Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

If there was one word to describe 2015, it might be hectic, or depleting or full (but good full). (So technically I got away with choosing three words... and I guess the last two contradict each other but well that was the year.) There was plenty going on in our lives from all angles and we certainly grew and adapted and practiced patience. We had both ends of the spectrum from good times and great laughs, to tears and exhaustion - though that's probably accurate to say about most years. January was busy with summer activities and preparations for a February wedding on the South Island . The wedding gave us an excuse to take a week or so off and cruise around a little . Dustin brewed (and served!) beer for the wedding and I decorated the cake(s) . It was a great time with good friends and lots of adventures and kiwi birds and glow golf at night. Then we took a somewhat-impromptu trip to see the Foo Fighters and Rise Against in Auckland which was an incredible show. Then it

Busy news day today! We are going to go camping on Christmas. How novel! The sun has come out and what better way to spend Christmas than relaxing at a beachside campground! We'll try to remember to take some photos! Love to you all for Christmas!

This is just to accompany my post from the other week about our dolphin tour . I chopped down all of our video footage to a mere nine minutes or so... it was quite a task!

Morning dog walks at sunrise. The new art gallery opening. Punk rocker lemons. And of course, Porter, Porter, Porter! Playing with his mate, Kui. Learning to drive, he's growing up so fast.

Back in March (I'm slowly catching up!) Dustin's mom came out to visit us for a few weeks! We stayed in town a fair bit but we did take a couple little trips out. The first, of course, was driving down to Whanganui to pick up dear Porter! It was a lovely sunny day and we had lunch down by the river there so it was a little tour for Lena as she hadn't been there before. We stopped in Stratford for the glockenspiel show... it was, um, Shakespearean? Then we went to a St Patrick's Day party that our friends have every year (it goes for like 3 days but we only went to one evening of it). After that we hit the road going north. We had booked a bach in Whangamata for a few nights and wanted to show Lena some of the Coromandel. It's about a six hour drive (well, with stops) and because it's the east coast, the beaches have regular golden sand, not the black sands of Taranaki. The town is quite small and we've visited a couple times before

Yet another amazing part of the South Island trip was the chance to see real live kiwis! The back part of the property where the wedding was held is a kiwi creche where they bring babies for their first couple months and it has a predator proof fence so they are safe while they grow. After that they are released into the wild. Lucky for us there were a few of them that had been there for a few weeks. We got to bring them food and then sat quietly and watched with a big red light (if doesn't freak them out like a regular flashlight does). Of course the videos from that aren't the best... We had to be so quiet and ever so still as they were very skittish. Once they braved coming close to us, we could barely breathe without causing them to run back into hiding. It was quiet amazing to watch and patience was key. On the wedding day, one of the caretakers took groups of people to see the kiwis in the daytime because she had to catch them for a checkup. So I missed some of the

So, the main event we travelled South in February for was the wedding of Bridget and Andy (and known in short on text messages as Brandy). Andy's folks have a golf course/B&B and they hosted an amazing event. We went early to help set up and got to explore the local area a little too! We had a blast and just thought I'd share a few photos. The stories are numerous and some are funny but this post is mostly about photos :) Beautiful place to get married! It had rained and rained in the days leading up to it but it was nice for the big day! I made the cake(s) - it was just going to be the middle one but there was so much cake, I didn't want to waste any! The rowdy New Plymouth guests... um, that's not a joke. I wasn't kidding about the bonfire! The biggest rope swing I think I've seen! It was pretty scary. Especially at night. Our little yellow tent. Many of the guests camped out on the property, it was great. Da