It's t time

The Land Down Under

I have to get this post written, or I am going to forget what we even did down there!
When we arrived at the Auckland, New Zealand, airport (at the crack of dawn) for our flight to   AU, we were met by some unhappy passengers & a frustrated airline representative.  The runway lights had been out all night, so we were looking at a 24 hour delay.  Oh joy.  We rushed back to the closed office of our rental car company.  Thank goodness I was able to fit my arm through a gap to retrieve our keys that we had just returned.    We went to the car & called our hotel, asking if we could stay another night...they were booked, doh!  They let us check back into our room to rest until the check-out time.  We spent the majority of the day at Takapuna Beach which was a short walk from our hotel The Spencer on Byron.  After we were turned into crispy critters from all of those hours in the sun, we went for a drive around Auckland.  We stopped at a park along the water where we had our first and only encounter with a NZ bum.  He most likely was drunk or stoned, some of the things that came out of his mouth were crazy.

I have video of it, but blogger isn't letting me upload it.  I just recorded it so you could hear his accent.  I love the way Kiwis talk!  I could listen to them forever...  We killed as much time as we could before we headed back to the airport.  Yep, we slept in our rental car, heaven help us.  Nothing like sleeping partially upright with scratchy airline blankets while a hoard of mid-eastern taxi drivers are parked all along the sidewalk talking as loudly as they could.  It was not fun, I was leery of their loud, foreign tongues, and I don't like the idea of strangers watching me sleep.  It gives me the heebie jeebies.  Thank goodness for morning!  We grabbed our stuff & our stinky selves and got on our plane.

According to the weather forecast, we were looking at rain all week in AU.  I'm sure you have seen the flooding that has been going on down there.  It had already started before we arrived.  The weather wasn't too big of a deal because Josh had to work the majority of the week.  We stayed at the Cambridge in Sydney.  I can't even begin to tell you how crazy small their parking garage is!  

Josh is the bomb-diggedy-bomb when it comes to parking!  The garage was 6 floors deep & there was only one teeny tiny lane.  So if someone was coming up while we were going down, someone had to pull over.  It was crazy!  You have to remember that Josh is still driving on the right (wrong) side of the car.  How is that for confusing?  Who knew that something could be right & wrong at the same time?  

Josh spent most of the week at the SPUSC 2010.  Here is a pic of him working hard.  I went to the conference for a day & that was a day enough for me.  I loved listening to the Aussies speak, but it was all over my head.  I spent my days in the hotel doing digital scrapbooking, editing wedding photos, and watching rugby or cricket on the telly.  Exciting, I know.  It was hard, knowing that I was in Australia, but stuck inside the hotel while it was pouring rain outside.  One night of the conference there was a nice dinner & a dance.  Here is a pic of Josh dancing in the background, the two drinking Aussies were a couple of blokes that we were sitting with.  Fun people.  And here we are chatting with our Aussie friends while eating yummy lamb, prawns, greens, creme brulee... Here are a few words that I noticed many of the Aussies used, "brilliant, massive, cheers, yeah yeah yeah (they never just said yes, it was always yeah yeah yeah). It was a good night.  They took a ton of pics of Josh & I dancing, but I haven't been able to find them anywhere.  Hopefully they'll turn up somewhere on the internet.  Our Aussie friends let us know the things we needed to do while in Sydney.  Our last day there Josh didn't have to work, so we set about on our adventure.  We walked (you would walk too if you had to drive on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road in an unfamiliar HUGE city) to downtown Sydney.  The rain held off for us & we had a sunny day spent ferrying over to Manly Beach.  We acted like true tourists & browsed the shops, ate icecream, and walked along the beach (where we saw a little more than we bargained for...I thought we were in Australia, not Europe).  The ferry ride was fun & beautiful.  The ferries in Sydney Harbor are just down from the Sydney Opera House.  Of course, we couldn't leave Sydney without visiting the Opera House.  I was pretty bummed when we looked at the events & a ballet was showing the following week.  We bought tickets (not cheap) to watch a symphony.  It was magical being inside that building...somewhere I had always wanted to visit.  

We didn't see any koalas, dingos, or kangaroos (our Aussie friends said that a lot of Aussies have only seen such animals in the zoo & that it's just a tourist attraction), but we saw Sydney, and had a fabulous time.

Short video of the "goings on" around Sydney Harbor

Good day, mates!

Fiji is next...

Someone gave their first talk, today.

Under construction

I am in the process of redesigning the blog, so if you see funny things on here...just ignore it.  :)

NZ

Some of you have asked about our recent trip down under, so I thought I'd write a little review.

P.S.  Don't expect any fancy photography.  I only had my canon powershot with me.

First off, I don't recommend leaving your children to go to the other side of the world for 3 weeks.

I am always jealous of Josh's business trips, especially his annual trip to Australia.

So when he offered me a chance to go with him, I fought & fought with myself.

I had to make a quick decision, as the invitation came only a few weeks before the actual trip, 

and tickets would need to be bought....

After much persuasion from Josh, I decided to go for it.

As a mother, my heart sank to my toes.  

I was excited to visit more countries and spend some time with Josh, but I was dreading leaving my children.

The dreaded thoughts of planes going down, getting swallowed by the Pacific, crashing on the crazy motorways....  My babies would be orphans, & the thought of that tore me up something fierce!

I know I'm crazy, go ahead and laugh at me...Josh does.

It was nice to know that my parents would be watching them while we were gone,

at least I didn't have to worry about that.

Kudos to my parents...3 weeks with 5 crazy kids!  

Not to mention that the kids were out of school for the whole first week 

because of snow days & Thanksgiving.

I think they deserve a medal of some kind!!

I sure love them!

Anyway, you can imagine how hard it was for me to say "bye" to my critters.

Of course, we had to leave on one of the worst traveling days of the year...blizzard conditions.

Now, I know you've heard of the Polar Express, but have you heard of The Salt Lake Express?

Yowzas!

Our driver was a nut job!  I didn't think that we were going to make it to the airport alive.

Between his smoke breaks, blaring ZZTop, some girls who asked when they'd be dropped off at the IF airport (when we've already passed it), a comedian (who didn't know when to be quiet) who needed to catch a flight to Chicago to do a show, cars sliding off the road...I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

After that nightmare of a ride, our flights to SanFran & then to Auckland, New Zealand, were quite peaceful.

Hallelujah, I didn't "woof my cookies."

The last flight I had been on was way back in August, 2001, when T & C were little.  I'll never forget descending over Phoenix with a crying C on my lap, me "woofing my cookies" into T's coloring book bag.  Sweet memories.

Anyway, after getting through customs and all of that fun stuff we found our rental car.  Josh is a trooper for driving the motorways down there.  I really don't know how he did it?  Have you ever driven in a big unfamiliar city with funky signs, where everyone drives on the wrong side of the road, crazy roundabouts,

not to mention the cars are totally opposite,also?  

The steering wheel is on the right side, the blinkers to the right of the wheel, & the wipers on the left.

We made many turns while washing the windshield.

I had a great time laughing, I had the easy job of reading the map.

We won't go into any specifics about my abilities with map-reading.

We made it to our hotel.  Our room was up nice & high, so we had a great view of Auckland.

It took us a while to get used to the time-change...we were a day & a few hours ahead.  

After we got over our jetlag & dizziness from the long plane ride 

we spent most of our time at Takapuna Beach.  It was a short walk from our hotel.  

It was Spring in Auckland, so the weather was in the low 70s, high 60s.  The water was cold, so we spent most of our time walking the beach, people-watching, relaxing, listening to the sounds of the ocean.  

We were able to try a bunch of different eateries, definitely one of the best perks for a Mom!

I don't have to cook & listen to whining while I'm eating?  What a novel idea!

I accidentally ordered something too hot.  It burnt my lips something fierce, plus I was sunburned.  

Let's just say that I broke out in the worst patch of fever blisters known to man.

So here we are on vacation & Josh can't even kiss me.

hahaha  The irony.

It wasn't funny.

Most of the time we went sight-seeing.  

While you guys were eating turkey and pies, we were at the New Zealand Temple.  

There was a couple that had just been married...they drove off in a tractor, it was pretty cute.

I can see why Josh seriously wants to move to NZ. 

 It is beautiful.  The Kiwis (the people) are lovely.  I could listen to them talk all day & never get tired.  

But I am not packing my bags any time soon...it's still too far away!

Here's a little video for you to enjoy.

I am distracting Josh while he's driving & we end up going the wrong way.

I can't tell you how many times that happened...it's all part of the process of sight-seeing.

Stay tuned...

Next up is Australia.