haha.

We stopped along the way and visited some little shops. I got some fun local artwork and the girls got some crafty things.

When we got to our destination, we dropped off our suitcases and piled in one car to go exploring a bit. We're driving along and Paula just very calmly says "Treg, you're going to want to turn right here" "Right here??" Treg asked perplexed (it was not anywhere near where we were headed) "Yes, right here" Paula says calmly. After Treg turned onto the side road, Paula again calmly says "We didn't really need to turn here but you were driving on the wrong side of the road and there was a car coming straight for you, I didn't want to scream and startle you" We all laughed pretty hard at that...and she was so calm about the whole thing!

There is a hike in Coromandel, called Cathedral Cove, that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful hikes in all of New Zealand. It's a 2 1/2 hour hike and we had to skip it because of the rain. Treg was pretty bummed about that. There was a slight break in the weather so we decided to hit "hot water beach" and just walk along the beach before the rain started up again.

Hot water beach is known for it's natural hot springs. If you dig down in the sand, hot water will surface and make you a nice hot tub. There was no way these Californians were stripping down to swimsuits and digging a hole. As far as we were concerned it was freezing and we were staying bundled!! The girls did attempt to dig a hole but all they had was a stick and they gave up pretty quickly.

Maunia found this stick and for whatever reason decided to trail it behind her for the whole length of the beach.

Maunia (still dragging the stick), Treg and Paula

I love this picture of Sierra. She just looks so happy running down the beach :-)

The rocks on the beach were really cool.

If you were successful in digging your hole, this was your reward. Your own personal hot tub. People were there in bikinis, kids were in there naked...seriously it was like 10 degrees Celsius!!!
Sierra's last addition to the beach as we were leaving, yes it was a happy day!

Paula had gotten us this beautiful waterfront home with huge windows and a spectacular view. I don't have any pictures because it was raining so hard when we got there my camera would have gotten trashed. We hunkered down for the night (with toffee pops) and played card games. It was fun to sit and chat and play. The weather that night was insane. It was blowing so hard I couldn't sleep. I was seriously worried the big picture windows were going shatter. Coromandel was a beautiful place. Tomorrow we head to Warkworth.

New Zealand, Day 11 (Aug. 12) Rotorua, Wai-O-Tapu, Te Puia, Jonas, Paula

2010-11-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

This is my one of my very favorite pictures I took on the trip. I don't know why, I just think it's cool!

Today we continued on with the geothermal areas. We drove to Rotorua. There are some really cool geothermal pictures further down in this post. If the cultural center pictures don't enthrall you scroll down and at least look at the geothermal ones, the colors are things I did not know even existed in nature.

Much of our driving was like this, through tree lined streets.

The scenery was always so interesting. We would go from flat pastures to rolling hills, to big hills. It was constantly changing.

We passed through this town where all the store fronts and signs were made from sheet metal.

Treg thinks I am so weird but these are some of my other favorite pictures. The dew covered spider webs just fascinated me for some reason.

Treg realllllly wanted hangi while we were in New Zealand. Hangi is traditional pork and vegetables cooked in the ground. We had emailed and called around while we were still in the states to find a place that had hangi. We finally found a place called Te-Puia that assured us they had hangi lunch. It was expensive to get into (about $150 for the family) but Treg was willing to pay the price for hangi. We get there right at lunch time, his mouth watering. We pay the admission and go straight to the cafe where they inform us "no we don't have hangi" I thought Treg was going to strangle someone! He was so ticked. And to add insult to injury there was a group sitting next to us eating...you guessed it hangi. He wanted to leave but we decided to stay and see what other cool things Te-Puia had to offer. It was worth the stay.

We sort of got the wrong entrance (we parked in a really far away parking lot, the guy sitting in the lot apparently did not feel the need to tell us there was a closer parking lot) but it was OK because we got to go through this cool tunnel. The girls were attempting to hold their breath the whole way through while giving each other piggy back rides...what goofy children I have.

Totem poles at the entrance

Sierra in the pretend village

Sierra messing with the spirits (are you noticing a serious absence of Maunia in pictures...that's what happens when you take a 14 year old girl on vacation...not big on the photographs)

The carving center. They start with these giant pieces of wood.

The men start in on it with these big chisels
and somehow create these beautiful masterpieces

The women in the weaving centers start with the reeds and use a special tool to cut them into strips

They then pass them on to this woman who rolls them on her knees
and ultimately they turn into these kits

We found so many beautiful gifts in this place. The workmanship is amazing.

The girls were pretty impressed that their dad could pronounce this word

Here are the geothermal pictures...Incredible colors!!!

The devil's bath

Mud and moss waterfall
Moss covered mud

Exploding mud

This one is getting ready to explode into a ...

mushroom

Lady Knox geiser. Shoots 70 ft. into the air (this is how Treg got us out of bed this morning...it only goes off once a day. None of the Julander girls had ever seen a geiser so we were motivated.)

I was so fascinated by the moss and fungus in the geothermal areas!!

More mushrooms

The girls thought it was pretty funny that the bathroom doors say "engaged" when someone was using it.

We tried to go to the blue and green lakes (you can stand on a hill and get a picture of both lakes with the different colors) but it was cloudy so they both looked the same...no picture.

We drove to Hamilton and met Treg's friend Paula at the temple and she took the girls to do baptisms. What a cool experience that was for them to go to the New Zealand temple. Funny thing though. We have a new counselor in our bishopric and he issued them their recommends. We got them the night before we left and didn't even look at them, just packed them and left. He accidentally put them both as boys and said Sierra held the priesthood...boy this church is getting progressive...haha. We had to send them in with their passports so Paula could prove to the temple workers that they were who they said they were.
Treg and I headed off to meet his friend Jonas while the girls were at the temple. Treg realized he had not confirmed an address with Jonas and was hoping the one he had was correct...it wasn't. This truck pulls up, an arm appears out the window and motions for us to follow, so we start following. At one point I told Treg "gee, I really hope that is Jonas and not some crazy person leading us to a dark alley" Luckily it was Jonas. Wshen we didn't show up for dinner he realized what had happened and was smart enough to come track us down. Turns out though that there is a famous All Blacks (rugby) player who lives in his old house...guess we should have gotten an autograph :-)

Treg was still ticked about the hangi lunch but Jonas must have been inspired because for dinner he made...you guessed it...HANGI!! Treg was in heaven!!!

The girls joined us after the temple and tried some of the hangi. Sierra not such a big fan...Maunia loved it, especially the taro which I think is just plain nasty but which Treg loves. It's a root, that tastes like the blandest, driest potato you've ever had. It's the stuff poi is made out of...blech. There was some pretty funny dinner conversation. They served pumpkin steamed as a vegetable. My girls were like "you eat pumpkin as a vegetable?" Jonas' kids were all "well how do you eat pumpkin?" My kids "as a dessert in pie and stuff" Jonas' kids "that is sooo weird". Haha That led us into a discussion about jello...dessert in NZ...main course here. Whipping cream is unsweetened there...:"You put sugar in it in the US? Weird"

In the course of the conversation I mentioned how much I like Samoan cocoa and how hard it is to find in the US and also very expensive. For those of you not familiar with Samoan cocoa, it is pure cocoa beans roasted, smashed and formed into a brick. You then grate the brick into water, boil it, add your body weight in sugar and die in dark chocolate heaven. Jonas' wife says "I don't buy it but let me make a phone call and see what I can find". She comes back and says "my friend says they have it on sale at the market right now for $.50 a brick" What?? Treg was all over that. He went and brought every last brick they had...12 to be exact. Our suitcases were much heavier when we left and smelled fabulous.

After Treg and Jonas got back from the store we broke out the American candy. They have some of the same kinds there but it doesn't taste the same. Kaleb thought it was pretty yummy. He just kept popping mini candy bars in his mouth and saying "mmmmmm, buttery". Then Kaleb and Eden played songs on the guitar and sang to us. Then we were treated to the whole Hapuku family singing us a song they had written. What a wonderful night.

Hapuku family

Davis was taking the picture and made us laugh by doing his best "strike a pose, vogue" voice and rapidly snapping pictures.
Davis, Kaleb, Sierra, Eden and Maunia

The kids doing their best haka face...ya, the white kids pretty much stink at it.

Davis and Paula

Paula had bought the kids every cookie and candy known to New Zealand for the girls to try...they like New Zealand cookies :-)

We went back to Paula's house to spend the night.

New Zealand, Day 10 (Aug. 11), Lake Taupo, tongariro, Huka Falls, Orakei Korako

2010-11-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

I must have sufficiently whined last night about being beyond exhaustion because Treg let us "sleep in" this morning. We didn't get up until 8. Now just for the record, 8 isn't normally sleeping in in my book but for this trip that was heavenly!! He also sacrificed seeing much of Tongariro by letting us sleep in but we sure appreciated it and were a much happier bunch because of it.

On the drive to Tongariro we came across this funny little hill just in the middle of nowhere.

This is Tongariro. Unfortunately when we got there is was all clouded in. Those are 3 volcanoes in a row hidden in the clouds.
It was a bit cold when we got there...like cold enough for snow cold.

We decided to go and have lunch in this little cafe. It was the BEST food we had the whole trip. Treg had a Mediterranean pizza with lamb, pine nuts and pesto that was to die for!!
The girls couldn't quite figure out what this was so they finally asked the waitress. It was a sweet potato of some sort.

It had cleared a bit by the time we left so here is a picture of those volcanoes out of the clouds

Anyone know what this is...anyone....any Lord of the Rings fans?? It's...dun dun dun....MT. DOOM!!...

We set off for our first geothermal area. They stink to high heaven but they are sooooo cool to look at. Now begins the posts with a billion pictures because I was so fascinated by these areas and couldn't narrow it down to just a couple of pictures.

We took a boat out to Orakei Korako. We asked the guy what time he was coming back "when you're done" he said. "How will you know when we're done?" "I'll just know" he said...OK then.

The steam made the whole island look like it was on fire. It was a bit tricky to get pictures since my lens was freezing cold and the warmth from the geothermal areas kept fogging it up.

Elephant Rock. Can you see the elephant?

The minerals that collect on the tree branches.

Cool fern/moss stuff
There were all these little cubbies in the rocks that were full of ferns and spider webs

More mushrooms

This is not actually water. It's a silica fall

Huka Falls had the most gorgeous blue water I have ever seen. The sun was going down when we got there so it was really difficult to get a picture but it is this clear aqua blue color.

Sunset on the trees

We stayed in a hotel in Taupo. Because it's a geothermal area they had these hot tubs on the deck of each room. The hot water comes straight out of the ground. You just turn on the tap and fill it up. The girls thought that was pretty awesome.

In almost all of the hotels/motels they give you milk when you check in. This one did not and Maunia was craving "drinking chocolate". The kind we bought had to be made with milk. In the absence of milk she decided to use coffee creamer (are you gagging like we did) we tried to tell her it was going to be nasty but she was determined. She took one sip...and...well ya....nasty!

The girls were so fascinated by the signs in New Zealand. They liked these two showing your car sliding to a horrid death and people falling in a large puddle and suffering major bodily harm. Apparently water is very dangerous in New Zealand.

New Zealand Day 9, (Aug. 10) Picton, Wellington, Wanganui

2010-11-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

We were off to catch the ferry to Wellington. I had a weird mental block with the whole ferry thing. Every time I would look at the chart I would say "ok, so we're going Wellington to Picton right?" and Treg would patiently say "no, Jenny Picton to Wellington" so you would think that he would clue in that perhaps I should not be in charge of the ferry schedule. I suggested we get tickets online ahead of time but he assured me it wouldn't be that crowded (ferry mistake #1) then I looked at the schedule and told him the departure time (ferry mistake #2). We had all stopped outside of the harbor to go to the bathroom and were taking our sweet time when I decide to look at the schedule again. CRAP!! I told him the wrong time. We all scramble into the car and dash to the harbor only to find out that it is completely booked. They were nice enough to put us on standby and let us get into the line. Now missing the ferry is a big deal. It takes 3 hours so if you miss it, it's a long wait until one comes back AND we had friends of his meeting us on the other side and we had no cell phones while in NZ and therefore no way to contact them. Much finger crossing and praying then occurred. At the last minute they put us in with the trains (well the car itself, they didn't make us stay with the trains)

Driving down the train tracks to put the car on the ferry, yep it's a little disconcerting driving on train tracks...

The scenery was beautiful but the water was pretty choppy that day and it was freeeeezzzing cold out! Many on the boat got sea sick, including my poor miss Maunia. She was verrrry green around the gills. :-(

Karewa took us to see his family's Marae. It's a sacred building where they celebrate customs and each family's marae is unique.

The design of each beam has a symbolic meaning

If you look closely you can see the hand in the side of this carving. Karewa said it meant something like "keep your family safe in your hands"...something to that affect. It was all about keeping family safe and protected when they may be away from home.

I like the little lizard on this one.

Karewa also took us to his family's burial ground. It was really neat to see, but I didn't really feel like it was appropriate to photograph.

Parliament

Downtown Wellington. It was a pretty city but we had been out in the middle of nowhere for 8 days and it felt so crowded to me to come back to the city.

Wellington airport. See that one strip of road...yep, the really short one...you better hope your pilot knows what he's doing.

Wellington

Rugby stadium

Karewa's kids met up with us at the marae and they said since it was so nice and warm out (it was 12 degrees...12!...and they weren't joking, they really thought it was warm) they decided to grab fish and chips and have a picnic. The food was fabulous and the company was great :-)
As the sun set we said goodbye to Karewa and his family and headed for Wanganui
I can't remember the name of these falls...but they're pretty :-)
This is the fountain outside of our hotel in Wanganui
We tried to vary the hotel experience as much as we could and find fun places to stay as much as possible. Tonight's lodging was built in 1926. It was a really cool old hotel.

Love the decor in the "kitchen"...that's OK, it worked for making "drinking chocolate" Drinking chocolate kind of became a nightly staple for us.

The girls thought this was pretty funny. The button had gotten turned sort of diagonal. They thought it would be really cool if the elevator really went diagonal...it would be very Willy Wonka-ish

There were 4 beds smashed in this little hotel room and the bathroom was big enough for...mice...but it was a cool experience just the same.

Just some randomness from the day. Sierra and I liked these hills that looked like they had wrinkles.
They use a lot of coins in NZ. We were perpetually confused on money. $1 is a coin and then you have $.20 cent coins and a bunch of others and I'm not sure we ever really did get it straight.
The girls thought this was really cool toilet paper with the New Zealand ferns on it.

Sleep deprived and exhausted (literally exhausted) we collapsed into bed. Tomorrow we tackle the geothermal areas.

New Zealand, Day 8, (Aug. 9), Nelson, Abel Tasman

2010-11-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

Why yes, yes the thermometer on the car does say 1 degree Celsius!! Brrrrr!! Today we are headed to Abel Tasman and we are sooooo hoping it warms up a bit! Us California girls are freezing!

We passed these funny little orchards. They are apple orchards and the trees are straight up and down sticks crammed in these tiny little rows, so different from our big sprawling orchards back home.

We were driving along and we see this seal crossing sign...Ok then.

Well guess what, the seals actually were crossing the road and they were everywhere. We pulled over to watch them play in the surf.

We arrived in Abel Tasman "a little late in the day" we were politely told...really, it's like 11 am...seriously that's late?? But it didn't really matter as it turns out Abel Tasman is kind of a Summer thing. There was not a whole lot to do. Hmmmm. We decided to book a water taxi so we could as least see some of the coast line and inquired about any caves that might be around. We finally concluded that at this "late" hour we could do the split apple rock hike.

This was a really cool old house we saw on the way.

Split Apple Rock hike

This sand was really neat looking. There was this black vein of sand running through the tan.

And it led into this cave

One of my "artsy" photos as Treg called it.

They have the coolest mushrooms growing in New Zealand! This red one is one Sierra photographed.

Sierra venturing into the cave

Sierra found a silver fern. It's New Zealand's symbol. It's green on one side and silver on the other side.

We're not sure what this is. We ventured a few guesses. A raft? Some sort of swing?

After the hike, we headed back to the bay to wait for the water taxi. We were sitting in the car eating lunch , enjoying the view, and noticing how little water there was. Boats were stranded on dry land and we were a bit perplexed by it.

All of the sudden we see this tractor heading for the water. He just kept on driving and we couldn't figure out what the heck he was doing, there wasn't any land out there. We watched him as we ate, quite curious as to where he was going..
Then we see a boat start coming in...
He had gone out to pick up the water taxi that couldn't come ashore at low tide.
They told us the tide changes 3 meters a day...in case you're not good with measurements....that's A LOT!! You can see the water line along the rocks, yep all that fills up twice a day.
Waiting for our turn on the taxi. Maunia was having a sullen teenager day (it happens) but she still looked pretty in this silhouette.

Cool rainbow halo around the sun
We took the water taxi along the coast. We saw lots of seals. I love seals. After awhile the girls were like "yep those are seals" and I was still going "Oh look, COOL, seals!" haha

I love this sleeping one.

These caves were really cool.
OK, to give you an idea as to how much the tide changes in a day...at high tide you can take a kayak through the split in that rock, clear up at it's widest point...that by the way is "split apple rock"
The water was this gorgeous green color. That is one thing that amazed me on this trip is all the different water colors.

So we got there late and it was basically closed but the couple of things we did get to do were pretty amazing. The hike was beautiful and the taxi up the coast was great too.

We headed back to our cute little cottage in Nelson and had our "American" (well as American as we could muster anyway) dinner. We had tarts filled with those disgusting strawberries and we found Nutella. Yay Nutella!! so the Nutella tarts were pretty dang yummy! Tomorrow we take the ferry to Wellington.

New Zealand Day 7 (Aug. 8) Kaikoura and Nelson

2010-11-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

After a good night's sleep and some much needed decompressing at the All Blacks' game, we were refreshed and ready to start anew.

We were headed to Kaikoura to go on an Albatross tour. The torrential rain started early morning and did not let up all day. The pastures looked like lakes.

Interesting rock "art" at this little gas station we stopped at (and when I say little, I mean there was one pump on the side of the street so ya, little)

Check out these pastures. Those are not lakes or ponds.

We kept passing these fences on the drive with shoes tied to them. Later in the trip we inquired as to why the shoes were hanging there but no one really seems to know. There are theories that they are picked up off the road by the farmers, or people do it just for decoration with their old shoes but it still remains a mystery.

When we finally got to Kaikoura we found that the tour had been cancelled...due to rain! Treg was really bummed since the Albatross tour was one he really wanted to do until he found out it would have cost us about $300 then he was good with it being cancelled :-)

We decided to grab some lunch (always an interesting experience) and then just drive on to Nelson and relax.

The main house

After our Christchurch house experience we were a bit nervous about the house rental thing but the house in Nelson was awesome. It ended up being our favorite place. It was this darling little cottage by a creek front. The couple running it (actually the son of the owners, the owners were away on "holiday") were soooo nice and accommodating. I had a funny chat with the husband. I told him Treg used to live in Auckland "well, we won't hold that against him" he said. He then went on to say he used to live in Texas "well, we won't hold that against you" I said...haha.

The cottage we stayed in behind the main house

Beautiful parkway that ran along the front of the house

The little creek in front of the house

We decided to go out to eat and we went to this sort of barbecue/western place. They had the beeeeeesssstttt hot homemade bread!! The girls were in heaven. They had these quesadillas with all these veggies and different meats in them and no cheese. We asked if they could make a quesadilla with just cheese in it. They looked at us like we were crazy (we got that a lot), asked the manager, and finally decided that yes they could manage to put cheese in a tortilla and melt it :-).

Having heart failure from the cost of eating out Treg decided we should grocery shop...not much better. How do people afford to live in NZ? Seriously! We tried to find as many "American" type foods as we could for dinner the next night. We ended up with mixed veggies, roasted chicken, rolls, and tarts. The girls were quite happy.

Canned strawberries that we got to make tarts with...FYI canned strawberries are NASTY!!

I LOVED these crackers!! They became a staple on the trip.
We had to do laundry which was always an experience since dryers are few and far between in NZ and it was the middle of winter. The girls snuggled in with some "drinking chocolate" (hot chocolate) and zoned out watching TV, while we did laundry, hanging clothes all over the kitchen, and just chilled. It was a nice break.

New Zealand, Day 6 (Aug. 7), Christchurch

2010-11-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

I think most long vacations have a point when things fall apart, for us last night and today were those days...

It started yesterday with Treg really not feeling well, more bad news about the cost of a new camera lens, followed by the mouse poop house, which led to the unexpected cost of the hotel in Christchurch and Maunia had an issue come up, which led to a total meltdown on her part...sigh...

Treg and I got up (I say got up, not like we were really sleeping... there had been much coughing and restlesness going on for many days and I was in the same bed...so ya) fairly early and decided he needed to head to a doctor...Christchurch was becoming a very expensive city for us :-( So we spent a couple of hours in the doctor's office and pharmacy for meds to treat Treg's respiratory infection, the girls stayed back at the hotel and enjoyed some much craved for sleeping in.

We did some research and tracked down a camera shop that had a used lens at a somewhat affordable price YAY!! (did I mention Christchurch was an EXPENSIVE city for us) Yes, I did get a new auto focus lens...I was a happy girl.

Unfortunately, Treg discovered there a serious lack of good medicine in NZ. Unlike here, where you have a zillion options, there is like 1 option there...and it's not a very good one, so he was just resigned to being miserable until the antibiotics did their job.

We abandoned hope of doing much sightseeing in Christchurch. Late afternoon we decided to go the the Antarctic Center. Overall I have to say we thought this one was a waste of money. It was expensive for what it was. It had a couple of fun things though.

There was an arctic storm room which drops the temperature and blows gale force winds as if you were in an arctic storm...brrrrr!

The other cool thing was the Hagglund ride. It's this awesome machine that they use to get around in Antarctica. This thing can go through deep water, up very steep inclines, go sideways along hill sides, and cross over ditches....it was an awesome machine!! They also informed us that there are 3 months when you cannot get into or out of Antarctica...you better hope you don't come down with anything life threatening or you're just out of luck!

We also saw blue penguins which are supposed to be all over the place in the wild in NZ but we never saw them anywhere except in captivity in the Arctic center.

Having fun on the ice slide...fun...but a little cold on the fanny

Standing on melted polar ice from both poles

The signs in New Zealand cracked us up.

A rainbow lorakeet

After the Antarctic center we headed to downtown Christchurch. It was craaaaazzzzzyyyy. It was game day for the All Blacks v. Australia in rugby....a HUGE deal!! Rallies all over the place and every store had a banner or balloon display or window display rooting on the All Blacks! The funniest one was a show going on in the town square. It was these Chinese guys chanting for the All Blacks with their thick Chinese accents while waving huge flags...it was quite amusing.

Maunia was so glad she found a flappy hat :-) (and she was verrrry happy she had it to keep her ears warm during the game)

The Chinese performers

Sierra in a lovely Kiwi bird hat

Huge chess set on the town square

We bundled up and headed to the game. Our tickets specifically said "no camera or recording equipment at this venue" so we didn't take any... LIARS!! You could totally have cameras and camcorders...I was so ticked. We have no pictures of this incredible experience. Seeing everyone dressed in their black was so cool and the haka was AWESOME!!!! We had changed our original dates for travel in NZ specifically so we could see the All Blacks game...it's something Treg has always wanted to do. We had bought tickets in the "take a kid to footy day" section :-) We were probably 13 rows off the field with an awesome view and since it was more of a family friendly section so we were spared much of the drunken partying.

Here is a video of the haka, it's almost better than the game. I love how the white boys try to look even tougher than the big Samoans haha.

Sierra was cracking me up. She had heard that if you yelled "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" that Australians would yell back "oy, oy, oy". So all night she had this running debate. "Should I yell it mom? I don't see many Aussies around" (true, we were definitely surrounded by Kiwis NOT Aussies). "I don't want to tick anyone off". I didn't realize anyone else was listening until the lady in front of us finally turned around and said "just yell it sweetie, someone will yell back, heck I'll yell back for you", which embarassed Sierra so she really wasn't going to yell it now! On the way out of the stadium (the All Blacks won by the way...of course) she was still lamenting that she had not been able to yell it when these...ummm, slightly tipsy guys behind us said "what does she want us to yell? Aussie, Aussie, Aussie?" I said "no she wants you to yell the other part" so I said "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" and they yelled "OY, OY, OY" mission accomplished haha.

It turned out to be an awesome day in the end. Fun game and Maunia found a "flappy" hat (which she looks adorable in), and it can only go up from here!

A humorous break

2010-10-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

I am trying to trudge forward with my New Zealand posts but the photos are giving me grief and my brain needs a break!!

I figured I would share a couple of humorous stories instead :-)

Our family dog passed away last Dec....it was quite sad...the girls have been on a mission to get another dog...Treg has dug in his heels and is not giving on this one...he's an emphatic NO!

So, I'm cleaning out the kitchen cupboard last week and I came across the dogs heart worm and flea medicines:

Me: "Hey honey, should I hang on to this medicine...you know just in case we get another dog, it's expensive"
Treg: "No, you can get rid of it...there will not be any more dogs"
Me: "You sure?? It's pretty expensive so you know just in case"
Treg: "You used to complain about how much work the dog was"
Me: "Well, I complain that the kids are too much work sometimes too but you don't get rid of them" (that was a good one right...I'm thinking I've got this one!)
Treg: "yes, but we're not getting any more are we..."

Dang, I had to hand it to him, that was an awesome comeback haha.

We are putting a pond in our backyard. We needed a bunch of sand so we headed off to Home Depot. When Treg had his accident he messed up pretty much everything on his right side. He used his left arm for everything and as a result has totally messed up his left side. He's now in physical therapy for his left arm. He can't really lift anything at the moment.

So he is standing in Home Depot pointing to the bags of sand telling me which ones to pull down. I'm hefting 50 lb. bags of sand...700 lbs. worth. We didn't really think anything of it because this is normal life for us right now, we know why he can't do stuff. One of the employees comes over to us as I'm putting the last bag on the cart. He had this sort of concerned look on his face. "Ma'am, can I help you with something?" he says. "Oh ya! If you could help me load these in my car that would be awesome! My husband hurt his arm in an accident and can't help me." The guy starts laughing and says "oh, that explains a lot...I was wondering why he was just standing there watching you lift all those bags" HaHa...wonder how long he stood there thinking my husband was a jerk and I was a subservient ;-) and trying to decide if he should intervene or not LOL

Day 5 (Aug. 6) Mt. Cook, Lake Pukaki, Lake Tekapo, Christchurch

2010-10-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

It was soooooo cold the morning we left Twizel. There was frost all over the ground as we were loading the car.

Car windows covered in ice

We headed for Lake Pukaki and beautiful views of Mt. Cook. Lake Pukaki is so cool. It's this milky green color. It is glacier fed so the milky look comes from the minerals and rocks that are washed into the lake by melting glaciers.

It did not warm up by the time we got to Mt. Cook. It was -4 Celcius. The girls were bundled to the max and not too keen on hiking but hike we did. We hiked to the glaciers and boy was it worth the hike.

The glaciers at the top of the hike

The hike warmed us all up and we had awesome views of Mt. Cook.

Some lady, who knew how to use a manual focus camera, agreed to take our picture. "Wow, you really messed up your camera" she said...gee thanks for pointing that out...she also made Treg take off his glasses, doesn't look like him, he always has glasses on...

There was this water that was coming out of the ground and freezing because it was so stinking cold :-) It made this really cool ice rainbow

From Mt. Cook we started on our way to Christchurch. We stopped at Lake Tekapo and grabbed some lunch. Treg got a meat pie. He loves them...I wasn't crazy about them. Sierra had her first cheese toasty (one of many, many on the trip) which is New Zealandese for toasted cheese sandwich.

Lake Tekapo...the water colors are just incredible!

We continued on our way to Christchurch. We arrived at Willowbank and took in a Maori show and toured the reserve.

The wild eels eating at the preserve..creeped out Treg and the kids haha

They would drop this pink stuff on the rock and the eels would come swarming

The reserve was cool because they had actual Kiwi birds. You aren't allowed to photograph them (well you can photograph the dead stuffed one) because they are nocturnal animals. They are the coolest little birds!! They are so fun to watch as they wobble around.

check out how big that egg is inside the kiwi...holy cow!!

Stuffed Kiwi...the live ones are less creepy haha

The girls enjoyed the Maori show. Sierra got to go up and try poi balls (actually the cute boy in the show that got to pick one girl to go up on stage picked my miss cutie pie teenage girl Maunia but she was being shy and handed them off to her sister). After Sierra's stint on stage Treg got to go up and do a huka...he sticks his tongue out and looks menacing a little too well. They both stood right behind a post on the stage so it was hard to photograph them. I tried to get Treg to move but he had a cold and was not feeling the love for giving me photo ops. Did you know it is also nearly impossible to manually focus your camera when it's really dark...not that I'm still bitter about breaking my camera or anything...

I so cannot do that with my eyes...believe me I tried...I think it's a Maori blood thing haha

Ok, Treg can totally do this!!! Maybe he has some Maori blood??

Sierra learning poi balls...apparently harder than it looks...

Oh ya, Treg was born to do the huka ;-)

haha...any of you remember doing this stick thing in like 4th or 5th grade PE??? If you went to North Ogden Elementary you should remember it.

We got done with the show semi-late and decided to get some good old American comfort food...Pizza Hut Pizza :-) We then set off to find the rental house for the night. As we were driving looking for this place we were getting a little nervous...yes even in beautiful New Zealand there are apparently "bad" parts of town...who knew??? We finally find this house tucked way back behind some bushes and went in to eat dinner. We were not loving the house but were trying to suck it up until Treg went to get a glass out of the cupboard and there was mouse poop on the counter and across the top of the toaster..."we're not staying here" he declared...the rest of us did not take much convincing.

Now here was the kicker to the house not working out that night. This was the one city I had booked a place like 6 months ahead because it was the city where the All Blacks were playing Australia the next day. I knew lodging was going to be tough to find...I was right.

We had seen many signs like this

along the roads as we were traveling. Who doesn't need big bags of sheep poo right?? Well, when looking for a hotel, in that same gross part of town, we passed a motel with a sign out front that said "rotted horse poo, $.50 per bag" Now I'm not sure how one "rots" poo but it certainly does drop the cost...but Sierra asked that we please not stay at that motel...smart kid.

We went to the main part of the town and all we were seeing was "NO vacancy"...we finally found a hotel with 1 room that slept 3. I begged them to find a roll away and we made it work. We were also at their mercy as far as the cost for the room since they knew everywhere else was booked. We ended up paying about triple what we had planned for lodging in Christchurch grrrrrr...

Small Town

2010-09-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've lived in a small town...a really, really long time.

I grew up in a fairly small town and went to college in a pretty small town, but then I relocated to big city life.

We lived on the outskirts of Washington D.C. for 7 years. Oh how I loved D.C. From there we went to the OC.

On our travels this summer I was in many small towns and found myself wondering if I could go back to small town life. As my father-in-law puts it "Jenny, you seek out chaos". In some ways I suppose he is right. I'm a little too good at the relaxing thing...like couch potato good...so I do better when I have 1000 things going on and can keep busy. I love to be involved.

So I now find myself nestled in the middle of chain grocery stores, fast food restaurants and Super centers ,such as Target, and life is what life is. It's convenient and fast paced.

As I was grocery shopping this morning...at a large chain store...I had an experience that made me stop and reflect for a moment.

You see we have this little toy store next to the grocery store. Toys R Us it isn't, but it's quaint, a little more specialized and carries just enough of the latest trends to be competitive. The man that runs the store is named Josh. Josh is a short little man with a beaming personality. A couple of years ago when the economy was tanking and Josh happened to get sick at the same time, there was some worry that the little toy store was going to close and the community rallied and saved the store. There were some who thought it was foolish "it's the nature of business, they come and they go, and if you can't make it too bad" was their opinion. I didn't really have an opinion one way or the other on the little toy store.

Well as I mentioned I was at the grocery store today and Josh came in. The man checking me out was the first to greet Josh. "Hey Josh, I have your money" he said. "Oh, no problem, whenever" replied Josh. The checker turns to me and says "I got some squishies for my daughter yesterday, they're the in thing right now, and still need to get him the money". Hmmm, a business owner still willing to work on trust and credit...who knew they still existed. It was taking a realllllllly long time for them to bag up the groceries for me and as I was waiting I watched Josh. 10 different people came through the door and every one of them knew Josh. I'm sure Josh came in because he had shopping to do, but he was more than happy to stay put and let people chat with him. He greeted each with his beaming smile, knew most by name and some even got hugs. Several stopped to talk to him about the little toy store.

It was then that I realized there may be something to small town life. A time when you knew the people running the businesses. People who greeted you by name and cared about your life. People who genuinely care about how your day is going instead of just asking to be polite. I remember going to the little candy store across the street from my elementary school and buying the penny candy, the store was small and you certainly couldn't do major shopping there but they were friendly and sincere. I remember being sad when it was converted into a day care center. I remember going to the local gas station that only had 2 pumps and no convenience store and having to wait for what seemed like forever while my dad caught the owner up on what was happening in his life. I remember the local dairy, when we would pile all the neighborhood kids in the Suburban (seat belts, what are seat belts?) and head down for ice cream on a warm summer night. I remember the drive in restaurant when you always knew whose birthday it was, who had returned from a mission, and who was getting married because it was proudly displayed on the marquee. Kings was my favorite store because it was just so random all the time, it was a like a treasure hunt, and you knew everyone in the Cherry Days parade. I also remember going home years later and being sad that one by one most of those places fell pray to being eaten up by bigger and "better" establishments.

I concluded that our society is sadly lacking Joshes. It warmed my heart to see him interact with those people today, it made me miss some of that small townness where the pace is slow and the people care. I think Josh has it right.

So, could I go back to small town life? I don't know that I could but I did realize that I miss the connection people feel with each other. I miss the personalized caring. Maybe the answer is to carve that out in my own life, to take a more genuine interest in people. Gee, if we could all do just keep a little "small town" in our hearts and actions wouldn't the world be a nicer place to be.

Day 4 (Aug. 5) Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula

2010-09-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today was the day we would find out if Jonathon was truly magical...would he be the camera whisperer?? According to his web page he was supposed to open at 8:30 so we packed up and headed out. We arrived...in the rain...at Jonathon's shop. Jonathon had decided that 9 was a better time to open and had hand written it on the sign....time is a very relative thing in NZ. We stopped across the street to get some "drinking chocolate" while we waited. Jonathon finally opened aaaannnnnddddd....no he was not magical :-( plus he said a new lens would cost $1200, ya Treg wasn't buying into that one). "Put it on manual focus and work with it the best you can" was the consensus between Treg and Jonathon...I was not a happy camper.
We tromped off in the rain to visit Larnach Castle.

Larnach Castle is a castle that was empty and rundown when the Barker family found it in 1967. The wife was totally enchanted and had always wanted to live in a castle so they began restoring it. The workmanship is breathtaking. The floors and walls were beautiful wood creations. Sadly, no pictures were allowed in the castle. There was a marble bathtub on the top floor that was in the original Vatican and weighs one ton (wouldn't want to be the one to move that up there!) Builders and materials were brought in from all over the world to contribute to this beautiful castle.

I loved the charm of the castle on the misty, rainy day we were there.

From the castle we headed to the top of the peninsula, to the Taiaroa Head, to what would become one of our favorite places on the trip. We went to a place called Natures Wonders. It's a preserve but none of the animals are caged in, the animals just know it's a safe haven for them. We put on big green coats and headed out in an 8 wheeled ATV through the mud. That ATV was a machine! Treg sat up front with the tour guide and marvelled as we climbed hills. The girls and I were in back and watching as we sloshed through huge mud puddles and were just waiting to get drenched.

The sheep roam freely (I guess that's a given...it is New Zealand, sheep outnumber people at a rate of about 15:1)

The sheep rub against the bushes and their wool comes off on the bushes so it looks like it has snowed.

We got to see spotted shag building their nests in the rocks.

Our favorite part though was the baby fur seals. Because it was rainy they had all come into the harbor. There are normally about 3 of them, there was about 30 the day we were there. The guide said if we just acted like we didn't see them and didn't approach them directly, they would come up near us out of curiosity. We got within 1-2 feet of them. They were about 6-7 months old...so cute!

There is this kelp we kept running across that was crazy. It grows 2-3 feet every 24 hours. This stuff is HUGE!

We headed back down the hill and came across this cool house all covered in branches.

We stopped for lunch and Maunia ordered a hamburger plain with just cheese. The waitress looked very perplexed (we perplexed lots of waitresses on this vacation). "You don't want tomato sauce" (ketchup)..."nope"..."salad" (lettuce)..."nope"...the waitress then goes "ooooook" shook her head and left laughing. When she brought her the hamburger she was still laughing and when she checked back and asked "soooo, how's that hamburger???" we all laughed.

Next stop was Oamaru to see the Moeraki Boulders. These were so dang cool. No one really knows where they came from. There are Maori stories and some attempts at scientific explanations but they just appeared on the beach. As the sand has eroded the boulders have just appeared. It's pretty cool to have this flat beach and then just these huge round boulders. They are quite awesome.

There was this cute dog that followed us down to the beach from the visitor's center. Havoc was his name. It was cute. He would sit down to rest when we would stop to look at the boulders and then the girls would start moving and say "come on Havoc" and he would trot along with us...until he found someone with food then he was done with us :-)

I love this picture and I'm bummed it's all out of focus...stupid broken camera lens :-(

Maunia looking cute in the visitor's center

Given the rain that day we decided to forgo any hiking and skip more beaches so we headed to Twizel for the night.

ummmm...teeth by side of the road...okay

We stayed at MacKenzie Country Inn. Such a nice lady working the desk there. She upgraded us to a room with a queen and two twins instead of two queens so our girls wouldn't have to sleep together (which the girls hate). We set out to find food and found stuff the girls would eat for dinner. We got them bland food and decided to take them back to the hotel to eat it while Treg and I went down to the hotel restaurant for good food :-) We all had fabulous forms of chocolate for dessert and the sun set on another beautiful day in New Zealand.

Gone Fishing

2010-09-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sierra and I have gone fishing....literally.

New Zealand blogging will resume next week...when we've showered...and don't smell like fish...and aren't exhausted.

But for now we sure are having fun being dirty and smelly in Bishop!

Day 3, (Aug. 4)-Catlins and Dunedin

2010-08-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

We ordered in continental breakfast this morning. The toast came with Vegemite and you know as they say "when in Rome" so I figured I'd give it a try. I put some on my finger and took one little lick (that's all the bravery I could muster, just the smell of the stuff is enough to kill you). OH MY GOSH...who in the world invented this stuff and who in their right mind can eat an entire sandwich of it???? NASTY, NASTY, NASTY!!!

We checked out of the hotel in Invercargill. Getting the car packed each day was a major chore it barely fit everything so we had to unpack and repack the car every single day. This was.made worse by the fact that the Julander girls are not good morning people and 6:30 am is early for us...as my poor morning husband can attest to. My brain was not quite functioning. I left the backpack with the camera, video recorder and all things electronic in the lobby...luckily we realized it before we left...but it was an omen of things to come that day.

We started bright and early...an unfortunate theme on this vacation

The sun is so pretty peeking through the mist in the mornings

We drove through the Catlins. I'll save you having to read "it was a beautiful" drive on every post. Just know that EVERY drive was a beautiful drive!

On our drive through the Catlins we stopped to take a short hike to a lighthouse. To our surprise we came across a wild seal on the top of a hill. He was taking a nap in the sun. The girls got within about 2 feet of him. They wanted to touch him but we wouldn't let them...do seals bite??...I don't know...didn't want to find out. He would just look at us every now and again then go back to sleep. Sierra named him Fred and was very concerned that he was out of the water. She wanted to roll him back in or call animal control...do they have animal control in New Zealand??? Needless to say we would not let her roll him back to the water. (she also proposed putting him on top of all of our rolling suitcases and taking him back to the water, that plan was also nixed)

The girls sooooo wanted to pet him, they managed to inch a bit closer than this but we wouldn't let them pet him

"Fred" wondering why we're disturbing his nap

He was probably 8 or 9 feet long and loving the sun

We decided to walk down to the beach to see if there were more seals. There was indeed another seal and a VERY large sea lion. (I don't really know if he was a sea lion he just looked different from the seal so I'm going to call him one, all of my knowledgeable friends...don't feel the need to correct me, if I really cared I would look it up) He was not as hospitable as the seal and made it very clear we were not welcome on his beach. The girls named him Bill, Bill the bodyguard. I was trying to take a picture of him and he would bark at me and start charging for me...who knew something with flippers could move so fast. We concluded the smaller seal was his beloved and he was protecting her and decided to let him have the beach to himself.

"Bill the bodyguard" barking at me, letting me know who's beach this really is...NOT mine

Look how smug he looks after barking at me

His little cutie he was protecting

The lighthouse was built in 1884. There had been a boat crash, of the SS Tararua, on the reef that had killed 131 people.

At the next beach we drove to Sierra, "hawkeye" she should be nicknamed, saw a rare yellow eyed penguin. He waddled away fast. She and Treg went in search of him. Maunia only had on slippery bottomed Keds so we stayed behind and took a nap on the rocks...until the tide started coming in. Apparently while pursuing the penguin Treg slipped on the rocks and came down hard. Luckily he was not injured too bad...I swear that boy is determined to give me heart failure.

This particular beach used to be a forest so the beach was covered with petrified wood.

Petrified wood

We hiked up (I guess technically it was down but it was all up hill) to the farthest Southern point of New Zealand

Treg and Sierra hiking the hill to the Southern point. Sierra slipped in the mud and we're not sure what else, it was a sheep pasture after all, and had quite a wet muddy bum for the rest of the day.

Southern most point of the South Island of New Zealand

I don't know if I have mentioned the cost of food in New Zealand...EXPENSIVE!! A hot dog and fries costs about $15. Treg was in shock after the first few meals and vowed that we were going grocery shopping and making our own food...unfortunately the grocery store wasn't much cheaper. Anyway, we had brought along peanut butter (which the girls declared tasted oddly like peanuts..as opposed to sugary American kind I suppose) and Nutella. We made sandwiches in the car...well sort of it was so cold that the Nutella was frozen so we had peanut butter and lumps of Nutella sandwiches...interesting :-)

We drove to another beach to see sea lions (hopefully friendlier ones) but it was a bust...no sea lions at home that day. On we went in search of yellow eyed penguins.

The yellow eyed penguins are very rare. There are only about 1600 left in the world. We scored on this one. They were just coming in for the night. We watched them from the blind for awhile. What quirky little birds penguins are. They always look like they will fall over at any minute. It was really cool to be able to watch them so close (maybe 50-100 yards away).

Yellow eyed penguins...sweet!!

It was starting to get dark but we decided to go up to one more beach and lighthouse. I was in a hurry getting out of the car...remember that omen I told you of earlier...I dropped my camera...yes you may gasp and weep now as I did!! I'll give you a moment...waaaahhhhh. I totally messed up my lens...on day 3 of a 17 day trip...in New Zealand...are you still crying??? I was. It wouldn't auto focus and I had to manually pull out the lens if I wanted to zoom on anything...no bueno!!!

with the broken lens...sob...sob

funny little car the girls saw along the way

We decided to stop in Balclutha and see if anyone could fix my poor camera. The 2 camera stores we stopped in looked at me like I was nuts but all said "Jonathon in Dunedin" could work wonders, try him. So with fingers crossed we got takeaway food and hit the road. It was funny the takeaway place was Chinese people in New Zealand trying to understand Americans...ummmm...ya. Sierra declared their chicken nuggets hazardous to her health and one of the most disgusting things she had ever tasted.

We drove to Dunedin and checked in to our hotel. The man running the hotel was so funny. He was this tiny little man that was very quirky, he was cracking us up. We told him our name and he flips open this old fashioned registration book all written in pencil, that took up the entire desk top. He was so friendly and sweet and would do anything to accommodate you. We go up to our room and the girls LOVED it. It was this A framed room that looked like a chalet and to get to their beds you had to climb a ladder to the loft.

OK, so about the toilets in New Zealand. I am a college educated adult, you would think I could figure out how to work a dang toilet...nope. They have more than one button and it's supposed to be 1/2 flush and full flush but I could never seem to get it to flush at all or enough...sheesh

We tried to do some laundry this night. Dryers are few and far between but the ones that do exist are the tiniest things ever! It seriously took like 2+ hours to dry our jeans in the one they had at the hotel...ongoing theme for the trip.

This place also had a private spa room you could schedule so Treg and Maunia headed off to the hot tub and had some nice father/daughter chat time. It was a good evening.

Day 1+

2010-08-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

I forgot that on day 1 after we drove up to Te Anau from Queenstown we had dinner at a nice little restaurant on the waterfront. Sierra loved that place because I got "breads and spreads" for dinner and there were 4 different kinds of bread...she likes bread :-) One of the items I looked at on the menu was served with "rocket" we had no idea what that was. I finally asked and apparently it's lettuce...just in case you need that for future reference.

After dinner we headed to the dock for a cruise to the glow worm caves. That was a supremely awesome place and held out as Maunia's favorite until we hit Sheep World up North. I don't have any pictures because you're not allowed to photograph the little guys. Apparently someone was allowed to photograph them though because I did find a couple of pictures on the internet. They are these tiny little worms. They spin these big, long, sticky threads and they glow, they're so cool. So we hiked through this cave and then got in a boat with all the lights off to observe the glow worms.

Yes the worms really do glow that blue color.

We were so tired after the tour (don't even know how many hours we had been up at this point...19 hour time difference, plane rides, 2 1/2 hour drive in the car) that we all crashed on the cruise back from the cave and woke up as we pulled into the dock.

We headed back to the house and all I can say is thank goodness for electric blankets. No central heating in the houses and it is cold!!

Day 2 in NZ (Aug.3)- Mirror Lake, Lake Marion, Milford Sound

2010-08-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

Blogger is not my friend right now!! They have changed their picture formatting and it is seriously screwing me up!! I will try and get things in chronological order and the way I want them but it is taking me forever and making me in a seriously bad mood...grrrr!! Having to work in HTML so I can put text where I want it and move around pictures is NOT putting me in my happy place!!...OK sorry, back to my happy place in NZ :-)

I took over 2000 pictures in NZ. I will spare you having to look at them all. I will try and narrow it down but I'm finding it difficult...I soooo want you all to experience this heavenly place...but I do realize you are probably not interested in 2000 photos no matter how good of friends we are.

We were up at 6:30am (girls were soooo happy about that!!) We started the drive down to cruise Milford Sound. Along the way we stopped at some beautiful sights. At Mirror Lake we walked the wooden board walk.

Mountains at Mirror Lake. These mountains have a beautiful reflection in Mirror Lake but there was not good spot to get a picture of that.

From there we headed to Lake Marion Falls

Lake Marion Falls

Lake Marion Falls hike

Moss covered rocks at Lake Marion

Sierra in a moss covered tree at Lake Marion

Treg and Jenny at Marion Falls

Treg and the girls at Marion Falls

The next place we stopped was a place called The Chasm. It's this beautiful jet black rock that has been all carved out by the waterfalls. Stunning to look at...hard to capture in photos. We had to do the speed hike through here because we were running late for the Milford Sound Cruise (mom spent too much time photographing Lake Marion...it was just so incredibly gorgeous in the forest there)

The Chasm

An ice formation we came upon as we were driving to Milford Sound

Closeup of the ice formation

I think cruising the Fjords in Milford Sound was my favorite part of the trip. It was freezing...so cold in fact that the video camera froze up and refused to work...which was kind of amusing because it froze "on" so we have some awesome video of Treg's pocket as he tried to warm it up :-) I snuggled up with my sweetie and just marveled that he had taken us to such an incredibly beautiful part of the world.

Double waterfall in Milford Sound

Jenny and Sierra Milford Sound

Beautiful Green hillsides in Milford Sound

Milford Sound

Milford Sound heading out to the Tasman Sea

Milford Sound

Mitre Peak in Milford Sound

Milford Sound

Large waterfall in Milford Sound. Sierra and I were brave enough to stand under it when the boat went by it.

In the waterfall at Milford Sound

We drove to Invercargill that night and stopped for some dinner along the way. They had the BEST crumb chicken and beer battered chips that were soooo yummy. "Spiders was on the dessert menu for the kids....ummmmm....oooooookkkkk. We finally inquired as to what spiders might be. Vanilla ice cream in Coke...gross...or lemonade...grosser (until Treg explained to us that lemonade was Sprite) Weird name for it...we skipped the spiders

The sky was so stunning that we pulled off on a side road and just marveled at it. I have never seen the Milky Way so prominent. It was great for the girls to see the stars without all the light pollution.

Stayed in a funky hotel in Invercargill. Living Space it was called. It was a high rise. We go in and it's like dorm rooms. Two separate rooms with a desk, closet and bed smashed...literally...in between. The shower had no door on it so the whole bathroom got wet when you took a shower...weird. The girls loved the common areas, they were all polka dot and bright and very cool.

The dorm room hotel

See the bed smashed in there :-)

Our little kitchen

Our awesome toaster. Those bars flipped up so you could warm muffins.

The toilets were an ongoing issue for me in NZ. I could never figure out how to work the dang things. Luckily this one only had one big button but you would push it then when you thought it had flushed enough you would push it back down.

The shower with no door...or curtain...made no sense!

The awesome, funky lounge

We're baaaaaack :-)

2010-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh, New Zealand!! I cannot even begin to describe the beauty that is New Zealand. You must go :-) We had such an amazing trip with so many incredible experiences. Truly the trip of a lifetime. I know most of you are expecting to see the beautiful green hills...ya, me too but it is winter there after all. When planning the trip Treg asked me "do you want to see penguins or glaciers?" I replied "why aren't the penguins on the glaciers?" My reply should have been "what the crap...why is it even cold enough there to have penguins and glaciers???"

Actually it was still beautiful and green. It's like the whole country is done in technicolor. There were shades of greens, yellows, pinks and oranges I didn't even know existed in nature. To say my photography abilities were sadly inadequate to capture this amazing place is a huge understatement.

I'll try and go day by day of the trip. The landscape was different each place we went. The accommodations interesting at times. We visited approximately 25 different cities, stayed in 13 different houses/hotels, and drove over 3000 miles in 17 days.

So here begins our amazing New Zealand adventure.

July 31st (in the US)
We left the US around 9:30 pm and flew to Auckland...a 13 hour flight. Sleep was scarce and in flight movies plentiful.

Arrived in Auckland on Aug. 2nd (In NZ) around 5:30 am. We skipped over Sunday entirely. Yes, we have been to the future...it is not underwater, we did not see your great, great, great granddaughter but we can tell you it was COLD!

We had a layover so we went to exchange some money and go through customs. Customs took much longer than we thought so then time was getting short to catch our connector down to Queenstown. We get to the counter and they tell us it's too tight so go directly to the gate in a different terminal. We missed the shuttle so we decided to walk which turned into a full out RUN with all our luggage, in the rain for 10 minutes...nice. After a comedy of errors and more airport security we made it to the flight 15 minutes before take off...phew!

Another 2 hour flight and we arrived in Queenstown around 9:30am ready for adventure....and we continued to wait...for 1 1/2 hours. The rental car company we had arranged with was supposed to pick us up at the airport...and didn't. Couldn't get ahold of anyone at the office either. We finally got ahold of a different branch that tracked down the manager on his cell. Turns out the guy that was supposed to be running the office for the day had been in a serious accident the night before and nobody told the manager. He eventually came to pick us up and we got the rental car. Barely fit all our luggage in and started the adventure of driving on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road.

The girls waiting for the rental car

The footwear I arrived in...
I am a California girl after all

What it looked like outside in Queenstown
Not exactly flip flop weather

It was a cloudy day in Queenstown so we opted to skip the gondola and head out for some lunch. Eating in a foreign country is interesting with two kids in tow. Orange cheddar cheese does not exist there so that cuts out about 3/4 of what Sierra likes. She got a "hot dog" which is really sausage...she is not a fan of the sausage...and Maunia tracked down a cheeseburger with some unknown type of cheese. I had a lamb burger with feta and plum sauce...not too bad.

We walked around the little shops in the town and then hit the road for our first night's stay in Te Anau.

Sierra hugging a realllly ugly kiwi. Maunia refused to touch it...
it creeped her out.

The Remarkables in Queenstown

The lake in Queenstown. We saw lots of rainbows since it was always misty/rainy

The kids were just a bit jet lagged.
They crashed hard in the car on the drive to Te Anau
Our first house we rented in Te Anau.
It was old but it was a cute little house.

The drive to Te Anau...gorgeous

Growing Pains

2010-08-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, had one of those unfortunate milestone moments with my kiddo today. Friends that had made plans with her ditched her today because they wanted to watch a movie I didn't want her to watch...then came the suggestion "just come over to my house to watch it, your mom will never find out"...

Bless her heart she came to me and told me and was so sad about both of those situations. (she had also read my page that I use to figure out why movies are rated what they are and had decided on her own she didn't think it was an appropriate movie).

Sadly, she is hitting those years when friends are going to make different choices than she would like to make. I'm proud of her for sticking up for her values, being honest with me and making the best of a disappointing day.

New Zealand here we come!

2010-07-31T16:12:00.000-07:00

Last night I told my family that this New Zealand trip was kind of like a hallway in a horror movie...they looked at me like I was slightly whacked...can't really argue with them...anyway, you know how in horror movies people run down the hallway and never get anywhere, it just keeps stretching on and on and then finally...BAM! they're at the end, that's how I feel about this trip. We have been planning it for so long and it always seemed so far away and now here it is!!! We leave for the airport in 1 hour :-)

We are leaving the sun of California and 70-80 degree temperatures for the mist and 20 degree temperatures of New Zealand. (as a matter of fact it will be snowing in Queenstown when we arrive) We are leaving crowds of people for crowds of sheep. We are leaving rushed time for island time.

The bags are packed, if it's not in there by now too bad. The ipods and kindle are loaded, sleeping pills are on hand and we're all set for the 16 hours of flying. The kids are excited and perplexed about skipping over Sunday entirely, yep, it just disappears...it's kind of like a time machine and we're headed to the future.

We have so much planned for this trip. We will be driving from almost the southern tip of the south island to almost the northern tip of the north island. I think that's about 2000 miles of driving. There is so much to see, that it just seems like 17 days is not nearly enough.

We are staying in 13 different places over 16 nights...are you tired yet? LOL

We have some fun excursions planned. Glow Worm caves, albatross watching, cruising Milford Sound, a Maori show, swimming with the dolphins (yes in the 45 degree water), Sheepworld, An ATV tour that includes penguins, Night viewing of Kiwi birds and so much more. We will be getting up at the crack of dawn every day to get everything in before it gets dark around 5 pm. The kids are thrilled about that...NOT...we told them it's OK it will feel like 10 am to their body clocks (ya sure, but that's our story and we're sticking to it).

So, we're off to our adventure. It's been 25 years in the making for Treg. No computer access on the road but I'm sure there will be many, many, many, many pictures to post when we get back :-)

Life happens

2010-07-26T01:22:00.000-07:00

It's late...I should be sleeping...heaven knows I need the sleep. However, the blogging pull is strong. The last few weeks I have wanted to blog so badly. It's a great outlet for me. It helps me find the humor in life and perhaps express some creativity, but as the title states...life happens...and that hasn't left much time for blogging.

Here's a rundown of what the summer has held thus far. Hopefully I will get around to adding in some details and pictures...next month :-)

*School got out on June 23rd...yes you read that right, June 23rd...our kids go insanely late into the summer months. We get quite stir crazy towards the end. Since it was Maunia's last year there was much socializing to be done. There were parties, the 8th grade dance, year book signings, Wild Rivers, Academy Awards and much much more.

*During all of the school craziness I was still nursing Treg back to health. He came home and was pretty much able to do...nothing, seriously feeding himself was a chore and about all he could handle in a day. I felt like our whole life got sucked into a black hole for a while. All we could do was trudge forward and hope for the light at the end of the tunnel. Exhaustion doesn't even begin to describe the depth of tiredness. But we made it through and he is doing well.

*Tried to keep my head above water with our drama program. As they say "the show must go on" and it did. We managed to pull the end of the year show together and the kids did an amazing job!! They performed for their parents and then we hosted a 4 hour dinner/swim party. I took Treg home after an hour, helped him take off his socks and tucked him in then went back to watch the kids party on...they are such a funny group of kids!

*Trying to keep some normalcy in the girls' lives I said "of course you can still invite 40 people over for the end of the year orchestra party that I said you could have before your dad's accident". We borrowed the neighbors' pool and then came here for pool/ping pong/Rock Band and a barbecue.

*Off we went to shop for girls' camp, then sent the girls to camp for 4 days...I truly have no idea what I did for 4 days...I think I was comatose. It was our anniversary while they were gone...21 years <3 we made it through dinner and then had to get Treg back home.

*Maunia came home from camp with a killer migraine (she had been having issues with headaches and her eye during the last week of school as well and called me from camp with a migraine)...off to the doctor we went.

*The doctor with Maunia has become a weekly standard. Treated for pink eye, no luck, treated for allergies, no luck, went in for an MRI, blood work, neurologist, optometrist, opthamologist...the eye is swollen no one knows why...have been doing steroid drops 4 times a day for a month now...we both hate it. Went through bad reactions to some migraine medicines but seem to finally be on the right track with the headaches. We go to the doctor weekly and are still trying to find some answers to the eye issue.

*Two days after camp all OC Fair entries were due

*Maunia started golf camp...which was interesting since she was still having head issues and was seeing hills in the ground that weren't there and bubbles in front of her eye...makes for a more interesting game I suppose.

*cello lessons

*Golf lessons for Maunia...in San Clemente...1/2 and hour each way

*My niece's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese...who doesn't love Chuck E Cheese!

*Made invites for quarterly womens' dinner at church...BBQ an Kickball...should be fun. Also half in charge of that event.

*Craziness days with friends for Sierra (I figure she's too old to call them play dates...besides craziness is so much more fitting at this age)

*Eclipse with Maunia and friends...actually liked that one...hated the first two.

*Sierra and I went on a bioluminescance boat tour to see all the critters that glow in the water at night...amazingly cool. We saw a school/covey/gaggle a squiddle??? of baby squid. They were about 2 inches long.

*Grandma and Grandpa Bird came to town...my mom did all my laundry for 2 weeks. I love my mom :-) She also put up with my overwhelmed supreme crankiness!!

*Had my own reaction to a migraine medication that ended me up in the emergency room...can't let Treg and Maunia have all the fun right??? I have forbidden Sierra to even think about having anything serious wrong with her before we go to New Zealand.

*Went to my cousin Paul's military retirement and got to tour the brig (yes that is military jail)

*Went to my grandma's 80th birthday party.

*Spent yet another night at Outdoor World shopping for rain gear and hiking boots.

*Put insane amounts of time into trying to figure out New Zealand stuff. Some interesting NZ facts. 1. They don't do hotel rooms for 4 people...really...OK there are a couple but not many. 2. They do their dates different, they put the day and then the month so if you are trying to tell the airlines your daughter's birthday they think she was born in July until you realize you are being American and then figure out to change the numbers around. 3. People are ridiculously nice and willing to help you with things even though they don't know you. 4. They speak in Celsius, which again causes confusion if you are thinking like an American...like if you want to swim with the dolphins and they tell you the water is 15 degrees which freaks you out until you realize it's Celsius and then you figure out that's really like 45 degrees...gee that's much warmer right???? 5. Their seasons are opposite ours. It's very difficult to find parkas and thermal under in CA in July...let me rephrase that...it's IMPOSSIBLE...so you have to beg borrow and steal to avoid hypothermia when you arrive in New Zealand. 6. The sun sets at 5 PM in the winter...hmmmm, that seriously hampers touristy things. 7. There is a 19 hour time difference so getting up at 5 am to take advantage of the daylight hours will be no big deal because it will feel like afternoon to us...at least that's what we're telling the kids :-) 8. They drive on the opposite side of the car and the opposite side of the road which doesn't worry me in the slightest...holy crap who am I kidding...it's FREAKING me out!!!

*Girls needed an annual charity project to do. Decided to put together game kits for kids at the hospital, my house looks like a craft store threw up...what else is new???

*Swim dates with out of town friends

*Dinners with out of town friends

*Birthday parties...was EVERY friend Maunia has born in June/July????

*Went to the OC Fair to see how the girls did. They did awesome. Best of Show, First places and a couple of second places. I will do a separate post about that when we get back.

*Realized we only had 2 weeks until we leave for NZ so spent all my spare time getting ready...ya right...I drove with the girls to Northern CA for a week to see my grandma.

*Treg decided to take advantage of the college student up the street who couldn't find a summer job and put him to work in the yard, which required me to come up with a plan for the yard. I found a pond liner that was normally $130 on sale for $24 so I had to put in a pond right???? Trying to decide what to do with the yard in addition to everything else is almost shorting out my brain completely.

*Decided there was no way on earth I had time to deal with the peaches so am now giving them away to friends...it makes them happy ;-)

*Came home with my grandmother's doll house...Treg was thrilled...he really wasn't...it's huge...add find a table to hold it to the list of things to do. The girls are anxious to get it all put back together...they're going to have to be patient.

*Realized we only have 1 week until we leave for NZ and had a mild panic attack...so much to be done still!!!

Sheesh, as I am running down that list and realizing the girls have only been out of school for a month. I'm seeing how insane life has been. No wonder I'm tired. You would think I would have lost 20 lbs. but nooooo....stress has the opposite effect on me...what the heck???

It's all good. They're all worthwhile and fun activities and good memories...if I survive LOL

Dang Nature

2010-06-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

Nature and I are not getting along at the moment...grrr! I've had a little too much up close time with critters the last couple of months. My life if a real life version of Over the Hedge.

Let's start with the ROUSs...you Princess Bride fans know what I'm talkin' 'bout. If you have ever wondered if Rodents of Unusual size really exist the answer is YES!!! in my backyard!!! Seriously last month we were catching rats that were the size of kittens...no kidding...kittens, and we were catching them every night. Thankfully that was before Treg's accident and he could bend down to get them and get rid of them...they freaked me out!

From there we moved on to the rattlesnake that graced us with it's presence earlier this week. Usually we let the neighbor come and get those and take them away to their happy snake place far away from my house but he was gone this time so I got the lovely honor of chopping it in 1/2...ewwwww!!...because it's better him than me I say and I could totally see he was eyeing me ;-)

Next up is the snail invasion...ya, slimy...yuck

Bring on the crows...to eat the apples of course...why else would we plant an apple tree, except to feed the crows...duh

Turkey vultures anyone...OK, in their defense they came to eat the ROUS that I threw behind the wall in the bushes.

Ahhh, cute little bunnies...that are killing all of my grass and leaving lovely little surprises for me to find with my bare feet...so thoughtful.

From there we go to squirrels. We started noticing that our peaches were being strewn about the driveway...cue the squirrels. They LOVE my peaches...and my grapes...and my bird feeder. We thought there was 1 or 2...oh no we have a whole little squirrel community going in the hedge on the other side of our fence. Sneaky little devils and supernatural powers as well.

Do you remember when we had the super rats a couple of years ago...there was the one that got caught in not 1 but 2 large sticky traps, somehow dragged them to the fence, squeezed under the fence ripping off all it's fur and escaped!!!...ya, the squirrels are like that. Tonight I set a snap trap and I saw that a squirrel was caught in it but I was headed out the door for dinner so I figured I would deal with it when I got home. Treg and I arrive home and go to get the squirrel and he's...GONE, TRAP AND ALL. Where the heck did he go??? Did he climb the fence with the trap and escape, did his squirrel buddies help him over the fence, does he have an ROUS accomplice...I don't know but it's freaking me out!...see supernatural powers.

Treg wanted me to go out in the hot tub. I was sure the squirrels were lying in wait, plotting their revenge.

I turned on the patio light for something and there on the patio were entrails from who knows what...what the heck??? I'm pretty sure the Godfather squirrel left them...you know like the horse head...as a warning not to mess with the squirrels...I'm sleeping with one eye open.

Now I know we live next to the wilderness. But they have that whole protected wilderness area to roam free in do they really have to use my yard as their own personal Hometown Buffet?

Sigh...I'm afraid to see what pops up next, Harry Potter spiders anyone?

Life Changes Fast!!!

2010-06-08T09:15:00.001-07:00

I know many of you have been asking for the story of what happened with my dear hubby. It's a little difficult to fit it into the 420 character status updates on FB so I will now recount the events for you here :-) It's kind of long so read what interests you :-)

The story of Treg's excellent adventure:

Sat. June 5th

Treg headed off for a mountain bike ride around 7 am...I snoozed on :-) Around 9 I was wondering what I was going to do for the day and putting together a list of errands when someone called for Treg. Glancing at the clock I said "hmm, he's on a bike ride but he's usually home by now, should be home any minute"...little did I know...

About 9:30 I got a call from Tyson, Treg's friend, boss and riding buddy. "Jenny" he said "It's Tyson. Treg took a little spill on his bike and wants you to take him to the urgent care. I'll come over and you can follow me to the trail". At this point I'm thinking he's hurt but no big deal. Sierra had already left for a Bat Mitzvah and Maunia was just getting up, she opted to come with me...she is her daddy's girl for sure and was quite concerned that he was injured.

By 10 we were at the trail head as Treg came down the path. He was walking pretty slowly but moving and talking. "I think I cracked a couple of ribs" he said "probably need x-rays". Off to the urgent care we went.

When we got to urgent care I put him in a wheelchair and took him in to register him. While I had my back turned to him the receptionist helping me gets this really alarmed look on her face and says "why didn't you take him to the ER?" What???? His eye was cut up but no biggie, not bad enough for stitches...then I turned around and realized why she was alarmed. I guess the shock had set in because he had suddenly turned gray and was about to pass out.

They called 2 nurses to come down and rush him upstairs. They took his blood pressure and it was 77 over 43...now I guess any of you who know what that means now understand why they were alarmed...I was clueless. (just a note his blood pressure since he's been in the hospital has been somewhere between 97-110 over 70 something) They get him as stable as they can, the doctor scolds me for not going to the emergency room (let me just say here in my defense that there were 3 other adults on that trail with him and NONE of us thought he was that bad off and needed to go to the emergency room, he didn't look that bad when I picked him up), and he proceeds to call the hospital. We have Kaiser, and Kaiser's hospital does not do trauma so they then called 911 and had an ambulance dispatched to transport him to trauma at Mission hospital.

About 8 paramedics/fireman showed up. That freaked Maunia out :-( Maunia got to ride in the ambulance with him...with a hot paramedic driver (she did not point this out I did, but she smiled and did not disagree :-) They rush him to Mission and whisk him away to trauma. By the time I got there in the car they were already in back and I did not see him for another 2 1/2 hours.

They performed CAT scans and back and chest x-rays. Final tally was 18 fractures, punctured lung and a concussion. He has fractured ribs #2-11 on the right, 2 ribs on the left, 5 or 6 vertebrae and the bones that stick out like wings from the vertebrae. Now in case you are doing the math...like my logical little miss Sierra did...there were multiple fractures on some of those so that's why there were 18 fractures. They said he wins for most fractures for the week...hmmm, if we win do you think they'll give me the hospital stay for free???

He was transferred to ICU because they were concerned about his collapsed lung and the hole getting bigger and the fact that he had soooo many fractures. I'm trying to remember more details from that date but to be honest it's all a blur. Maunia and I stayed at the hospital until about 9 or 9:30 then, in exhaustion, called it a day and left Treg to his drug induced sleep.

Sunday June 6,

Treg was pretty much hating life :-( Can't move at all since it causes excruciating pain. They did get him up out of bed and into a chair. He broke out in a full body sweat, almost puked and decided moving was crap!! Went back to bed and passed out.

Finally got the story of what happened. They were riding a trail that he has ridden before but they came at it from a different direction. Apparently there is an unavoidable "jump" in the trail. If you come at it the way he's used to, it's kind of up hill and it slows your speed a little and it's not too steep. Unfortunately this time they came from the other direction, you don't see it coming up, you're going downhill and gaining speed and it's much steeper from this direction. By the time he saw the other two guys hit the jump it was too late to do anything and he hit it going too fast. He was also using his old bike that day. He had gone to get his new bike that morning but the valve stem was broken off and he didn't have a replacement tube. This was a problem because the suspension on the old bike is really bad so there was really nothing to absorb the shock when he landed. No one is quite sure exactly what happened because they were in front of him but they heard him scream and then hit the ground...hard...very hard!! The best we can figure he went over the handle bars and landed on his right side. He also landed hard enough to crack his helmet and he has a pretty nasty scrape all across the top of his right eye.

OK, here's my favorite (NOT) part of the story. He lays there for 10 or 15 minutes while they're trying to figure out what to do and they finally get him up and he WALKS..yes walks, 1 1/2 freaking miles down the trail. Took him about an hour...gotta love adrenaline man! I must have looked sufficiently horrified when the guys told me this because they said "Jenny, we didn't know what else to do, there was no way to get a vehicle onto the trail and really no other way out" again...no one knew how severe his injuries were.

Sunday around 12 they tell him that he is stable enough to move and Kaiser wants him back at their hospital. Around 4 the ambulance shows up and Mission tells him they're not ready...go away. Around 5:30 they tell me it's too late to transfer him and he's going to stay in Mission another night. Kaiser ambulance shows up again and they tell them to go away! They decide to transfer him out of ICU. Some young kid shows up to transfer him to a different bed so they can move him. He was in a hurry and not gentle...grrrrr. They had to roll Treg to get him on the back board. The kid insisted on rolling him on to his right side, which is where the most broken stuff is, which made Treg scream and the kid was close to needing a hospital bed himself at my hands!!

Get Treg to the other room around 7:30 and the Kaiser ambulance shows up....seriously...are you kidding me???? The nurse on the new floor says "I don't see any reason why he can't go tonight so they're going to take him". I said "It's the last 5 minutes of the Lakers game, he's not going anywhere until this game is over" :-) They agreed to that compromise and the EMTs stood by his bedside twiddling they're thumbs through the last few minutes of the game...which as you any of you who watch basketball know, 5 minutes is soooooo not 5 minutes in the 4th quarter of the game. Treg finally gave up on the Lakers in the last 30 seconds (I think he was delirious with pain at this point) and consented for them to take him. They move him AGAIN onto a gurney, and he is not a happy boy!!

We arrive at Kaiser around 9 or 9:30 and they get him into a room. Around 10:30 the doctor shows up to go over things with me and around 11 they come to do a chest x-ray (which required more movement and sitting up...not cool). By midnight we got some good morphine in him and get him knocked out for the night and I head home. My poor kids are such troopers, they were on their own from 3 to midnight :-(

Monday June 7,

Get the call at 6:30 that they have moved him to a different room (oh goody...more moving) and he tells me they did another chest xray sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Physical Therapist came around 8:30 and got him up and walking a little. Good that he was moving but that of course ramps up the pain. All the pain meds make him feel dizzy and like he wants to puke so he hates them :-( Today he sat up in a chair most of the day. Still can't do much for himself because of limited mobility with all the fractures and limited lung capacity. Talking is hard for him since he has to talk really quietly because of the rib fractures and the limited lung capacity. He did get up and walk around a couple more times. He discovered that daytime television sucks. Not much to report from today. The puncture in the lung is not getting bigger so that's good :-) Finally got him all tucked in around 10:30 and headed home.

Tuesday, June 8

He is more alert today, I think he's not taking the pain meds because they make him sick so he's not so out of it but hopefully the pain won't get too unbearable. He is eating, which is good. Walked around the whole nurses' station this morning...also good. He brushed his teeth which wore him out...that teeth brushing is exhausting you know :-)

Going to do another CT scan this afternoon. The first x-rays showed a spot on one of his kidneys and they want to investigate that a little further. Sitting up, watching baseball and just generally being uncomfortable.

The doctor said he will probably go home tomorrow.

The thing that ticks him off the most is that we were supposed to be going to New Zealand at the end of July. We're now sort of in a holding pattern regarding that. Have to see how things are healing. That was one of his first questions for the neurosurgeon in the trauma room..."what about New Zealand"

So there you have Treg's excellent adventure. We are all exhausted and there is a long road of recovery ahead but we are so thankful it was not worse. Thankful the spinal fractures were just fractures and that he was able to walk away from this accident. Thankful there was no brain injury. I'll keep you all posted on his recovery.

The Ren. Faire

2010-05-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we met up with some friends and took the kids to the Renaissance Faire. A good family outing right??? I don't think we can go back until the children are well into adulthood :-) We went several years ago and had a fabulous time. Yes, the bosoms were abundant and we expected that, but we had not expected the ramping up of the adult humor...holy cow!!! When your teenage kids are squirming in their seats and asking to leave the show you know it's bad. I kept trying to take pictures and Maunia kept stopping me because everyone was showing so much cleavage she didn't think I could get a single PG shot!

There were a few bright spots in the day I suppose.
1. We got to spend time with Jimmy, Kristel and Jessie, that's always good

2. The shopping is always fun, many cool things to look at. Maunia got this awesome necklace. It's a carved copper box, with some herb (I forget which one now) in it that has some mystical powers :-)...I know by that awesome description you all want one...really it is cool!! I found some masks that I LOVED for my collection but my checkbook did not LOVE the price so they got put on the wish list for another time.

3. We saw two awesome shows. There was a one man show of Macbeth condensed into 1/2 an hour and done as a comedy...quite entertaining. We also saw a knife throwing show that was quite funny. We walked out of one show and probably should have walked out of a second one but instead just prayed that half the humor went over the girls' heads!

4. People watching...man you can't beat it! There are some odd ducks at the Ren. Faire!!

5. We got to go on the giant swing :-)

So all in all I'm not sure whether to call the day a success or not...I'll guess we'll just call it a draw.

Don't you wish you could get your hair this big?? Pure awesomeness.

Rat woman...she wanted to eat the baby

This lady's warm up show was quite entertaining, but it was her actual show with another lady that we walked out of because it was so foul. It was disappointing since they actually have an NC-17 stage at the Faire...can't you keep the adult humor on that stage?...there were lots of kids in the audience at this show...I wonder about adults and their judgement, or lack thereof, sometimes.

The knife throwing show

One man Macbeth...he also did an awesome Keanu Reeves impersonation!

We thought this was pretty funny that he disguised his electric wheelchair as a horse

The giant swing

It was so hot. I felt bad for the guys that have to push these things all day.

Apparently Kristel felt she needed to keep the baby from falling out of the swing or something silly like that so she didn't participate in our arms up frivolity...party pooper ;-)

Awww...aren't they cute :-)

I'm not sure how it happened...but I was taken hostage yesterday

2010-05-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

I'm still not sure how it happened...a moment of weakness...blinded by the sun...his charming personality...but somehow a very sly, and sneaky vacuum salesman found his way into my house yesterday...and I was held hostage.

Here's how the whole thing went down.

I was minding my own business when the doorbell rang. This guy gives me his whole spiel (is that even how you spell that word?? I have no idea) about his "carpet cleaning" business and how he just wants to clean one set of stairs or an area rug. He only needs "14 minutes" it is only meant to be a "teaser" to show me why his product is better and he will leave his business card, then in the future the rate is only $35 per room. Why in the world I said yes I have no idea, it is so out of my character to say yes...perhaps my dirty stairs were calling...I truly don't know...but I did. "OK, he says, can I come back in about 20 minutes, because I'm going to go drop off a few more flyers and then I'll be back and I only need 14 minutes" that's what he said 14 minutes...to clean 1 area!!!

So he comes back and drops off a different guy...who starts setting up...now I'm still thinking he's just going to clean the stairs, in 14 minutes, and leave. Half an hour later it dawns on me as the guy is laying out these cloth things on which he has been collecting dirt that he is a Kirby vacuum salesman...what the heck????? Really!!! You have got to be kidding!!! He then starts asking me

"so are you impressed?"
Impressed that you guys pulled a bait and switch...not so much
So, I figure I'm not going to play their game, politeness and obligation just weren't working for me today.

"Oh, yes, it's great" I say, and then I walk out of the room and continue on with doing my laundry

I think he thought I was going to stay and listen to his speech.

I then hear him on the phone with his boss "yes boss, she likes it but she walked out of the room, oh ok, I'll try that" "ma'am, can I show you something"

laughing to myself "oh, sure"

He then proceeds to vacuum my pool table room...sweet...this may work out well for me, He asks me if I'm impressed, yep, I'm impressed, I walk away to clean something else, he calls his boss.

He then offers to clean something else...now I'm starting to feel bad...kind of..."look" I say "I'm not going to buy a vacuum from you. "

Then we start down the whole, well what if I made you a great deal and we had a great payment plan road...give me strength

"not going to happen" I say. The guy was nice though and I'm feeling bad for him. "Look, I know it's your job to try and sell me this vacuum but please understand it's my job to say no :-)"

Back to the phone and the boss he goes. Back to my cleaning I go. He then starts vacuuming my hard wood...this is working well for me. We do this little song and dance several times. I walk away (I refuse to stay and watch a demonstration I didn't set up, and have no time for, for a product I'm not buying when I was deceived to begin with), he calls the boss, he cleans something else, he asks if I'm impressed, I say yes and I walk away. Several times in this process I say "you know I appreciate that you are working hard, it's not your fault, it's the fault of the guy who came to the door, he said you were just going to clean the stairs and that it would only be 14 minutes, he wasn't very truthful" and then I would smile sweetly.

When all was said and done he was there for for 2 and 1/2 freaking hours!!!! On the bright side I got my pool table room vacuumed, my hardwood vacuumed, my kitchen rug shampooed, my stairs shampooed and one mattress vacuumed (who knew you needed to vacuum your mattresses).

His boss showed up...we talked religion...really religion...and I gave him tums because he had heartburn...I guess being a vacuum salesman is stressful....we got from $3000 down to $1400...I still said no...I told them I'd talk to Treg when he got home...Treg called and said he was on his way home...I texted him and said DO NOT COME HOME WHILE THEY ARE HERE OR THEY'LL STAY FOR ANOTHER 2 1/2 HOURS!!

So that is the story of how I was held hostage by a vacuum salesman yesterday. If a "carpet cleaner" comes to your door and promises it will only take "14 minutes" slowly close and lock the door or you too may be taken hostage!

Perhaps next time I will invite the Amway and Cutco knife guys over at the same time and we will make it one big party :-)

Zoo

2010-05-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

We went to the zoo. I'll spare you all the typical animal pictures but this one made me laugh. Instead of the mother just throwing up into the baby bird's mouth , you know like normal birds do...charming as that is...baby pelicans stick their entire head into the mother's mouth to get the food...niiiiiice.

Living by the wilderness

2010-05-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, we back up to the wilderness therefore we get many interesting critters. I found this in my front hallway....yes indoors...in the hallway...check out the tail on this dude! (and yes, he was alive)

Mother's Day

2010-05-08T12:41:00.001-07:00

Dear Mother's Day Fairy or Mother's Day powers that be or whomever grants Mother's Day wishes,

Here's what I would like for Mother's Day

1. I don't want to clean up ANYTHING...NOTHING...NADA...ZILCH...I don't know any other languages or I would use them :-)

2. I don't want to COOK ANYTHING...etc. etc.

3. I don't want to wash ANYTHING...etc. etc.

4. And for good measure I would like to see school "group projects" abolished :-) or at least have Valium handed out with them when they are assigned...for me...not the kids...and gas cards, for the retrieving and dropping off of the kids who inevitably live nowhere near mine...and a magic wand to make all the kids' schedules coincide...which never happens...and one that will make them actually accomplish something when together :-) (hmmmm, you'll never guess how my day was spent yesterday, haha)

See, it's a pretty simple list...us moms don't ask for much <3

Anza Done-a

2010-05-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well sadly it was time to head home. We were trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day. We attempted to drive to the lone Elephant Tree hike but the road was ominous and the hike didn't look promising so we bagged that and started back towards Julian. Maunia wanted to stomp around Julian some more but that kind of got vetoed. There was an old mine by Julian that we tried to find but were unsuccessful so we ended up on a waterfall hike by Lake Cuyamaca. Ya, we'd never heard of it either :-) It's by Julian. We just found it on the map and went "aw heck, why not?? It's here, we're here..." It was beautiful and again, landscape totally different from anything else on the trip.

These trees were so awesome.

If you can enlarge the picture and look at the bark it is totally cool. It was smooth and shiny and looked completely fake.

And thus concludes Anza, where the heck is that, and Spring Break 2010, ahhh, what a great trip it was!!

K, totally random, out of order picture. This little guy was on the inside of my screen in the house before we left for Anza. He was so cute, he was about an inch and a half long :-)