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!

Christmas Eve Day

I know this is a little late, but we have limited access to the Internet these days.  This was our first summer Christmas... and though it's hard to really get into the Christmas spirit without layers upon layers of clothing and darkness at 4:30 pm, we managed to tough it out in the sun!  Christmas Eve day we took our friend Matt to get mussels and clams at our new favorite little beach.  It's so secluded and so beautiful it's absurd!  Here's a glimpse of where we were...

This is where Mark and Matt gathered my dinner!!

Here are the mussels close up

It was such a gorgeous day.  It's so sad to be away from all our people on holidays like this.  At least I had the sun to console me!  Totally not the same as being tackled by nieces and nephews, but still not a bad way to spend this day!!

Adventures with Gingerbread!

In keeping with my most favorite time of year... I decided to take a stab at my very own gingerbread house.  I've maybe done this before when I was younger, but I don't much remember.  Being the person I am (and not having ANY cookie cutters) I decided to do it all by hand while accepting the challenge of a Nativity Scene from Mark.  So here goes...

The absolute BEST part is of course eating everything!!  I'm using straight melted sugar to "glue" the big pieces together.  I can't believe how good it worked!

Above is my house before,

Below is my house after I finished!

It's is complete with a 3D Christmas tree in the side yard made with gingerbread and candy cane.  And yes the footpath has individually cut gingerbread stones!  It should be embarrassing how much fun I had doing this... but strangely it's not!!  :)

Now for Mark's Nativity scene...

There were cows that didn't survive the decorating process, but rest assured they were tasty!!

Instead, we just have Shepard's and their flock ...

Wise men with gifts of mandarin, banana, and grapes...

Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus in a manger... with hay!  And please try to ignore the fact that Jesus is a little crispier than everything else.  I swear I didn't mean to just about burn him!!

So there you have it!!  There were a few things that didn't make it into my creations, but all in all it was a raving success!

I might never need to eat sugar again!!

Merry Christmas