This Joint is Jumping

Following in the thoughtful footsteps of my very favorite sister, here are a few pictures in honor of my parents'  birthdays last month.  While they have nothing to do with grandchildren (their real favorite picture sets) hopefully they prove that while Adam and I are both crazy busy at work, we still manage to find moments to get out and have some fun.

A couple of weeks ago ended Adam's Karaoke-free lifetime streak.  As usual, he was a natural!

Girls sing better in pairs.

Mama mia! This crowd was so prepared that they even brought their own tambourines and harmonicas!

A week later we celebrated the 30th birthday of one of our cast drivers from the studio.  She's a real 1940s era gal, so we all dressed up in our best Anzac Day appropriated attire in her honor.  I would have been lost if it hadn't been for this amazing woman, Gabby.  Not only did she do four ladies' hair, but she also dressed me from head to toe in era appropriate clothes.  All that - AND she hosted the pre-party at her home!

Curly sue!

You didn't think the gents would get out dressing up, did you?  What dapper men!

I'm certainly carrying a torch for this Big Cheese.

The joint was jumping with these dancing dames.  All six of the scale double ladies made the effort to get all gussied up for Yvette's big night.  Can you imagine how unusual it is for us to talk to others in a club eye to eye?

From start to finish, the evening really was the cat's meow.

WHOOPEE!

Easter in Melbourne

Easter was coming and the weather forcast was grim.  Showers were predicted in most of New Zealand, gale force winds in Wellington and no relief over the long Easter weekend.  Thus, we decided to travel westward to Koala-land.  We checked Sydney off the list last August so this time we set a course for Melbourne.

With our carry-on bags  packed full of our usual self-sustaining snacks and entertainment for longer plane flights, Quantas pulled a fast one on us by providing personal entertainment screens and genuine Tip Top ice cream during the flight...how spoiled are the spoiled?  Once in Melbourne we caught the SkyBus that dropped us off at our hotel.  Both of us were still pretty knackered from the week but we wandered out for a light dinner and some breakfast fixings and had a good nights rest.

Stepping out of our hotel the next morning, we went for a wander around the Treasury Gardens and neighbouring Fitzroy Gardens.  Home to Cooks Cottage, a Conservatory and the Model Tudor Village, this made for a lovely walk to start the day.  The model tudor village turned out to be more...toy model...than I was expecting and much to our dismay Callie could not go for a wander around to play giant.

Not on our map but definitely exciting was this wonderful dragon slide.  I did my best to take it for a ride the way one would expect to ride a dragon.

Failing to convince her to take flight, I was left with no other choice then go for a slide.

This park was filled with these birds that, despite their attractive appearance, had quite the cackle song.

Our stop at St. Patrick's Cathedral found a statue of one of my mother's favourite saints, St. Francis of Assisi, with whom Callie posed for the camera.

In our search for aventura, we booked two last minute seats on the Penguin Parade tour that took us to a heritage farm on Churchill Island, the Koala Conservation Centre and the Phillip Island Penguin Parade.  At the heritage farm we found, what else, but Scottish cows roaming the paddocks, lavender and sheep shearing demonstrations.  We spent most of our time with this very chatty Cathy.

The next stop on our cute-n-cuddly road trip was the Koala Conservation Centre.   The first one we happened across was definitely in the middle of nap time.

I related with this one quite well though as we watched him digging in on these leaves for the better part of 10 minutes.  I was quite curious about how good those leaves were but the cafe at the centre did not have them on the menu.

This Koala had found some tasty treats a little too close to the people walk, making for great photo opportunities for us, and a few more grey hairs for the staff member trying to keep people away from the hungry little one.

The Koala Conservation Centre was also home to many cute little wallabies.  We were advised by our tour guide that we could feed the wallabies if we wanted, we just had to catch them first!  This one did not seem to eager to find out what the little boy chasing him wanted to share!

Cameras are actually forbidden from the Penguin Parade, since apparently the flash of the camera can cause the Penguins to have life threatening fits.  You'll just have to take our word that there was an abundance of adorable little fluffy blue penguins who all emerged from the sea at their appointed time and made their ways very cautiously, and eventually noisily to their burrows.

Day Two started with the breakfast recommended in our Melbourne Official Visitor Guide for The Pancake Parlour.  A distinctly "old-timey" restaurant specializing in sugar-coma-inducing pancake treats, Callie found the whole wheat pancake with fresh strawberries delicious while I dove in to the classic pancakes, hashbrowns and poached eggs.

Downtown hosts a genuine two storey Target, complete with banners, knick knacks and a new wallet for myself.  Melbourne was also home to the only Costco we have seen down under giving us the distinct impression Melbournites know how to shop.

A visit to the Queen Victoria market not only yielded a new casual dress for Callie and a bit of musical fun, but also a batch of hot-out-of-the-fryer jam donuts that were exactly as good as they sound.  There were no left overs.

We spent a little more time wandering around the city after renting some of the city's bike share two-wheelers.  We found our way along the docklands area then rode up the Yarra river boardwalk and walked around the Art's centre market where we found a nice Melbourne memento.

That evening we took part in the international comedy festival and went and saw The Comedy Zone that featured some good Australian comedians.  Callie predicted there would be a few good regional jokes that might fly over our heads, but fortunately we can take our cue when to laugh pretty well.  The next day we went on another bike ride around the city to see a few more sites and were off to the airport for our journey back to Wellington.  Melbourne was a fun place to visit, with lots of entertaining ways to get around and cool sites to see making for a wonderful weekend getaway.

So Proud

I'm a pretty self-centered person.  Seriously.  I fully admit to living life largely according to my own whims.  Marrying my dear husband Adam was the most selfish thing I've ever done because he is the BEST.  Sorry ladies, you may think you nabbed the perfect man - but I'm here to tell you that my stud beats them all.  Adam is the guy who insists I take baths when he finds me limping from muscle fatigue, rubs my icky feet after a hard day on set, and makes a delicious, healthy dinner every night during the week after his own full day of work.

All this - and he's working so hard to get fit with me.  This last weekend was a prime exhibition of this bloke's boundless energy.  Cashing in on his office's offer to pay the entry fee for any employees wanting to participate in the 2012 Wellington Round the Bays 7km Fun Run or Half Marathon, Adam decided that running 7kms just wouldn't push him to train hard enough - so he'd make his running race debut with a half marathon.  A couple of months and many hours in the gym later brought us to a sunny summer day in Wellington with 12,000 of our closest and fittest neighbors.

On your mark... Get set...

GO!

Victory Dance!

A Dramatic Finale

and a Happy Ending!

Our apologies for the lack of actual race pictures.  Somehow the camera just didn't fit in our running suits.  Adam finished his 21 kms with flourish while I sauntered my way through a mere 7.  While I felt pretty lazy taking on only a third of the distance as my man, I took comfort in having out run Adam's workmates (as well as in the knowledge that I would be able to tackle a physical week on set following the race).  

And as if all of this isn't enough to boast about...I just can't resist bragging about Adam's fabulous day at work.  Having been cancelled on a few weeks in a row for his one-on-one with his supervisor - Adam received RAVE reviews in his one-year evaluation.  While the pay bump will certainly be a blessing to our family, the validation and recognition of this magnificent man's many talents is more important than anything.  How can I say it any better than, simply, I'm SO PROUD.  

Caving Hobbits

My dear Frodo,


Once upon a time you asked me if I had told you everything there is to know about my adventures.  While I can honestly say I told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it...

Last weekend Wellington celebrated its city-wide holiday, leaving Adam with a well timed three days off from work.  Always looking to capitalize on opportunities to put check marks up on our "too see" list, we headed north this time to the under appreciated city of Hamilton.  Enjoying cheap plane tickets up to Auckland, we enjoyed a quick jaunt back down south towards the tiny town of Matamata, made famous by Sir Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Matamata is home to Hobbiton, and while we can't share any of the pictures we took while on tour of the movie set, we can show you a very Gollum-like Adam...

and a hobbit-like Callie.

No, this isn't where we get to start revealing all the inner-most secrets of the film...confidentiality agreements are iron-clad and binding...but we can tell you that we very much enjoyed our tour - at least up until our tour guide informed us that the way movie producers make average-sized actors look larger than Hobbits is by bringing in children to make the scale appropriate.  REALLY?!?  While it may seem flattering to be a child-like thirty, I bit my tongue.

Having left the shire, the next day we ventured a little farther south to the Waitomo Caves area. Blackwater Rafting has been on our radar pretty much since we arrived in Wellington - we simply hadn't found a good time go.  This was our chance - and we had a great, albeit chilly, time.  

The adventure started with a bit more abseiling practice.  In order to win the race down the hill, one needed to invert oneself entirely.  While I'm not sure I was first down the hill - I was the only one willing to attempt a wet-suit cartwheel in this group.

"The Evolution of the Starfish"

Down the rabbit hole...

Adam knows it's less scary if you close your eyes.

We crawled through some tight spaces...

but Hobbit-sized people find it much roomier.

And at the end of the trip all the survivors can say is...

"Bless us and splash us..." (Gollum)

Talofa Lava

Talofa Lava!

It's tough to believe that we've been home from Samoa for nearly a week now. It's even harder to believe how amazingly blessed we were to have the opportunity to visit such a beautiful country filled with even more beautiful people.

Samoa was our very first "beach vacation," so we did our best to sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery. We stayed in a tiny, 10 hut resort for our week on Savaii, the larger but much less populated island in Samoa.

Here's a peek at our beachfront fale.

Homes on Savaii are usually comprised of two separate buildings. One enclosed home with windows and doors which is next to a separate, large, open fale that serves as a living room, dining room, and bedroom when the weather cooperates. Available to the breezes off of the water, the open fales capitalize on the merits of natural air conditioning. Apparently electric AC is reserved fairly exclusively for those inhabiting resorts. Our own cute little hut # ono made the best of every world; great sliding shutters to open up 3 sides of the room to breezes (while keeping out the bugs) and delicious, delicious air conditioning for the times when the shutters needed to close in order to keep out the rain. Plus, the view wasn't bad.

Truth be told, this is really how our view looked to us most hours of most days.  Well, Adam's, at least.

Ok, this is where we fess up to the fact that we apparently skirted the edges of a cyclone our first 24 hours on the island. While we enjoyed the drama of the boarded up windows and actually delighted in an excuse to hunker down in our fale for a day, we were ecstatic when the clouds lifted and the breezes eased enough for us to venture out and begin to explore our surroundings.

Callie counted 13 - yes thirteen different and distinct LDS church meetinghouses on Savaii.  Talk about  chapels with a view, this building sat only a few walking minutes away from the resort.  Too bad we weren't around for a Sunday.

Paradise just may be defined as anywhere with waves and palmtrees.  Oh, and a small store stocked with ice cold Diet Coke is a must-have.

Having maxed out our skin's tolerance to the intensity of the sun, our next day on Savaii was blessed with an amazing full day bus tour of the island in the company of two awesome Scottish women and a generous tour-guide host named Seti.  We hadn't been on the road for even 15 minutes before the van had stopped twice for fresh fruit from the side of the road.

Mangoes are delicious - but they're not easy to eat with grace.

Adam enjoyed a tree-top jaunt across a suspension bridge in the canopy of the island's cloud forest.

Island legends tell a tale about a mother and her daughter who jump to their deaths at Lovers Leap but return to the cove as a shark and a sea turtle.  We didn't see any turtles in the muddy waters but there was definitely a shark or two swimming below.

Adam's not sure about a Lover's Leap towards the sharks ...he's considering more of a Lover's Lean, instead.

Our midday stop was at the Alofa'aga blowholes.  

Our guide Seti and his trusty driver companion get the coconut shells ready....

throw....

BLOW!!!

Flying coconuts were amusing, but the fresh, ice-cold ones we had for lunch were even better.  Almost as in good, in fact, than the fresh pineapple that Seti cut up for us on the beach.

Turquoise waterfall paradise swimming, anyone?

The beauty of nature.

Savaii is, as I think we've established, gorgeous.  But it has a fiery history.  This church was demolished in a volcanic eruption in the early 1900's.  Mount Vailuluu is a temperamental giant who blew his top to cover parts of the island in thick lava rock.  Thankfully German soldiers were hanging out in the area on their large ships and were able to rescue the inhabitants of the island before anyone was injured.  

A bit of perspective as to the depth of the lava flow. 

Our final stop on the Savaii tour was for swimming with the turtles.  The family that cares for the lagoon where these rescued, often injured, turtles reside welcomes tourists to come and get up close and personal with the gentle giants.  A "health spa" for turtles, Samoan conservation officials periodically determine which turtles are ready to be released back into the wild.  In the meantime, they REALLY enjoy their papaya snacks.

Adam fell in love with another older woman.  

Callie wasn't so sure about her frisky man.

Back for a final beach day at the resort, Adam made friends with some locals...hermit-crabs, that is.  Sorry, Kara, I didn't find either Pearl or Ruffles (our childhood hermit-crabs who mysteriously disappeared during a particularly ugly sibling argument, I believe.)

Our final dinner in Savaii was timed perfectly with the resorts evening of feasting and dancing, the fiafia.  Better yet, the weather FINALLY allowed us to eat out in the open air under the sun and, eventually, the stars.

YUM!!

Callie was thrilled with the traditional performance of music and dance.  She was even more excited to see a "real life" version of a log drum she and Adam had tried to jigger-up her last year of teaching for an island musical piece for her girls' chorus.   Now if she had only brought her video camera...

At the end of the day, paradise is more about who you're with than where you are.  

But a palm tree doesn't hurt.