Week round-up and off we go!

It took all the restraint I could muster not to drive over to peek at Ellie before 12:30 on Friday, but I managed it. When I arrived to pick her up, she was fine, 100% fine, totally happy and herself. WHEW. I know I'm a worrywart and I should be more excited for her than nervous, but it's a mama-thing to fret. She did very well. She assured me that she even ate dinner although she didn't like the food (wish that happened at home!). Of course, exhaustion didn't take long to rear its ugly head. She walked into walls and cried. She colored, didn't like the outcome and cried. After dinner, she picked up a different color marker than she had intended and...CRIED like her heart was broken. We carried her to bed, and she slept quite well through the night. Poor kiddo. But she was one very proud kiddo, proud of her big accomplishment of making it through the night without us to brush her hair or brush her teeth or read her a story. We're proud of her too.

Next up: NEW ZEALAND! We are off to New Zealand tomorrow (HOORAY!) for two weeks! I think Markus and I have been itching to go to New Zealand since we first saw Lord of the Rings (gorgeous locations!), and now we are going! Ideally, we'd go when the girls are older, but we imagine that we will live much further away then. Relative to the US or Europe, New Zealand is right on our doorstep from Perth. Now that we are beyond diapers and daytime naps (ok, I still like daytime naps), we decided to just go!

Tomorrow night, we'll take a direct flight from Perth to Auckland, arriving in Auckland just before 6am their time. We'll fly on from there to Wellington, stopping over for a few days to check out the city. Then, we'll fly to the top end of the south island, spending a few days in and around Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park. From there, we'll fly back to Auckland, hang out for a couple of days and then drive up to the Bay of Islands at the top end of the north island for four days. I am so excited!

If you know New Zealand, you know the south island is where it's at for action and adventure, but our reality with two young children is more observation and play. One very clued-up guide book suggested young families bypass the south island as not to tease the adults. We accept this wisdom and will try to limit ourselves to some form of reality around Nelson. As it is, this is the first holiday we've taken with the girls where we'll move them around so much. I tried to book accommodation carefully, always providing us with a kitchenette and sometimes with a nice little cottage so we can keep it simple when we want or need to do so. For now, I'm off to start organizing our packing. It will be quite the temperature change for us, and I'm guessing we will be quite cold after our record-hot Perth summer. Today is another debilitating 36 degrees. In New Zealand, the highest forecast is 18. Big change! Hooray! I'll post and share when I can.

Want a postcard?