In a Flash

I know I haven' t been blogging like I should.  And I promise I will TRY to do better... but classes have started again, and my schedule is nuts as always.  Until something more entertaining happens I'll leave you all with the best part of my day... sunrise.  Here are a few of my favorites:

All out of my bedroom window.

And then there were two...

Mark and I had our very first visitor from back home!!!  My friend Lisa came to visit us for TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was/still am that she came.  And let me just say for the record that she has broken the seal and ALL of you are now required to come pay us a visit.

Among other things, we took a trip to Queenstown with a friend of mine for a few days.  Here is Lisa and Chivala at our picnic in Central Otago on our way thru... side bar:  it was so AMAZING getting to eat Lisa's food again!  Oh how I've missed it (for those of you who don't know, go visit The Little Red Hen in Glencoe - ask for cake box cookies!)

And of course we did all the tourist things to do... rode the sky gondola...

... all the way to the top for the best views of Queenstown..

And here's our ridiculous view from our hotel balcony

We had such a blast!

Unfortunately the weather wasn't spectacular.  We had such an amazing December that it clearly was too much to hope that Feb would be just as nice.  But, no matter... we still took Lisa to our favorite beaches that just also happen to be great places to get mussels and clams!

This is Lisa and Mark climbing back from gathering mussels.

Lisa maybe wasn't OVERLY excited about the idea of all sea creatures, but she managed to gather a few clams that we later turned into dinner.  And by "we" I mean Mark.

I can't thank Lisa enough for coming to see us.  I haven't laughed that hard in a year!  I love you Sugar Chix!!  xoxo

The Catlins

This weekend Mark and I decided to take a day trip and visit a remote area of the South Island called the Catlins.  It has an abundance of wildlife, tons of remarkable scenery, and low population.  In spite of it being a tourist attraction, we pleasantly enjoyed a day of more nature than people.  It was spectacular!  Here are a few of the highlights:

Just some shots en route

We stopped off at Curlo Bay which is known for the amount of petrified wood, fossils, and sea creatures.

Mark was lucky enough to have a yellow-eyed penguin run past him and jump in the water!  They are endangered and native to New Zealand.

Next we took off to McLean Falls.  It's about a 30 minute trek into the falls.  Everything was so green!!

This was just a little teaser waterfall...

...before the much bigger one!

We also went to Purakaunui Falls.  Here's part of the trail leading in...

Though you can hear the fall from quite a ways off, it's still surprising when you bust through the trees to see this...

The roads are crazy to drive on!  They snake and bend like roller coasters to include the straight up or free fall down to go with it!  Super pretty, but not exactly a leisurely relaxing experience.

It's just about impossible to capture the next place we went.  It's called Jack's Blowhole.  It's a natural sink hole created by the sea.  When the tide comes in it can shoot water up like a geyser... thus the name.  Insane to see...

Here are a couple of the creatures we saw along the way.  This guy was trying to figure out what these two nuts were doing pull off alongside his road!

The sheep were super scared of Mark, but this guy seemed more curious than anything.

The rest of these are just some of my favorites from the day.

Central Otago

Happy New Year to everyone!  Here in Dunedin everyone gets 2 days off work for New Years regardless if it falls on a weekend.  Since there was no work to speak of for Mark... we took off with some friends to central Otago.  Generally speaking, here's where we went...

It clearly goes without saying that this place is absurdly beautiful.  Here are some stops along the way...

Mark and I had battle of the cameras... he always wins!

Central Otago is know for its orchards... fruit, berries, you name it!  There's also a discount if your willing to go pick your own.  All I have to say to that is...Woo Hoo!  Cheap food, with unlimited taste testing!!!  Good thing they didn't weigh us after our cherry picking... it might have indicated copious amounts of said taste testing!!  Here's the cherry orchard we went to.

Our awesome friends who know all the best spots!

It was such a great day with awesome weather.  It's strange to see snow in the mountains in the middle of summer.  Did I mention how much I am NOT missing winter in the US right now!?!

Lots of love from 2 sticky fingered, red tongued, cherry coma Americans!