Facebook

Ok, I have a confession to make. I haven't been putting all my time to “good use", like I claimed in my last post. I actually have been wasting a lot of time on Facebook too. I just can't help myself. I mean it has been so cool reconnecting with old high school, college, mission friends, etc... I even found an old pen pal from England that I used to write to and even visited one summer when I was in middle school. So if you don’t already have enough things draining all your time, you should join facebook. And don’t forget to invite me to be your friend. :-)

Quilt

I’ve been MIA from blogger lately, but no worries, I’ve been putting my time to good use. My sister, Mariah, and I have been busy making quilts. We decided to do a calendar quilt (one quilt block for each month) and if I do say myself, they have turned out really cute. I have also really enjoyed making it. I got all my blocks sewn together except for March (St. Patrick’s Day) and I thought I would have to wait until the beginning of the new year to buy St. Patrick’s Day fabric, but it seems like the retail gods want us to celebrate all the holidays months in advance before they really happen, so we were able to get the fabric the last week of November. I’m not done with the quilt yet, I still need to put a backing on it and quilt it, but I thought it was cute and wanted to show it off. :-) I’m working on another quilt, so if anyone wants to come over and sew with me, I’ve got extra room at my table.

Free Chicken is totally worth it!

So if any of you were outside last night, hopefully you were at home snug in a toasty bed, but if you weren't, you know how cold it was, a freezing 28 degrees. Well me and a group of dedicated chicken lovers braved the weather and slept out in the West Jordan Chick Fil A parking lot so that we could each get ourselves 52 free combo meals. Some of you may be saying to yourself didn't she already do this once, and the answer is "yes" at the South Jordan grand opening of Chick Fil A, so for a similar account of our experience last night, you can read about it here, just remember it was about 30 degrees colder. However there were a few difference between last time and this time and here they are.
This time I was joined by the regulars, my brother and sister-in-law, Brian and Pam Slade, but some newbies joined us too, my husband, Mike (so together we got 104 coupons, a value of over $500), my sister, Mariah, her husband, Nick and my older brother, William. A lot more people must have been aware of this Grand Opening because the line reached 100 people by 6:30pm and at the South Jordan grand opening the 100th person didn't check in until around 10:00pm. Because of the unexpected crowds we were on the phone telling everyone to rush over or they weren't going to get a spot, luckily everyone made it and the last one in our group to check in was #97.
The night and sleeping were the same, except for a lot, lot colder. I have to give a special shout out to Brian and Pam for keeping us from freezing. They let us sleep in their tent, use all the propane in their heaters and use their toe warmers. I would have frozen if it weren't for all that. Brian and Pam set up two tents, one had a couple of propane space heaters in it that kept it really warm, so we sat in there and talked and played card games until it was time for bed. In the other tent were our beds. We all snuggled up in our sleeping bags with blankets piled on top of us with our hats, scarves and gloves still on and tried to get some sleep.
In the morning we got in line and ran through the store cheering that it was finally open and glad to get our coupons. I had some cash on me and they asked who wanted to be the first customer, so I went up to the counter and ordered the first thing ever in the West Jordan Chick Fil A. They asked me to sign the dollar, so maybe they will hang it on and wall and I will be famous.
Anyway, hopefully these coupons will last longer than my other ones. I only have 4 coupons left from the South Jordan grand opening and it was less than 6 months ago.


Heidi, Brian and I trying to stay warm in the tent.


Willy is ready for Chick Fil A to be open!

Happy Halloween

We enjoyed celebrating Halloween throughout the month of October. We went to a super fun Halloween party where we dressed up as a corpse bride and a mortician.

(People were asking me if this was my wedding dress, it wasn't. I hope I didn't look that frumpy on my wedding day.)


We played Guitar Hero and a fun new game called Werewolves of Miller Hollow. It's a really fun game for a big group of people.







We also invited Nick and Mariah over one night to carve pumpkins.

How do you get rid of hiccups?

For the past two nights I've gotten hiccups right before I've gone to bed. Weird huh? Whenever I get the hiccups I always remember hearing a story about a person who got the hiccups one day and then couldn't get rid of them. I wouldn't want that to happen to me, that would be really annoying to go around hiccuping all the time. Anyway they've gone away for the night, hope they don't come back again tomorrow.

SYTYCD Concert Tour

As I've stated before on this blog I'm a huge fan of SYTYCD (So You Think You Can Dance). When my friend, Michelle, and I heard the dancers were coming to Salt Lake City as part of the National Tour, we knew we had to get tickets. Michelle bought the tickets and got us great seats on the 12th row. Last night was the concert and we had a great time, except for coming home deaf in one ear. (You know you're getting old when you want the music turned down.) It was so much fun to see our favorite dancers, oh that Will has got one hot bod, and watch all the best dances from the season. For those of you who didn't watch this season, there were three people from Utah who made it and they did a great job representing. I'm tellin' ya people, if you missed the show this summer, you need to make sure you catch it next year. It's wonderful!!!!

OBX, North Carolina

Last week Mike and I went on a trip to North Carolina for some fun in the sun at the beach. My cousin Berkley (pictured below with his lovely wife, Meredith, and son, Tanner)

is a Dental student at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and each year of group of dental students get together and rent a beach house. This year they had an extra room in the house so Mike and I were invited along for the fun. The house rocked: the beach was in the back yard, it had a swimming pool and hot tub, a pool table, a room we dubbed the man lounge, because you could always find at least one guy in there watching the big screen TV or playing one of the gaming systems and it had an elevator. It was 8 bedrooms, 9.5 baths and a great place to spend the week. The beach was wonderful, soft sand and warm water.

Here are some of fun things we did. Each day we made sure to spend lots of time at the beach. We went boogie boarding and Mike and I built a sand castle.

After playing I worked on my tan. I also took a walk along the beach each day to enjoy the sun in my face and the wind in my hair. We made sure to watch lots of cable tv because we don't have cable at home. Our favorites stations were Comedy Central, the Discovery Channel and HGTV. We played Settlers of Catan and out of six games I won four of them. We went miniature golfing. We ate way too much and tried to get in at least one large cherry lime rickey from Sonic each day.
We did have one rainy day. Tropical storm Hanna came through on our last day. Luckily, it only rained in the morning and by the afternoon we were down at the beach again.



All in all, it was a very enjoyable vacation.

Degrees to Stephenie Meyer

Another Disclaimer: This is getting to the point of me being a little crazy, but really it is all in good fun.

So you know that game the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, where you can start with any actor/actress and within six people you are back at Kevin Bacon. Well in this post I am playing that game, but it is with Stephenie Meyer and instead of six degrees I am only two degrees away. That's right folks, today I met Jen Longman. Jen happens to be a really good friend of Stephenie Meyer, she is one of the Jen's who is acknowledged in the back of the book. It was so cool to talk to her and know that this same person has spoken with and hung out with Stephenie Meyer. :-) Some of the highlights of the conversation were that she has seen the movie. I guess a producer of Twilight flew out to AZ to show Stephenie a rough cut of the movie and she invited some of her friends to watch it. Another highlight and something I think is even better than seeing the movie is that Stephenie let Jen read all the chapters of Midnight Sun (the book from Edward's point of view) that she has finished so far. I LOVE Edward, so I am super excited for this book. Jen said that Stephenie is just like any normal friend; they go out to dinner, hang out and go shopping. If I can't personally be friends with Stephenie Meyer, I guess this is the next best thing. :-)


Me and Jen Longman


Jen is the one on the top right and Stephenie is in the middle on the bottom row.(Though you should all already know that.)

Addendum: For those of you dying to know how I met Jen Longman, here is the scoop. She is my friend's, sister-in-law's, sister. (Not complicated at all right!?!) I went to a birthday party over at my friend, Kristie's, house and since the family was invited, Julie (the sister-in-law) came and since Jen was visiting from AZ, she came to the party too.

Breaking Dawn

*Warning this Post contains spoilers*
(I love how that is on everything I read, so I thought I would add it to my blog too, because my post contains spoilers for Breaking Dawn and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.)


So I was talking to my sister, Rebecca and she said that while she was driving up to Park City last week she saw on one of those cross walks above the freeway where people are always writing notes in red cups the message "Bella Dies" I thought that was so funny. Had I not finished the book and seen the sign I would have freaked out. Last Saturday we went to my nephews baptism and some people were talking about the book and I had to ask them to stop because the lady kept talking about all this stuff that she heard happens in the book and it was making me really mad because I didn't want to know anything that happened. Side story: Back when Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came out I was listening to the radio one morning right after the book was released and some stupid radio DJ said that she heard that Dumbeldore dies. Anyway to make a long story short I wrote her a real nasty email because I hadn't finished the book yet and I didn't appreciate her ruining it for me, but back to my point, so I am really sensitive to when people say stuff about highly anticipated book so I just asked them nicely if they would stop talking about it which they did, so I was happy. But I digress… so for the Breaking Dawn book release I really didn't feel like going to Barnes and Noble and waiting around all night in that craziness (I did that last year), so at 11:30 I went down to Wal-Mart with my friend and by 12:15 or so we were out the door and ready to start reading. My official review of Breaking Dawn is that it was ok. I liked it better than Eclipse but not as much as Twilight or New Moon. One thing I did like about the book was that Bella finally turned into a Vampire. Something that really weirded me out was the whole vampire love child thing. I mean Bella was so freaked out about getting married at 18 because she was afraid of what people would thing but she was ok with having a kid? I’m sure people would talk more about you having a kid at 18 than getting married at 18. Anyway the girl has some issues that really bug me. I deal with her for Edward's sake; whatever makes him happy makes me happy… (Ha, I'm starting to sound crazy.) So my official review is that it was OK.

I got a job

I know, am I a complete sucker or what? I decided I might as well get paid to surf the internet as opposed to doing it for free at home. Ha-Ha (Don't tell my boss.) I am actually a really good worker. I am working for an insurance agency doing office work. I work three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (I figure I need a day in between to recoup.) Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

29 Big Ones

I need to update everyone on my Super Birthday Birthday, casue I know you are all dying to know how the festivities went, but I have just been so darn lazy lately and really don't feel like posting much. So here is the short and sweet version.




• Three days of celebration! That's right the Birthday Celebrations started on Friday and didn't end until Sunday.
• Birthday pedicures and dinner with the Beesley cousins on Friday Night.
• A Birthday pool party with old neighborhood friends on Saturday.
• A Birthday BBQ with the family.
• My Favorite gift was from my hubby, thanks Mike. It was the game Settlers of Catan. I love playing it.

4th of July Weekend

For the 4th of July we went up to my dad's cabin in Pinedale, WY. It has been over 3 years since I have been up there; the reason being is that my dad has been remodeling the place and I haven't wanted to go up while it is under construction. It is still under construction, (hopefully by the end of this summer it will be done) but we had so much fun that I am wondering why I didn't go up sooner. We went up Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday morning. Our days were spent enjoying the outdoors and we basically did whatever we wanted.


We spent at least part of everyday on the lake. We went skiing, wakeboarding and tubing. I like to wakeboard and it has also been a few years since I've done it, but I was able to get up like a champ. I got used the feel of the board and thought I would try out a few jumps, the first one went well, so I decided to be a little braver and I cut a little harder into the wake and got some wicked air and came down and would ya know it, I caught the front of my board and smacked right into the water. Anyone who has ever done that can empathize with me. I had an instant headache and decided to get back in the boat for a breather, but got out a little later to go at it again. I also went tubing and that was fun being bounced around all over the water.

For my birthday, Mike gave me the game Settlers of Catan. I have heard people say how fun it is but I'd never played it until recently and I love it, so I took it up with us and we played every night. We even played twice one day. We may have gotten a little rowdy when someone would block our settlements or wouldn't trade resources with us when we were making an awesome deal (you know who you are) but it was all in good fun and we had a great time playing it. I even won one of the games.For the 4th of July we crashed the Pinedale City barbecue, and then we caught the fireworks show. It is one of the best fireworks shows I have ever seen.

On Saturday we went on a hike to Miller Lake. It was eight miles. (Impressive I know.) We originally thought it was only 4 miles, but it was 4 miles one way. While we were walking we kept saying this can't be only two miles and we almost gave up about a half mile before our destination. We made Nick run ahead and it is a good thing because he found a sign that pointed us in the right direction. The craziest thing of all is that I meet someone from our ward at Millers Lake. I mean Pinedale has a population of 1,400 people, so it is a small town and would be quite amazing to see someone there I know. Miller Lake is one of maybe 30 hikes you can do in Elkhart Park and to think that I meet someone from my ward there is just crazy. Just goes to show you that it is a small world after all. Another cool thing we did was take a night boat ride to see the stars. It was pitch black while we were driving out on the lake so our beautiful night of looking at the stars could have turn into a real, scary horror movie, I kept picturing something like the Loch Ness monster coming out to get us, but luckily it didn't. We stopped in the middle of the lake and were able to just star gaze for a while. It was beautiful. You could see the milky way and we saw some shooting stars. We had a great time and hopefully can do it again real soon.

Economic Stimulus Check

I've got one hyphenated word for ya. Boo-Yah!

Finished Room

I love the heat and Mike loves a low electric bill, so in the summer until the outside temperatures start reaching 100 degrees we don’t turn on our air conditioner. However, trying to sleep when it is above 80 degrees is really uncomfortable. Since we finished the room downstairs we set up a bed and have been sleeping in it. The basement is so much cooler and comfortable, plus it stays dark down there so I can sleep in on the weekend. So while I haven’t completed any crafts in my new room, the sleeping arrangements have worked out quite nice.

Turning into our Parents

Remember all those things our parents did when you were younger that we thought were so weird. Well, the things my dad does are still weird, :-) but I am seeing the wisdom and logic in some of the stuff my mom did, that I am now starting to do. For the 4th of July we are headed up to our cabin in Pinedale, WY. Back when I was a youngin’ all I had to worry about was myself and making sure I had packed my swimsuit. Now as an adult I’ve got to make sure we have food, some entertainment and other items to get us through the weekend. When we would go on vacation with my mom she always used to bring sooo much stuff and she used to pack it all in laundry baskets. I always thought it was so weird. Her stuff would always take up way too much room in the car and we were usually packing these laundry baskets well past the time we should have left. However, last night I found that I had some misc items I had to take up to the cabin and no where to put them. You know what, the items all fit perfectly into my small laundry basket. I wonder what other strange things I will start to do…

Grandpa Beesley

On June 5, my Grandpa Beesley passed away. He was 81 years old and a GREAT Grandpa! I would like to share a couple of my favorite memories of him.
- When I was younger my Grandpa and Grandma would invite the couins to sleepovers at their house and take us on trips. On one of these trip we went to Jackson Hole and got to go river rafting. However, my favorite trip was when I was in middle school and my grandpa took me and four of my couins on a trip to Lake Powell. He took us hiking/exploring, water skiing, swimming, etc... and acted just like one of the girls. It was a great experience to be able to bond with him and my cousins.
- My Grandpa loved to play April Fools jokes on people and he always thought of really good ones that were belivable. He would have you going all day or at least until he said, "April Fools."
I will miss him a lot but hope that he is having tons of fun with my mom and gave her a big kiss from me.

William Noall Beesley, Jr.
1927 ~ 2008
Bill Beesley died on June 5, 2008 at his home in Draper as a result of a long life and cancer.
He was born on April 7, 1927 the third of seven children to Barbara and William N. Beesley. Bill attended and played football and basketball at Granite High School. In 1943 he asked Hanna Marie Killpack to the Sophomore Ball – the best decision of his life, he said. They graduated in 1945 and married that summer in the Salt Lake Temple. Immediately after marrying, Bill served his country in WW II as a Merchant Marine in the Pacific.
Bill was a true entrepreneur and loved new ideas and business adventures. He was awarded numerous US and international patents and launched several companies, including Back to Basics Products, which his older boys grew into one of the most successful housewares manufacturers in the US.
A gifted athlete, Bill relished well into his late 70s thumping his sons, sons-in-law, grandkids and most other takers at sports, but especially racquetball. He held several state and US seniors’ racquetball titles.
Bill served his church as a bishop in Illinois and as a missionary with Hanna in Scotland and Kentucky. He travelled extensively and visited nearly every continent. He loved most, however, exploring Lake Powell with his grandkids or the Lake Pals and playing with family and friends at the cabin.
Bill is survived by Hanna, his wife of 62 years; five children, Bill, Brad (Patty), Linda Allen (Brent), Lex Ann Alvey (Mike) and Mark (RueAnn Ormand); 26 grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren. He is also survived by two brothers and two sisters.

SYTYCD

Or, So You Think You Can Dance, for those of you who haven't joined in watching the best show of the summer. I love this show. It is just like American Idol (except better) but for dancers and it is soooo good. If you aren't watching it, it isn't to late to get started. They have only had two elimination rounds. I haven't picked a favorite yet, but I'm rooting for anyone from Utah.

Wear Sunscreen

To make a long story short, I was laying out last week by the pool working on my tan. I stayed out way to long and got FRIED! It happened on Friday and I am still bright red and hurting (and yes I know better.) Let this be a reminder that when out in the burning, hot, sun of summer you need to cover up with sunscreen.

Bad Blogger

Ok, so I have been really bad at blogging lately. I have had stuff to blog about and then more stuff and then I got overwhelmed with all the stuff, so I just didn't post anything. Well, enough is enough and I'm back on the blogging band wagon, so starting with the most recent of the stuff I wanted to blog about, here we go...

Read One Non-Fiction Book a Month

I've heard somewhere before that sucessful people read at least one non-fiction book a month and since I want to be sucessful, I decided I would try it. It's been a while since I've read a non-fiction book. I really like to get lost in a story and its characters and you just don't find that in non-fiction, but for the sake of sucess I wanted to try. While I was at book club last month some of the girls were talking about kids and a couple of the girls said they were reading a really good book on parenting called Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years so I figured since one day we might have some kids and moms are always saying how they never have any time to read, I thought I would read it now while I still have time. Anyway, it was a good, easy read and had some great ideas on parenting. Now that I'm done I was wondering if anyone has any other good suggestions. I'm open to everything; self-help, biographies, historical events, etc...

Eat More Chicken at Chick-Fil-A!

So get this, I slept in a parking lot last night. It’s a good story, here’s how it goes. In a shopping complex close to my house they built a Chick-Fil-A. My brother in law, Brian, heard from a friend of his, that at the grand opening of a Chick-Fil-A they give the first 100 customers a years supply of free combo meals. Now anyone who has ever eaten at Chick-Fil-A knows how good their food is; the chicken sandwich topped with two pickles, their classic waffle fries and don’t forget the fresh squeezed lemonade. I mean how could you pass up on a free year’s supply of combo meals. I knew I couldn’t, so when Brian told me a couple of weeks ago that the grand opening would be May 22nd, I started preparing myself for the blessed day when it would rain down free chicken from the heavens (and rain it did.) We have had such lovely weather that I was actually looking forward to spending the evening of the 21st outside, however this good old Utah weather sent us a curve ball and it turned cold and raining the day of the 21st. I was a little hesitant and thought maybe I won’t go after all; cause is it worth being miserable stuck out in the rain and cold just for some free chicken. What I failed to consider was that my brother in law had all this well thought out and came prepared with a tent, sleeping bags, extra blankets and even a portable space heater, so it was more like an awesome adult slumber party instead of a night in the cold. I arrived around 7:00pm the evening of the 21st. I helped Brian set up our tent and we scoped the place out. The rules stated that once you were checked in you could not leave the area they had roped off even to get something in your car, so we made sure we had everything we needed before we went to check in. My sister-in-law, Pam was coming later that evening and I thought to myself why not share this joyous occasion with others, so I called my sisters to see if they wanted to come and share in the fun. Rebecca, and her boyfriend, Dallin, didn’t have anything going on and being the adventurous souls they are, thought it sounded really fun and came on over and joined us. When the three of us checked in around 8:00pm we were numbers 55-57. When Pam checked in around 9:45pm she was number 90, by 10:15pm they had given the last number away, so we hunkered down for the night. During the festivities that night Chick-Fil-A handed out chicken nuggets and ice cream to everyone, it made me that much more excited for my free year’s supply of chicken.

Enjoying the festivities! Jacob Evans, me, Pam & Brian Slade

They did the last roll call around 11:15pm and then we all went to bed. Neither rain, nor wind, nor dead of night deterred us from our goal, though they all sure tried. We stayed snug and warm inside our tent while it was raining and blowing outside. At 6:00am in the morning the Chick-Fil-A staff woke us up, this was the moment we had all been waiting for. We stood in line according to our number waiting for the doors to open and at 6:20am they finally did.

Rebecca, Dallin and everyone else standing in line in the morning.

We were lead in through the door and greeted by Chick-Fil-A personnel, they were banging pots and pans and there in the middle of all the excitement and commotion was what we had been waiting for, our free year’s supply of combo meals. The definition of year’s supply is 52 combo meals. I’ve got myself 52 coupons for free combo meals from Chick-Fil-A that can be used anytime within the next year. Maybe if you’re nice to me, I’ll treat you to lunch. :-) In our group of die-hard Chick-Fil-A fans we had 7 people, that is 364 free combo meals and that my friend is a lot of chicken. Eat more chicken! Eat more chicken! Eat more chicken…

Chick-Fil-A Fans!
Front: Rebecca, me, Pam. Back: Dallin, Brian, Vaughn, Jacob.

The Host Discussion and Signing

The Fan Club

I love Stephenie Meyer, she is author of the Twilight Series which I also love, so when I heard she was coming to Salt Lake to promote her new book, The Host, I knew I had to get a ticket to attend. The event was Saturday and I went with my friend, Cassie, who is also a die hard Stephenie Meyer fan, and who I owe a deep gratitude to, for introducing me to Stephenie Meyer’s books in the first place. The event was a book discussion and book signing. We were able to hear Stephenie answer some questions about The Host and how she came up with the idea for the story and characters. She was also kind enough to give us some updates on the Twilight series books and the movie too. She signed my copy of The Host and wrote "To Sue" I mean how cool is that :-) she also signed my copy of Twilight, (again thank you Cassie). While I was walking around waiting for the event to start I met Alphie, from the Twilight Lexicon, which was an added bonus because I love that website. It was fun to be able to attend and scream and act crazy for one of my favorite authors. Long Live Twilight and Stephenie Meyer too!

Shopping Spree

On Friday I went on a shopping spree for some new jeans. My sister told me I would look skinnier and cutier if I would wear some jeans that fit instead of the old, baggy, faded ones that I currently have in my wardrobe. The words were harsh but true and I had to agree with her. I set out on a mission and I accomplished it. I bought myself three pairs of jeans, that all make my butt look really cute, for less than $60. The truly amazing thing about the whole experience was that there was no crying involved while trying on all these jeans. :-) Since I was already out and about and the stores were having some great sells I picked up a few shirts and a jacket too. It was good to revamp my wardrobe cause now I'll be all cute and sassy for summer. (Plus I'm helping out the economy.)

Pedicure

For Christmas my dad gave my sister, Rebecca and I a gift certificate to go and get a pedicure at a local salon. We waited until now to get them so everyone could see how cute our toes look in sandals. I had them put a little flower on each of my biggy toes, it looks so cute. I’ve decided that during the summer months I’m going to keep up my pedicure so my feet will always look cute.

Alma Mater

The other day I received a letter in the mail from Dixie College asking me to donate some money to the school. If this request had come from any of the other schools I attended while on my journey to getting my bachelor degree I would have thrown it in the recycle bin without a second thought. But the request came from Dixie and anyone who knows me, knows I love, Love, LOVE Dixie. I loved going to school there, I loved the wonderful friends I made, I loved everything about my experience at Dixie. My blog name even got its origin from Dixie. (While attending school in St. George I wrote a monthly article in our family newsletter called Sue’s Fun in the Sun, it just made sense to use that as the title of my blog too.) So I will be donating to the school because I hope through my donation that it can help someone else and that they can have as wonderful experience as I did.

North Island - New Zealand

Our trip to New Zealand started out with a very long plane ride. Total travel time was about 20 hours. Thank goodness the plane had personal entertainment devices in each seat with movies, TV shows, and games. This helped keep me entertained when I wasn’t trying to get some sleep. We arrived in Auckland at 5:45am and our two week tour of the country started at 9:00am at Auckland Harbor. We got off the plane and hit the ground running. It was tons of fun meeting up with Mariah and Nick and seeing them again. Listed below are some of the highlights from the North Island.
One day we were able to visit White Island which is home to an active Volcano. To get to the island we had to travel 31 miles by boat.


The Bill Beesley Family! (We were short Mike and we missed him a lot, however, we were glad to have Mandy, Zane's girlfriend, on the trip with us.)
L-R Top: Rebecca, Me, Dad (Bill), Heather, Will, Zane, Mandy. Bottom: Nick, Mariah.


Mariah and I. While on the island we sported these dashing yellow hats (for safety's sake.)

It was cool to walk around the island and learn about the island's history and the volcano. The last major eruption was in 2001. Since New Zealand is in the Ring of Fire and we were on an island with an active volcano, I was ready to make a mad dash to the sea, but lucky we were safe and we just enjoyed our time on there.

One of my favorite activities on the North Island was staying in the River Valley and river rafting on Rangitikei River. The river rafting was a lot of fun. Mariah, Nick, Rebecca and I all went in a raft together. About five minutes into rafting while going down our first rapid, I fell in. :-) It was a great way to start the trip. After that I had lots of fun trying to push everyone in and getting the other rafts wet.



Are we having fun yet!?!














Some of the other adventures we experienced on the North Island were: sailing on the Waitemata Harbor, going off roading in 4 x 4 vehicles in the New Zealand bush, experiencing a traditional Maori celebration with food, dance and storytelling, stopping at Thermal Valley and seeing mud pools, mineral terraces and steaming lakes and visiting Kapiti Island where we hiked around trying to spot endangered New Zealand birds.

















Taking it easy!

Paint Job

So if you’re wondering where I've been for the past couple of weeks the answer is, in the basement painting. When a contractor tells you painting is a job you can do, but shouldn't, cause it is such a major pain, he isn’t kidding and you should listen to him. The sheetrock and trim work were finished so all we had left before the carpet was paint. I got a couple of quotes but afterwards thought to myself, how hard can it be? I can bang this job out in a couple of days. Wrong, it ended up taking a couple of weeks. It looks good now that it’s done, but painting is one DIY project I will be crossing off my list of things I can do around the house.

Web Feeds

Since it’s been a while since I last posted and I really don’t have anything new to write, I thought I would share some neat-o information about web feeds. (I know, sounds really boring, but it’s so helpful when you want to find out if a site has been recently updated or not.) I’m sure most of you Internet savvy people already know about web feeds, but for the rest of us stuck in 2005 (or whenever they first came up with feeds) this will save you lots of time. A friend told me about it, so I am passing on the knowledge. Here is how it works. At the top right corner of your browser you should see a little orange icon that looks like this,



When you go to a site you can subscribe to it and the feed icon will turn orange, it's usually gray. For example: If you want to subscribe to my blog, simply click on the icon and click on 'subscribe to this feed'. The feeds are then added to your favorites center, which is on the left hand side of your screen. You can have tons of feeds! When one is in bold it means there is new content. So, you just check your feeds everyday and see who's posted and what’s new on your favorite websites! :-)

New Zealand - South Island

My trip to New Zealand was most Excellent! I went with my family and since there were nine of us, we decided to book a tour so we could see New Zealand in style. The tour company we went with was Adventure South and was very good. We did some really cool activities and stayed in some neat places. We started our tour on the North Island and met up with Nick and Mariah in Auckland. We stayed on the North Island for a week and then traveled to the South Island, by inter-island ferry, and stayed there for another week. The tour was very active so we were able to do a lot and see a lot. My most favorite activities of the tour were the ones we did on the South Island. Our first two nights on the South Island, we stayed at Endeavour Inlet. To get to our accommodations, we had to take an hour boat ride. We had our own private cabins right on the ocean. It was so peacefully and beautiful. New Zealand has a network of walkways throughout the country and people come from all over the world to walk them. We were able to do a section of the Queen Charlotte Track, nine and a half miles to be exact and I loved it. I loved being out in the New Zealand “bush” and taking it all in. At the end of the hike we arrived at the ocean and had a picnic.


We made it, Yahoo!

My favorite activity of the whole trip was tubing in the glow worm caves. There is no way to describe how cool it was when you first saw the glow worms. You’re floating down the river in the cave and it is pitch black and then all the sudden you come upon the glow worms and it is like seeing thousands and thousands of stars, but way cooler. Our guide taught us this song, “I wish I were a glow worm, a glow worm nevers glum, cause how can you be unhappy, when the sun shines out your bum.” Before the glow worms we went spelunking and after we were able to tube down the river, which was very enjoyable.

My dad, me and Rebecca in the cave.

Tubing down the river.

We were able to visit Fox, which is where my sister and brother-in-law lived and worked for the past four months. Fox is famous for Fox Glacier. Mariah and Nick worked for a helicopter company that gave tours of the glacier. There were able to get my dad on a helicopter ride while the rest of us went on a glacier hike. The glacier hike was cool. It took us about an hour and a half to hike to it and then we were able to spend an hour on it. Fox glacier is one of the few glaciers in the world that is growing. Being able to walk around on the glacier was cool. The blue color of the ice is so vivid.

Mariah and I on Fox Glacier.


Another favorite activity and one I would defiantly recommend was Bungee Jumping. I had the hardest time deciding whether I should go or not because I wasn’t sure I would really jump once I got to the site and saw how far down I had to fall, however I am so glad I went, I had a blast. The feeling of falling was like nothing I have ever felt before and it is hard to describe how it feels. All I can say is that it was AWESOME. The jump is called the Nevis and is 440 feet off the ground. It is the third highest bungee jump in the world. Zane, Mandy (Zane’s girlfriend) Rebecca and I all jumped.

No turning back now. Bombs away! (Oooh, nice buns!)

The daring foursome. Rebecca, me, Mandy, Zane.

Some of the other activities we did on the South Island were, jet boating (the jet boat was invented in New Zealand) and sea kayaking where I was able to hold a jelly fish, very slimy creatures, they slip right through your fingers and a star fish. We also did some more hikes around the island and enjoyed shopping in Queenstown.

I thought this picture was super funny. It is dedicated to all the sheep dogs in New Zealand!