A week in the Hutt (photo edition)

It's hard to believe, but my week in Lower Hutt is over as of tomorrow at 10:20am when I catch a flight to Queenstown. The week has absolutely flown by, and I've seen some people who are really important to me, whether from 3 years ago or from much more recently in my life. It has been a full week, a fun week, and after Kirsten's and my all-day shopping trip today I think I can say an expensive week! Haha. Here are a few of the things I've been up to this week in a photo montage:

Visiting Te Papa museum in Wellington with some friends from Kiwi Experience (me, Marlin, Kate, Victoria, and Dipesh)

Chillin' with miss Charlotte on Tuesday night (Muppet Show movie night)

The gang together again! Fish and Charlotte, Kirsten, Sam, Rich, and me :o)

A visit to Hutt Valley High School! So wonderful. :o)

Taking the train into Wellington from the Woburn station (right by HVHS - this was the station I caught the train at every Tuesday for Wellington Youth Choir rehearsal in '07)

Out for dinner with some WYC friends (Evie, Imogen, Isaac)

Rockin' out at karaoke (Emily and Evie)

Hanging out at karaoke with Dom

Reuniting with some of my former HVHS students (all of whom have graduated and are now at uni, 2 studying music, 1 in photographic design, 1 in English literature, and 1 in media productions)

OH! And these next pictures require some further explanation.... last night, Kirsten, Rich, and I went out for dinner. We had initially tried to go to the Hog's Breath Cafe, which turned out to be closed down. So, the backup plan was to head to the Cadillac Diner, a nice little 50s themed American diner.

We ordered a couple 50s diner-type drinks, in the spirit of the evening:

Shortly after our arrival to the diner, we realized that they were filming a restaurant make-over show there that night, and we were asked if we would be willing to appear in some of the footage. We agreed, thinking that we'd be in background scenes, like extras, etc. As it turns out, they had cameras and mics and everything right at our table when we were ordering, and they even interviewed us after our meals. The show will be airing on TV-3 (I think?) in September or October. Stay tuned to see whether my super articulate comment about the "thematically appropriate" decor of the restaurant makes the cut (how embarrassing). Haha. I was quite awkward about it all... while I was on camera, they said they thought they could detect an accent, and I said "Yes, but it's not American! I'm Canadian." The lady interviewing proceeded immediately to ask me how the diner stacked up to the American diners at home, to which I awkwardly replied, "I don't know.... I haven't been to many American diners.... I live in CANADA...." Oh geez. Haha. Here's to hoping I don't make it on TV in a couple months. :op

Today Kirsten and I spent the whole day shopping. I spent about $350, although to be fair, $117 of that was spent on international postcard stamps. Haha. I also bought 2 pairs of jeans (one full-length and one pair of cute cuffed capris), a new dress shirt, a pair of hot pink peep-toe heels with a bow on the toe (SO cute), a pair of black boots with a bit of a heel on them (that make me feel somewhat sassy when I wear them, even under jeans), and a duffel bag that I can check on the flight home because I can't fit everything in my backpack anymore. Haha. Busy day at the mall for sure!

I then went to St. James Church to sing with Fiona and her mom in the church choir for a farewell to Ros, their pastor (I'm assuming?) who has been there since 1983 and is now moving from Lower Hutt. It was a total fluke that the timing of it worked out like it did; I didn't think I was going to have the chance to sing in the choir again, as I'm not catching any Sunday mornings in the Hutt during this entire trip. Anyway, it was great to see the choir/church people and to sing with Fish again. And a nice little added bonus to the afternoon was when I got to spend some time with Charlotte as she plunked away at the piano. So cute!

So tomorrow morning it's off to Queenstown for some more crazy adventure travels. I'm doing the Nevis bungy on Tuesday, which is actually quite terrifying. My legs feel weak when I think about it. Haha. Now THAT will be an impressive DVD to show when I get home, I'm sure. Stay tuned for more updates from my travels around the south island! I'll be in Q-town until Wednesday, then it's off to Christchurch for Wed. night, off to Kaikoura on Thursday, then back to Wellington again on Friday! I'll spend Fri/Sat with Fish and Sam, then I'll be off on my tour of the east cape before heading back to Auckland. I'm over half way through my trip now, and as always, I'm having lots of amazing times but still missing Jeff and mom and dad, and of course Karyn and the musical beans. I will be happy to get back when it's time to head home. :o)

See you on the south island!

3D ultrasound and lots of happy tears

What a day! Where do I begin?

Last night I went out with a group of WYC friends (Evie, Dom, Emily, Isaac, and Imogen) and had a great time. We went for dinner at La Casa Pasta, then hit up some karaoke at Club K across the street. Dom and I went out dancing after everyone else went home, and I finally called it a night around 1am. I stayed at a backpackers hostel in the city last night, as the buses don't run back to the Hutt late enough for me to get home. Anyway, I set my alarm for 8am so that I'd have lots of time to get up, check out of my hostel, take the train back to the Hutt, and take the bus back to Kelson and to Kirsten's house where I could comfortably watch Karyn's 3D ultrasound broadcast, which was scheduled for 6pm Wednesday night (noon Thursday here).

The whole morning was a comedy of errors, really. I walked half an hour from my hostel to the train station, only to find out that I had missed the train by 5 minutes. The trains only come every half hour, so I had to wait until 11:05am for the next train to Lower Hutt. No worries, I can still make it home on time, I'm thinking. I catch the train, and as soon as it pulls up to Waterloo Station I get out and run to catch the bus to Kelson... which came and went only TWO MINUTES before the train got to the station. The next bus to Kelson comes at 11:59am, and takes about 20 minutes to get home. This won't do.

(It's raining, by the way.)

I decide to walk to Queensgate, the mall in Lower Hutt, to catch some wireless from Gloria Jean's Coffee (they MUST have wireless, right?). I'm walking through the rain with my backpack, I can feel my socks getting wet through my shoes, and I'm stepping all over the bottom of my jeans..... but I HAVE to get to somewhere with internet access for noon so I can see Karyn's live ultrasound broadcast. Period.

After walking in the rain for 15 more minutes, I get to Queensgate to find out that Gloria Jean's doesn't have wireless. It's now 10 to 12. I try another coffee shop in Queensgate, no luck. By this point I'm in tears, thinking that I'm going to miss this whole thing after a nearly 2-hour attempt to get home to the internet, and 2 missed public transit attempts. I'm frustrated, I'm soggy, and I JUST NEED WIRELESS ACCESS!!!!

I finally make it to Starbucks across from Queensgate. They have internet! Hallelujia! I pay for an internet code, and I sit down at 12:05 thinking I'll tune in a bit late, but much to my delight, the broadcast is late in starting. Perfect! I ended up catching the whole thing from start to finish. It was AMAZING. I took a bunch of screen shots while I was watching, and here are a few of my favourites:

Head on! I heard Karyn laugh out loud when she saw this view (I think I heard her say "AWWWW!" too).

BIIIIIIIG YAWN! :o)

K let's be honest here.... this one looks like the killer mask from the movie "Scream." (Am I right???) (Check it out here for comparison)

Yay! The babies have ribs! Haha.

A lovely little profile. :o)

Cute little face! :o)

And how did Auntie Lauren hold up through all of this, you may wonder? Well, let's put it this way: I had only been watching for about 5 minutes when one of the guys who works at Starbucks came over and gave me some napkins to dry my eyes and nose and everything else that was watering as I sobbed at my computer. They even turned off the music so I could hear what they were saying during the ultrasound. :o)

(Are you crying yet, mom?) :o)

A bit of business, plus updates from the Hutt!

Hey guys at home. I need a bit of help. I keep trying to pay my Sasktel cell phone bill but every time I try to load the e-bill page it times out (this has happened from a few different cities in NZ now). Is there any way that one of you (mom, dad, Karyn, etc?) could sign in to my account for me and pay my bill with my credit card? I can call you and give you the card info. But yeah, I'm still not home for another 3 weeks and I want to get that sorted before I get home.

Also, if you happened to do the calculations on what I just said there ("I'm still not home for another 3 weeks"), you would notice that I changed my flights coming home to August 10th instead of the 16th. Basically I am having an insane fun time here, but I already did the Kiwi Experience tour of the south island 3 years ago so I'm cutting that part short (just flying to Q-town, bussing to Christchurch, Kaikoura, and back up to Wellington rather than doing the whole west coast again), still doing everything else that I had planned, but coming home nearly a week early. Call me crazy for leaving NZ early, but I just really, really miss Jeff. Also, I definitely like the fact that now I will have almost a week extra of ACTUAL summer holidays with (YAY!) warm weather!!!! Anyway, I changed my flights yesterday and am quite happy about the new plan. I also booked a flight to Queenstown so I will still get the ol' bungy and Canyon Swing adventures in.

Yesterday I took the bus to HVHS to pop a surprise visit on the teachers I worked with 3 years ago. It was so fantastic to see them! I had a good catch up with Katriona and said a quick hello to Gary, but tomorrow I'm going back in in the afternoon to say hi to the Year 12 music class, who were my students when they were in Year 9 (grade 8). I saw a couple of them yesterday, and one of them walked in the room and was like, "Miss Campbell?!" Definitely not expecting to see me, that's for sure. It was great to see her, although the students that I saw yesterday looked so grown up - when I had them they were about 13, and now they're 16, so they've definitely changed. It's so neat to see them again, and I'm really looking forward to the visit to the whole class tomorrow!

Last night we had Fish, Sam, Charlotte, and Richard over for pizza and a movie night of "The Muppet Show" (just like the "good old days"). It was SO good to have everyone together again. We Skyped Jeff (it was his birthday yesterday!) and Charlotte was very enthralled with the computer screen and seeing Jeff there. She kept pointing to it saying "What's that?" and at one point she got really excited when she noticed Sam's face in the little video window. She kept pointing at it and saying "DAD!" when Sam was trying to have a conversation about rugby with Jeff. Pretty funny actually. She's so cute!

Anyway, it's 4:46am here and I technically was just getting up from the couch, where I had fallen asleep hours earlier, and was just heading off to bed. So this has been your middle-of-the-night update from NZ. It's quarter to 11am back home, so if you're reading this, good morning! Hope you had a good sleep. :o)

Picture updates to come. :o)

Bungy video!

Guess who's in Wellington....

.... and going to see Fish and Sam in less than 10 minutes? THIS GIRL RIGHT HERE! So excited! It has been nearly 3 years since I've seen them, and I'm sitting here at the Base backpackers in Welly, waiting for them to pick me up... which should be in like 5-10 minutes. YAYAYAYYYYY!

Also, white water rafting today in River Valley was so amazing! I was in the front of the boat so I got drenched thoroughly... will write more about it soon! Gotta run though, as my internet cost goes by 15 minutes and if I want to avoid paying more I have to sign out now! Catch you again soon! More pics to come soon too (unfortunately I didn't get any of the rafting but I've got others to share!).

Hi from River Valley!

My internet will expire in 2 minutes but I wanted to say hi from the middle of nowhere! I'm at a scenic log cabin on the Rangitekei River, and tomorrow I will be white water rafting down its grade 5 rapids! Holy crap! Gotta run!

B-U-N-G- WHY? Cause we GOTTA!

Check another one off the bucket list! I did my first bungy jump today in Taupo with a friend I made on the Kiwi Experience bus, Jade from England. We were both keen to try a bungy, so we decided to do the tandem jump, which was actually called "Couples Therapy." We definitely got a laugh out of the name. The laughter soon turned to nervous giggles and quivery-voiced profanities as we shuffled our feet over to the edge of the bungy platform. I can't really tell you how crazy it looks when you're actually up there and looking down, knowing that you're about to (willingly!) jump off. It sure seems a lot higher looking down than it would if you were just standing on the bank across the river watching somebody jump. I also wore one of Brent's "Badd Habbits" band t-shirts, which he gave me when we met up in Vancouver on my layover en route to NZ. I promised him I'd do some advertising in NZ for him! Voila! :o)

Smiling for the camera before taking the plunge off the platform

Screaming madly as we jumped off

Mid-jump shot from across the river

I've been waiting for a whopping 2 1/2 hours for the video to upload to my blog, but I really can't be bothered to sit here any longer so I've canceled the upload and will try again later! It's so painfully slow... and my patience has run out! Peace out until next time! Love you guys!

Photo updates from Taupo

Kia ora from Taupo! We're actually working backwards in time with these photos, but that's how they uploaded and these pictures are taking AGES to upload on these slow hostel computers.

So, I did my first sky dive today and lived to tell the tale! Here I am jumping out of the plane, 15,000 feet above Lake Taupo.



The whole experience was surprisingly less scary (but WAY more painful) than I had expected. The freefall really hurt my ears to the point that I didn't really enjoy the first minute of the jump, save for the first few seconds where I screamed bloody murder with adrenaline and the realization that I had just jumped out of a perfectly good plane from well above the clouds. The view was amazing though!!!!


And here are a couple more photos from the past couple days. I had intended to upload one of us in the Waitomo Ruakuri cave, but for some reason it didn't show up and I can't be bothered to spend any more time trying to get it on here at the moment, as it is 11pm at home and I'd like to call Jeff before he goes to bed. In any case, here are a few pics for you viewers at home!:

Tamaki Tours Maori cultural show in Rotorua (2 night ago)

A tiki statue in Tamaki Maori village - Rotorua

A scenic walk at the Karangahake Gorge - 2-3 days ago (?)

More pictures and updates later! I will write a good post on the black water caving tomorrow or even later tonight. It has been the highlight of my trip so far for sure!!! I hope all is well back home. I will check in again soon!

A post-luging update from Rotorua

So I finally got my pictures uploaded from my camera to my external hard drive... and wouldn't you know, now I can't upload pics from my hard drive to my blog! Gah. I will be very happy when I become reunited with my computer.

Speaking of my computer, do you want to know something funny? The computer will arrive in Lower Hutt this week. Guess how much my credit card was charged for to FedEx it (economy rate)? TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS AND SIX CENTS. Holy crap. I honestly just have to laugh at it, because the other alternative is to cry, and really, what fun is that? SOOOO expensive. I will keep it very very close to me for the rest of the trip, I can assure you that! Haha.

So I'm writing this post from the Base Hot Rocks backpackers in Rotorua. I spent the afternoon luging with a group of 6 or 7 Kiwi Exp bus friends, and actually managed to successfully record a video of an entire luge run down the advanced track from my makeshift "helmet cam" (which just consisted of my own regular camera, heavily taped to the front of my helmet with maple leaf print packing tape).

Oh, what do you know? This computer JUST recognized that I wanted to upload pics... SO SLOW! Haha. Here's one of us luging earlier this afternoon:


Anyway, I just noticed the time. We're heading out to our Tamaki tours evening in about 20 minutes so I'd better run. I need to get spruced up for the big event! I'm sure I will take heaps of pictures. My camera battery is charging up in my hostel room as we speak.

Thanks again for all the blog comments, guys. I will continue to update with pics as often as I can! I took some amazing scenic shots at Cathedral Cove yesterday so would love to share a couple of those when I have the time.

Cheerio until tomorrow!

Updates from Whitianga

Hello all! I am safely in Whitianga (Mercury Bay) and I have 6 minutes and 35 seconds of Internet time now that I've checked my e-mail and facebook briefly. Internet here is expensive but I know I haven't updated for a couple days so I thought I'd check in.

I had my first (and hopefully only) homesick breakdown today. 2 lovely girls in my hostel room came in and saw me crying so they brought me Kleenex and visited with me. I told them that I missed home and Jeff and my adorably pregnant sister, etc. etc. and they lifted my spirits. We've just finished a hearty meal of spaghetti bolognese, cooked by our hosts here at the Turtle Cove Backpackers, and we're about to play some pool and go out for drinks a bit later on. Tomorrow we're on to Rotorua, which means zorbing (yay!... although COLD at this time of year!), and then an authentic Maori hangi tomorrow night. For those of you not familiar with the Maori culture, a "hangi" (which translates to "earth oven") is a traditional meal that is cooked underground by hot rocks. We are in for a great evening I think, with good food, good company, and of course a performance of singing, dancing, poi, and a haka by the boys.

I have less than 3 minutes of Internet here so I'd better wrap it up and submit this post before it gets lost! I'm sure Rotorua will have better Internet access, as we are staying at another Base Backpackers location, and they provide internet through Global Gossip, which is pretty reliable and widespread around here. This computer here is coin operated, and I just got a warning message! See you tomorrow!

A chilly hello from Paihia!

I wanted to update with a few more pictures from my day in Paihia today but the computer here was having issues and freezing up so I'm going to save that for a bit later on down the road (literally).

I hopped on the Kiwi Experience bus today at 7:00am in Auckland and headed up to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. It's gorgeous here, although chilly with the wind coming off of the ocean. We got checked into our hostel (the "Pipi Patch" Base Backpackers) and I picked up a few groceries from the Four Square a few streets over, then I headed out on a cruise to the famous "hole in the rock" with a few friends I met earlier today on the bus. It was really neat, but very cold! There were a few funny moments on the trip, too - like when a little boy silently befriended me on the boat. He kept coming to see me and he'd look up at me with these big eyes, I'd say hi, and he'd carry on. Finally he came back and pointed to my purse. His mom saw this happening and explained to me that she keeps her cookies in her handbag and so her son thinks that every purse should have cookies in it for him. So cute and funny! I had another good laugh watching a man hold a granola bar above his head on the front end of the boat to tempt a seagull that had been hanging around. It kept diving down toward him and taking quick snaps at the granola bar. He had drawn quite a crowd, and after he had held it for a while, he passed it to his teenage daughter. She held it up and the seagull took only 2 snaps at it before he pulled the entire thing out of its wrapper and flew away with it! Clever bird!

Now I'm back in the hostel warming up, and I might actually top that off with a visit to the hot tub before supper (SO tempting!). They're cooking a BBQ supper here tonight and then we're all watching the rugby match on the big screen in our hostel's bar. All Blacks vs. South Africa. Keep your fingers crossed for NZ! I think they're the underdogs, but hey, you've gotta have a little faith!

Thanks for keeping up with the blog and for commenting. It's fun to know that people at home are reading this. I will post more pics when I can get them off my camera!

Minus 5 = So cool!

Voila! Here are the 2 pictures we could get inside the Minus 5 ice bar. We paid $16 NZD for these - big ol' tourist rip off, but we weren't allowed to take cameras inside so the bartender took our pics and we bought them on the way out! Check it out - even our glasses were made from solid ice!

(Me, Jude, and her brother Peter)

A day at Mt. Maunganui

Jude and I spent the morning at Mt. Maunganui today. We walked around the mountain and went out for lunch in a nice little beachside cafe, then did a bit of shopping and headed back for Auckland. It's now 8:30pm and we're about to go out to Minus 5, the bar that is made entirely of ice! Should be a "cool" experience (ba doom TSSS!). I'll be sure to post a couple pics. Here are a few pictures of our day. :o)

(We saw this cute puppy on our walk around Martha Mine in Waihi and couldn't resist borrowing it from its owner for a picture! Her name is Bella.)

She had a frigid stare....

Random thought of the day:

Sleeping in a house with no central heat in the middle of winter is a brutal experience, especially for a Canadian who just came from a hot, humid summer climate. Even worse than that? Putting freezing cold contact lenses into your eyes. Not very comfortable.

Just your random thought for this morning. :o)

Post-Sky Jump updates!

Well folks, we did it! Jude and I jumped off the Auckland Sky Tower and survived! It was a really neat experience, and the nerves definitely got going when I stepped out onto the platform! The view was incredible, and the first couple seconds of freefall were pretty scary, but to tell you the truth I bet it'll actually prove to be pretty tame in comparison to some of the other things I have planned for this trip (sky diving, bungy jumping, etc.). I guess that remains to be seen! It was really neat, though, that after we finished our first jump they let us go back up for a free 2nd jump because they weren't busy and they wanted to keep the viewers in the observation deck entertained! Heh. 2 jumps for the price of one (or 4 for the price of 2, I suppose)! I will try to post videos later when I have a bit more time.

After the Sky Tower jump, Jude, her boyfriend Scott, and I went out for lunch with Jude's sister-in-law at a cute little coffee shop just down the road from the Sky Tower. We then went shopping a bit on Queen Street before heading out to Tauranga to visit Roger Stevenson, our former Wellington Youth Choir director. It was SO wonderful to see him again. His wife Denise cooked us an amazing meal, and we stayed over there for about 4-5 hours just visiting, singing, playing piano, and catching up after 3 years apart. It was just awesome.

Now I'm sitting at Jude's sister's place in Tauranga, FREEEEEZING my butt off (how could I forget the uber low temperatures inside New Zealand houses in the winter?!) and am about ready to head to bed. We've had the heater and electric blankets warming up in the bedroom for a couple hours, so it's just about time to climb in there and drift off for the night. I've had an amazing first day in New Zealand and can't wait for more adventures to come! I even fit in a pub quiz at Cardrona Ale House with Jude and Scott on the first night here (although I fell asleep on the table at about 9pm, as it would have been 3am back at home - still just adjusting to the time change!).

Here are a couple pics from our day!

Suited up and getting ready to jump

The view from the bottom

Posing in Paeroa with the giant Lemon & Paeroa bottle en route to visit Roger

A journey of misadventures

.... it can only go up from here, right?

Here, in point form, is how my past 24 hours has panned out:

- enjoyed an uneventful (although somewhat uncomfortable) flight from Saskatoon to Calgary
- flight to Vancouver was comfy and all was well
- met up with Brent in Vancouver and enjoyed an evening out on my 4-hour layover - had supper and drinks, and met a member of his band at the Foggy Dew pub in Richmond
- Brent gets turned around on the would-be 10-minute drive to the airport, which turns into 30 minutes (don't worry, Brent, I don't blame you!  Richmond looked confusing - thanks for the ride and the good company!).  I make it just in time to board, but still 40 minutes before departure (I know you are cringing, mom).  At this point, things are all good.
- I get stopped by Canada Customs in a "randomly selected" process of questioning, making me more rushed to get on that plane
- I take off for Australia, and only realize 2 hours into the flight that I left my MacBook in security in Vancouver.  Woop de freaking doo.  This is awesome.
- I sit for 16 uncomfortable hours on a plane in which I have no working reading light nor TV screen.  I switch to a seat further back that is open and attempt to watch "Alice in Wonderland" but the man beside me is burly so his arms are touching me and his reading light is shining directly into my eyes.  The blasting air conditioning isn't awesome either.  I return to my original seat.
- a flight attendant tries to reset my TV/reading light 3 times but to no avail.  I move to another seat further back in the plane, watch one episode of "30 Rock" on TV, then get booted out by the woman who had moved from that seat hours earlier to sit closer to her husband.  Apparently her seat doesn't recline and she doesn't like to watch TV sitting up.  I move back to my original seat again.
- Realizing that I still have 6 hours on this plane, with no TV and now no computer, nor anyone I know to talk to to pass the time, I start crying.   A caring young mother offers me chocolate, which I refuse (with a teary laugh).  An even more caring flight attendant talks to the crew, tells them about my crappy day, and offers the crew seats at the back of the plane to me so I can at least try to get some sleep or watch a movie.  I accept, and enjoy a couple hours of sleep.
- the aforementioned caring flight attendant (named Yvonne) wakes me up, and guiltily tells me that another crew member is going on break and needs to try to sleep, but I'm in her seat.  I move yet again, to the 5th seat I've attempted on this flight.  I watch a couple TV shows, sleep a bit, and then the announcement comes over the intercom that we are preparing to begin our descent into Sydney after 16 fairly ridiculous hours.
- I take off my seat belt to try to get a picture of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House out the window and get chewed out by a member of the flight crew.  Bitterly, I buckle my seatbelt and sit still for the last 10 minutes of descent into Australia.  What a freaking day!  At least I got the picture! :o)

Soooo, long story short, I'm here in Sydney safely, I don't have a computer but the airport officials have all of my information and should be able to get the computer back to me.  Whether that means I will have to wait for 6 weeks and pick it up in Vancouver, or if they can ship it to Wellington and have it waiting there for me, I have no idea.  I will have to wait to find that much out.

Also, when attempting to watch TV, my iPod headphones broke right inside my ear.  Just to add to the ridiculousness of the day.

The most ironic part of this whole ordeal?  I had JUST been reading my "Smart Traveller's Passport" book of travel tips en route to Vancouver, and one of them was along the lines of "Airport security officials say that they have several laptop computers left in security screening areas.  Tape a business card to the bottom of your computer so it can be sent back to you if such a thing should happen in your travels."  I remember reading that and thinking, "That's a good idea.  I will put an address label on my computer when I get to Auckland.  But really, who would forget their COMPUTER at security?!"  Hah.  Guess I know now.  It had been in my backpack all day, but I had to take it out for screening and was in such a rush what with the little detour en route to the airport, the Canada Customs dealio, etc.  Ahh well.  Internet cafes, it is.  For now.  Hopefully temporarily.

On the bright side, I'm almost finding this funny now.  It should be a comedy skit or something.  "Baby Griswold Goes to New Zealand."  At least tomorrow I will be jumping off the Auckland Sky Tower with Jude and heading to Tauranga for supper with Roger from WYC!  Life is good, and this trip HAS to get better from here.

(*crosses fingers*)

Let the (good) adventures begin!  (The bad ones are getting old already!)

Hello from Calgary!

Here I am in the Calgary airport, ready to board for Vancouver. I will be meeting Brent in Vancouver for supper, as I have a 4-hour layover and am already checked in for my flight to Sydney. I unfortunately got booked into a middle seat for the 15 1/2 hour flight from Vancouver to Sydney, even though I requested an aisle seat. Hopefully the flight won't be full and I'll be able to snag an open aisle seat.

I can't believe I'm actually on my way! It hasn't sunk in yet. In fact, leaving Jeff for 6 weeks didn't sink in until we were looking for a parking spot outside the restaurant last night (we went for supper with mom, dad, and Karyn), when I unexpectedly burst into tears. We had a nice evening and a good day today, and then I cried again before we went to the airport. Fortunately, we saw a teacher he works with in the Saskatoon airport (on her way to London) so we chatted with her until it was time for me to go through security, which was a really nice distraction, so there were no tears at the gate.

Just heard my boarding call! Better run. More updates asap.

IMC pics and NZ on Monday!

Here are a few photo highlights from the week at IMC so far. I am having an awesome time here (as always), working with some crazy fantastic people, and really enjoying having 3 of my own band students with me. I'd post pics of them in their super cute matching Canadian shirts, but privacy laws don't allow it. Ah well! Here are a few other pics from the week in any case:

It hasn't actually hit me yet that in only 3 days I will be heading over to New Zealand. I'm still in such an IMC mode - and, in fact, the reality of heading to IMC didn't hit me until we were half an hour from camp! Prior to this week I was so focussed on finishing report cards, marking final exams, doing band instrument inventory, etc. that I barely even had time to get excited. So now, on a logical level, I know that I'm going to New Zealand soon, but it probably won't hit me until I'm boarding the plane in Saskatoon! Or maybe even Vancouver. :op

I booked my Auckland Sky Jump for next Thursday morning (Wednesday afternoon in our time zone), so Jude and I will be doing that together very soon! Then it's off to visit Roger in Tauranga - SO EXCITED! Will update lots from NZ. Crazy to think that the next blog post might be from across the Pacific! Or more realistically, from an airport when I'm crazy bored. :op Til then!

Last day of schoooooool!

As the title would suggest, it's the last day of school and the students start writing final exams on Monday. I can't believe how fast this year has gone! It has been a great one though, full of funny moments and wonderful memories. My band program has grown so much this year, not necessarily in numbers but in successes. My Level 2 band got the elementary band scholarship from our local Music Festival for the first time in our school's history (yay!), my senior band tackled Ralph Vaughn Williams' "English Folk Song Suite" and actually performed it at our final concert, my Level 1 band rocked out the concert with 2 pieces that had been played by higher level bands earlier in the year, and my Level 3s played Percy Grainger's "Shepherd's Hey" beautifully (something I had always wanted to teach to a band). Students played solos and duets, in and out of school, students won Music Festival scholarships for their performances, we featured duets at our concert, senior band performed at Unifest in Saskatoon, senior choir performed for senior citizens at Pineview and Mont St. Joseph's.... I could go on! This year was musically one of the best.

This afternoon is our final assembly here at the school, and my senior band is playing a South African song called "Ipharadisi," on which we will be joined by younger students (mostly grades 7-8) playing African drums and singing. The senior choir is singing "Hands" by Jewel for the final prayer, and then will be entertaining the audience with "Don't Stop Believin'" from Glee. After the assembly we will clean out our classrooms and head off for the weekend! Unreal. Where did this year go?!

It's finally starting to sink in that this year is almost over and that I am actually heading to IMC next Saturday. Then to NZ the Monday after that. Too too crazy! I can't wait!

The countdown is SO on!

Today is June 16th. June 16th is exactly 2 weeks until the end of the month. After June comes July. On July 5th, I jump on a plane to New Zealand. So, if I can do the math correctly, in exactly 19 days, I will be on my way to kiwi land FOR REAL! After 2+ years of planning it and talking about it, it is finally almost here! This is actually crazy. I still have lots to do before I can say I'm "ready" to go (practice packing my backpack and make sure I have enough room for clothes, i.e. cutting out half of what I think I need to bring, fill prescriptions, hopefully find my favourite pair of glasses which I somehow misplaced in the last few weeks, etc.), but otherwise I'm very excited and ready to see everyone again after nearly 3 years!

In other exciting travel news, Jeff and I booked our Mexico vacation a couple weeks ago! We are spending 10 days in and around Cancun at Easter, and we booked a bunch of fantastic day trips and other excursions. We got a great deal on it too, and I ended up paying for the whole thing with money I made selling bags! It only took me a couple hundred hours of sewing too! Haha. What a deal!

It's now 7:15am and I am about to start getting ready for work. I can hardly believe we're almost at the end of the year! I teach today, then tomorrow I'm out on a field trip with our Grade 7s, then I teach Friday morning, then done! Friday afternoon is our final assembly/classroom clean up, then we have all next week to write finals. Next (next) Saturday (June 26th) I'm heading off to music camp with 3 of my students as well, so the time is flying by at warp speeds, as it tends to do in June. This year in general has gone really fast, in fact. I have been counting down to IMC/New Zealand for ages, and I almost can't believe how close they are!

LOVE!

PS - Nice new template, hey? Much better than that old green one! ;o)