Hi there

I'm Wes, and I'm the biggest 8-month-old kid ever.

New Zealand Days 2-3: Taupo

The majority of day 2 was spent driving from Wellington to Taupo. It's about a 5 hour drive, but we took our time and stopped as often as we wanted to. The scenery must have changed 5 or 6 times from coastal backdrops, to forests, to grassy rolling hills. All of it was fabulous.

Sheep grazing. They looked very sweet.


A person in the picture in case you don't like them without.

I drove on the left-hand side of the road! It doesn't matter that I didn't have to make any turns, and it was only for about 20 minutes. I did it!

We stopped for lunch at a little place called the Brown Sugar Cafe and had yummy paninis. We ate in the garden, basking in the sun and enjoying the peace and quiet. Unfortunately, we have no picture.

Our hotel in Taupo. The people who ran the place were very nice. If you ever go to NZ, we highly recommend it.

This airplane was part of the McDonald's playland. There was a staircase up to it so the kids could actually play inside. We took a picture for the boys, but did not eat there.

Instead, we ate at the Waterside restaurant. It was delicious and we sat at a table by the window so we could see the water until it got dark. Afterward, we headed over to Kaffee Eis (pronounced "Cafe Ice", by the way). I wish we'd gotten a picture of that place too!

The Big Jump
The scenery looks innocent enough

The more daring of the two of us took a dive at Taupo Bungy (that's how they spell bungee). It was a gorgeous view!

Prepping himself -- he was pretty scared!

Getting all hooked up...

One last "yeah!" for the camera...

And he's off!

It was VERY high - over 150 feet!

After a quick stop at the hotel for some dry clothes, we hiked to Huka Falls. The trail wound through wooded areas, and hugged a cliff that overlooked the river. The weather was perfect. Am I going overboard in my descriptions? If I'm making it sound like a dream, that's because it was.

Aww, he's so cute.

We were pretty much starving by the time we hiked back to our car. It was around 3:00 and we'd hardly eaten all day. We came upon this prawn fishing place (it turned out to be the "Prawn Fishing Capital of the World"), and decided to see if they had a restaurant. We hit the jackpot, dining on scrumptious shrimp curry while enjoying the view of the river. When we go back with the kids, we plan on taking them fishing there.

After lunch, we rushed over to see the dam open. It opens up three times a day here:

Fills up here...

and gushes out on the other side of the bridge we were standing on. Don't you love the color of the water? We were trying to decide why they chose to regulate the water this way, instead of letting a little bit out constantly. Any ideas? Dad?

Next we headed over to the geo-thermal park to "Craters of the Moon". We got there just in time to walk the whole park before it closed. There was steam coming out of craters in the ground, and in some places, boiling mud. I loved the warm, steamy air.

A nice young man, who I'm fairly certain was from ___________, took our picture. His clothes were completely normal.

I Don't Hate Philly

I'm pretty defensive of my home town, Raleigh, North Carolina. I wouldn't like it if someone who wasn't from there decided to bash it on her blog. Jim pointed out that Philadelphians might not like me saying that this city smells like urine (see previous post), and I agree. Philly doesn't smell like that everywhere. I've gotten a whiff of some nasty smells here and there, but such would be the case in any big city. When we first moved in, someone decided to pee in a plastic water bottle and leave it on the street so I could roll over it with my car while parking in front of our house. It stunk until we got some rain. It was just the one time though. In any case, I was being silly. The air in NZ felt good in my lungs, and it made me long for open spaces that just don't exist in the city. But Philly is great. You should come visit.

New Zealand Day 1: Wellington

During Jim's senior year of high school, he became good friends with Jamie Crump, an exchange student from New Zealand. They kept in touch over the years, and when Jamie and his then-girlfriend Hannah toured the U.S. in 2003, they came to visit us in San Jose. I quickly understood why Jim and Jamie got along so well, and also quickly came to adore Hannah. They are wonderful people. A couple of years ago they set a wedding date for March 2009, but we (mostly me) didn't think it would work out because Jim would be in school and our unborn child would only be 7 months old. How lucky that Jim's spring break was the same week as the wedding, that airline tickets to NZ went down in price, and that my parents were able to watch the boys! Even after our tickets were purchased, I fretted over leaving Wes. Everything worked out perfectly, and my mother still lives to tell about it. This trip was AMAZING, peaceful, relaxing, invigorating, beautiful, and basically just what we both needed after a stressful few months. Thank you Jamie and Hannah, for letting us come to your wedding on short notice! We love your country.

After 24 hours of travel, we landed in Wellington, the country's capital. It is also one of the most highly populated cities. Jamie's mother, Jenni, met us at the airport and took us on a little driving tour. We drove along the coast past interesting homes, including Peter Jackson's house (he directed The Lord of the Rings).

This is Jenni. She is incredibly warm and friendly, and she made us feel right at home. I like her cute blue car too.

Jenni took us back to her house to freshen up. This is the view from their front patio.

These doors opened up from a bedroom to a lovely patio on the front of the house. Their landscaping was beautiful, all done by her husband Doug.

Jamie met us for lunch on his break from work. We ate delicious Malaysian food! I could go for some of that right now...

After lunch, Jim and I were on our own to walk around Wellington. We started along the shore and walked for miles around the city. Jamie recommended a gelato shop called Kaffee Eis, so we stopped in. Thinking it would be like the shops in the U.S. where you get tiny little scoops, we both made the mistake of ordering multiple flavors. The portions were HUGE and the gelato was incredible. We were sure to make the same "mistake" at Kaffee Eis in Taupo the next day too.

These trees reminded us of Dr. Suess books, which are the boys' favorites.

A cable car ride took us from downtown, up nearly to Jenni's house.

A couple of views from the top.

Jim humored me with a long walk through the botanical gardens. I love flowers and interesting plants. The air was so fresh, I found myself taking huge gulps of it. And unlike Philadelphia, it never smelled like urine.

Rose garden

This man's outfit cracked us up. His shirt and both socks were all striped with a different color, and he wore tiny shorts and white Birkenstocks. I had to be careful to take a picture without his wife figuring out what I was doing, so this is cropped. The funniest part of this story is that as soon as Jim saw him, he said, "That guy's totally from ______". I shall leave the country nameless so as not to offend anyone from there who might be reading this. I responded, "That's not nice! Why do you think that? I've never met anyone from there who dresses that way." To which Jim responded, "Anytime I see tourists dressed crazy like him, they're always from _______." I didn't believe him. Off I went to try to get a picture, and I ended up chatting with the man's wife. When I asked where they were from, she said, "_________". I almost started laughing right there! I went over to Jim and told him he was right and we both got a good laugh. We ran into this couple again 2 days later in a different city. The man had swapped the shorts for pants, but the rest of his outfit was the same.

That night, we had dinner with Jamie, Hannah, Brendan and Emma (Hannah's brother and his girlfriend). They were all good company and Hannah made sushi! It was this night that we learned about Flight of the Conchords. Jamie and Bret (from the duo) went to school together and are good friends. We stayed at Brendan and Emma's house that night, and got this picture of the coast as we were driving out of their street the next morning. I felt like every view was breathtaking; my amateur-at-best photography just couldn't do them justice.

Indoor exercise

It was cold this past winter! This was a couple months ago when the boys needed to release some energy.