Cramming

I'm a procrastinator. Big time. I work better when there's pressure so I save everything til the last minute. I recently discovered I share this trait with Emilie. Maybe it's because my mom always threatened us but we never did anything til she brought out the REAL threats, like the wooden spoon. Or the paint stick. Or Dad and his leather belt. Whatever the reason, I thought I was done with the cramming once I finished school. Nope. Not.even.close. You see, it all applies to real life too. And now here we are - 3 weeks left in paradise and we're cramming as much in as possible.

Here are a few fun pictures of our trip to Lake Taupo this past weekend. Sadly, no pictures of our near drunken invasion (again.) at 2:30 am. :)

Our trip started with a stop in Hamilton to check out the beautiful gardens there.

Trajan taught us how to hone our levitating skills. We are so zen now.

Just getting ready for Italy here.

We finished the day with a good soak at the natural hot springs the flow into the Waikato. It was so relaxing and super super hot! I still can't believe there are just things like this all over NZ. For free! It's awesome!

The next day Jon and the boys got in a bike ride near the beautiful Waikato River and then we headed to Orakei Korako geyserland. Jon had his game face on.

After church on Sunday we headed to Craters of the Moon and then stopped off at another type of thermal hot spot and met the local wildlife. (I didn't have my game face on.) Then another stop in Hamilton later at a wonderful park with a HUGE slide and big kid swings.

We have such wonderful friends here and had such a great time with them. Now it's time to cram as much in with my parents as we can! (5 days for them, 4 for us!)

Hiatus

As we try to cram a life's worth of living into our last 4 weeks here in New Zealand, I realize we aren't going to be near computers much. So I thought I'd do a post now to update you on what we've been up to and what we've got to look forward to.

We flew home last month for my Grandma Storey's funeral. It was a nice event and so good to see family and friends. I got to finally meet Jake and Paige's little Nash and snap a few pics of him. We also took some great prego shots of Sara and some fun Valentine's shots of Eden and Avi. Jess was kind enough to come take our family pictures for us and now I'm just waiting to get some shots of Brett so we can add him in.

We also had a little birthday celebration for me at Boondocks in Kaysville and I tore.it.up. in laser tag! And I pretty much rocked at skeeball and the token jump game that are my favorites! Awesome. It was so fun! :)

When we returned to Auckland, things were in full swing with our friends. We went to the Chinese Lantern Festival (AMAZING!) to celebrate the new year, celebrated my birthday with a girl's nightand a picnic and we just returned from the Coromandel Peninsula and Mercury Bay. We dug our own hot tubs at Hot Water Beach and hiked to Cathedral Cove. I was also lucky enough to be a second shooter with my friend Deon for a wedding in Tauranga. It's been a great weekend!

Up next? Lake Taupo with friends, then my parents fly in (CAN'T WAIT!!!) and we do a whirlwind tour of both islands for 2 weeks, then we fly out to Dubai! Yay for life!