Recently in Visitors Category

My dad was awesome enough to plan a three week trip down to this hemisphere and visit us. When he was originally planning the trip he told me he thought he'd be here for two weeks. Now I know that may sound like a lot of time to some but it's just not enough time for an honest to goodness visit. So I twisted his arm and he came down for three weeks. We did loads of fun stuff with him.

The highlight was a trip up to Taupo where we did some hot springs swimming, fishing and lots and lots of laughing. It was so nice getting up early and hitting the river with my dad and Sophie. It felt epic to have my dad there with Sophie and Josie, teaching them how to fish. The man has a bottomless well of patience.

Here is a limited run down of the trip:

• Chaperoning 42 kids to a gymnastics field trip
• Hiking Red Rocks and testing the waterproof abilities of the camera
• Road trip to Carterton and seeing our first of many pair undies in the road
• Morning walks up the hill
• Dinner at the White House
• Rock Band!
• Watching The Big Lebowski and crying with laughter
• Swimming at Spray
• Walks along Lyall Bay
• Scavenging for materials at the Tip Shop and building a play kitchen for the girls
• Stocking our garage with tools
  
• Weather proofing the chimney and front door
• Fixing various cabinets in the kitchen
• Showing us he's still got it on the trampoline and amazing the girls with his flips
• Scouting oh so many cafés and bakeries while the girls were at kindy
• Meeting and eating Shawn the Prawn (he was deeelish!)
• Visiting Staglands
• Horsey rides first thing in the morning
• Epic wrestling matches with the wee Stephens' girls
• Watching the Avatar trailer in 3D with Jake
• Daisuke's stag night
  
• Oh, and don't think we let him get out of here without making omelettes for a brunch with our friends
  

Jake and I also have these selfish highlights:

• Sleeping in till at least 7 every morning because the girls would run to wake Grandpa up.
• Waking up to the smell of coffee, the girls already fed.
• Not washing dishes once the entire time he was here.
• Taking walks alone in the morning while Grandpa did the entertaining and feeding.
• Enjoying several nights out with our free babysitter who staged camp outs in the living room.
• The invaluable extra set of hands that I got every day.

Better than all of these things put together was the time spent just talking, goofing and laughing. I love my dad and definitely appreciate him more now that I'm older. He's the best grandad around and we miss him very much. Thanks for the memories mate. Oh yuh!

Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after they arrived (and nearly a year since we last boarded an airplane!), Mary & Joe returned to the airport with us for a short flight back up to Auckland followed by a 3hr drive up to Hahei Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. We met our friends Chris & Joanna for a nice lunch in Auckland and still made it to the beach by 4pm. The weather more than cooperated and we had a gorgeous long weekend - hope you enjoy the pics!

On my last day of work before Christmas, we loaded up the car after breakfast and made the two minute drive to the airport to meet some long-anticipated visitors. Nearly three weeks later, on the day before I had to go back to work, we made the tearful return trip: everything in-between was a dream come true. Thanks for making the long voyage, Grandma & Grandpa - it was everything we'd hoped for and more!

The Pics

Highlights:

• spending three weeks with Grandma & Grandpa without projects or work to distract us!
• tracking their flights online with the girls as they made the 25-hour trip to get here
  
• the look of bliss on Sophie's face when we finally met them at the airport, eight months since they took us to the airport in Binghamton, as she locked Grandma into a death-grip hug
• the amused look on my dad's face when I asked if he wanted to drive home from the airport (to his credit, he adjusted to the wrong-side-of-the-car thing much faster than I did!)
• taking them to Maranui, our favorite restaurant in Wellington, after months of dreaming about it
• the confident laugh my dad made after Brandie said "we'll wake you up for dinner" when they went to nap on the first day
• the look of disappointment on Grandma's face when she realized we were having meat pies, not berry pies, for lunch
• having takeaway fush-n-chups outside on the back deck in December
  
• noticing that our new-to-NZ ferry had a painted-over "Pride of Cherbourg" on its side, and wondering what it had done to lose that status
• daily vegetable translation (capsicums, courgettes, rocket, kumara, etc.)
• "cracklin" is not a crouton, George
• playground envy of Josie's new helmet: "That's a sweet helmet, aye! Is it for cricket?"
  
• dinner at the base of Mt. Cook
  
• the train bridge between Fox Glacier and Greymouth (you'll understand after you see the pics)
  
• Speights brewpubs and their Old Dark beer

And a sampling of what we managed to pack in:

• Te Papa, lunch on the waterfront
  
• Lindale Farm, Southward Car Museum
  
• Wellington Zoo, Mt. Victoria, my office and the Weta Cave
  
• Christmas Day ferry to the South Island
• Kaikoura coastline drive
  
• Christchurch cathedral, Ashburton
• Lake Tekapo, Mt. John Observatory
• Queenstown, gondola, downtown and waterfront
  
• Arrowtown, Fox Glacier
• Helicopter tour to the top and hike to the bottom of Fox Glacier
• Greymouth
• Punakaikai, Kaiteritire beach, New Year's Eve in Motueka
• Shopping in downtown Nelson, picnic lunch in the cathedral park, cathedral tour
• New Year's Day ferry ride home
• Relaxing at home and recovering from days of driving
• Shopping on Lambton Quay, lunch at the General Practitioner
• Our home away from home away from home, Spray (Wellington Regional Aquatic Center)
  

The weather often seems to shift around 5am here, for reasons we are unaware of: maybe the sun is warming up things east of us and pushing weather through the Cook Strait, or just the tail of the previous day's weather. At any rate the rain or wind usually start or stop around that time. Today, the wind kicked up pretty fiercely and seemed to be trying to take the roof off our house, while rain started coming down in sheets.

The house we're renting is solidly built and well-insulated with new double-pane windows, so we were both mildly confused to hear something rattling in the corner of our bedroom whenever the wind really buffeted the house. We both got up and checked the windows, but everything was secure and dry. Our best guess (actually it was Chris's) is that something is loose inside the old chimney. The house was still warm and comfortable so after a few minutes we gave up and went back to dozing before the kids or my alarm got us up.

Both girls have been fighting off various colds over the past few weeks, taking turns waking each other (and us) up in the middle of the night with some rough coughing fits. Last night was the second night in a row they've both slept through, so I was surprised and relieved to wake up and see what time it was. It was nice just laying there listening to the storm (and the rattle) and thinking about our girls and our first house-guests, Chris & Joanna, all asleep under our safe roof.

This is actually their second trip to Wellington since we've been here, but we were still in the hotel during the last one and could only think about how fun it would be to have them stay with us at the house. In a way I think we've dreamed about it since we first visited them in 2004 and got the crazy idea in our heads: Chris & Joanna have helped us all along the way in this adventure, from the initial idea to last-minute planning to lugging our baggage through the Auckland airport. We also used their CRV (an enormous SUV by local standards) to help move all our belongings out to the house. I'm happy to report it was worth the wait and as fun as we imagined it would be to have them come down and stay with us.

Despite all our protests they had to catch flight back to Auckland at 8am, so I got up around 6:30 and put the kettle on. We had a chance to visit a little more before getting into Moon Dog and making the two minute trek to the airport. I drove back in the dark and the rain to have breakfast and a cozy morning in the house. The wind hasn't let up and the rain is still pouring down so we've spent the day inside, and are just getting up from naps now. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, thanks again for coming to visit us Chris & Joanna!

We had a great weekend full of friends and family.  The type of weekend we used to dream about.  Saturday we were ultra domestic and spent our morning cleaning and used our afternoon to bake cookies, roast garlic, clean our coffee pot (have you heard enough about our coffee pot yet?!) and made pasties for our friends Danny and Trina.  Then we used the evening getting to know our Wii.  We love it!  We bowled, we golfed and we did a little "boxing" if you can call it that.  Now I understand why they call him "Mr. Cheapshot".

The next morning we brewed a big pot of coffee for our friends Amy, Ilya and the girls play mate, Auden.  Then George and Sue stopped by.  There is something so satisfying about having company over on a Sunday morning. 

Our friends Clint, Dawn & Lily left for home today, and we are all sad. Apparently right after we left for the airport, Sophie saw an airplane fly overhead and said, "Look Mama! Lily knew I was sad and came back to say goodbye." (I won't tell you what Eula did to protest their departure, but it was pretty gross.)

They arrived Saturday afternoon and caught the leaves at their peak, and we couldn't have asked for better weather during their stay. We had a blast catching up with our old friends (these are the folks that introduced us almost nine years ago, in case you forgot) and managed to do a lot. Here are some highlights:

Joey's Pizza, the new cigar bar in Endicott (the owner has a plantation in the Dominican Republic and only sells his own), The Brackney Inn, breakfast and apple picking at Apple Hills, Wegmans, spiedies, pumpkin pancakes, Iron Kettle pumpkin farm, Chuck E. Cheese, Lampy's, Cider Mill, Invisible Ink at the Art Mission, Lost Dog Cafe, and the Discovery Center.

Thanks again for making the trip up to see us guys, we can't wait to come visit you again in Austin!

We were very honored to have "the Uncles" stay with us this past weekend.  They made the trek in from Reno over Wednesday night/Thursday morning and after one day to recuperate, they made it to our place (with one speeding ticket under their belts) by Friday afternoon.  The girls were giddy with anticipation.  Sophie fell asleep probably 20 minutes before they got here.  She just couldn't quite make it.

We toured them up to Apple Hills the back way from our house which is beautiful this time of year.  Then, after a huge breakfast we headed home for the girls naps.  Uncle Jesse wanted to go to Toys R Us to look at doll houses (Sophie has been mildly obsessed with them since seeing one at Target).  "The Uncles" and I loaded up and headed over the big toy store.  It was such a different experience going with adults rather than with kids!  Actually, the guys I took were kind of like big kids with money!  We were all disappointed in the doll house selection and turned our attention to the kitchen area.  Now the girls love to cook and we have been debating getting them a kitchen eventually but they are pricey and there are so many varieties.  Of course, the biggest one is what draws the attention of "The Uncles".  It's a walk in kitchen with 6' of granite looking counter top.  I remembered they were selling it at Sam's, called for a price check and indeed it was $60 cheaper over at Sam's Club.  So off we went.

While at Sam's we loaded up the cart and headed for the door.  But what was that?  A Balloon Time kit?  I had no idea what this thing was but apparently the girls couldn't live without it and "The Uncles" threw it on the cart.  For those of you wondering, Balloon Time is a kit that has a helium tank and 15 mylar balloons.  When I asked what it was for, "The Grand Opening of the kitchen of course!"  Hahaha, why didn't I have uncles like this?

Uncle Dan spent all afternoon putting the kitchen together with plenty of help from the girls.  It was a huge hit!  The girls served up all sorts of things for us and even took custom orders!

Regrettably, our long-lost camera still hasn't been found but we broke down and bought a new one in anticipation of all our October guests. We stuck with tradition and bought a Canon Digital Elph (SD1000). It has a lot of nice new features, but the default image settings are quite high so we'll have to tune them down for future pics.

Uncle Jesse & Uncle Dan left for Manhattan this morning after a great visit, and we bid farewell to Chris on the streets of Ithaca yesterday. It is sad to see them all go, but we're grateful they made their journeys to see us!

Good news for Clint, Dawn & Lily - thankfully the leaves have been very compliant to our wishes this year and still haven't peaked yet! Also we have an exciting and huge new play kitchen compliments of Uncles Jesse & Dan. Thanks everyone, we had a blast!

My brother flew out for a week long visit and boy it was a great one. I just dropped him off at the airport this afternoon and I miss him so much already.

We started off by getting a babysitter the first night and heading to our favorite restaurant in Endicott, Lampy's. We LOVE the food there and I decided it would be a great time to break the news of baby #3 to my brother (It was a joke!!). He almost choked on his food. Ah, how I miss my practical jokes on my family. After a wonderful dinner and great conversation (Jake and I had no idea what to do with ourselves without the two girls to care for) we headed into the week. Jake had to work all week so Jesse got to see the ins and outs of my day. I started calling him my manny right away. He is a natural with the girls and helped me non stop. Sophie had a Dermatologist appointment and Jesse came with me to watch Josie. Apparently no one could pass them up in the waiting room and one nurse was commenting how cute Josie was and asked if she was Jesse's. He said "No, I'm the Uncle." To which the nurse replied "Ohhhh, even better!" I don't think she was his type but he's thanked Josie for trying to get him a date. ;)

As with any visit with my family this one was fairly food focused. We took Jesse to Joey's, Lost Dog, Los Tapatios, Wegman's and Apple Hills. He enjoyed almost all of them. I think it's really hard for someone who has had authentic mexican food to enjoy the bastardized east coast version. And don't think we only ate out. Oh no, we had to introduce Jesse to Spiedies. It's so funny because I explain them as kabobs without any vegetables and anyone from this area goes into an almost religious explanation of them, the marinating process, how they were created here, the festival in their name. He enjoyed them and is thinking of coming out for the Spiedie fest this summer.

Of course Jesse was constantly fielding requests from Sophie who thought he was the best playmate ever. They scared each other, sang, raced around the room and watched Sophie's favorite movie Cars. Every morning she woke up with the question "Where's Uncle Jesse?". When she discovered he was sleeping she would ask if she could go wake him up with "a kissy and a tickle".

Overall it was the best visit I can remember having with my brother. We vowed not to let it go as long between visits this next time and promised that no matter where we land, he'll always have a room at our house.