Home sweet home!

The girls (that includes Mills) and Russel have made it safe and sound back to 29a Monowai!! We were dancing in the car for the last stretch of the ride b/c we were so super excited about getting back and seeing our long lost flatties! Connor P...check. Sarah F....check. Misty...check. New, cute, orange cat....check!! There is a Pom (one Philip Dickens) missing from 29a but after he gets his fill of the Common Wealth games in Melbourne, he'll be back with us! For the time being, he was nice enough to hand his room and oh so comfy bed (our old room and bed) over to me and mol! So, for the next few days, we'll be here--catching up on email, doing laundry, unpacking and repacking, cleaning the heck out of Mills (who has been such a trooper for the entire trip and must have an inch of dust built up inside and out from all the gravel, dirt roads she oh so ruggedly conquered)...and just enjoying time with the flatties!!
Just a note that we "fell back" last night so we are now only 17 hours ahead of EST and you guys should be ready to "spring forward" soon so then we will only be 16 hours ahead of you! A little confusing but I'm sure you'll get it!! Oh, I almost forgot to write about the last few days of our trip! I'll try to keep it short! We did a trip in the Waitomo caves which involved getting dressed in a RIDICULOUS outfit, abseiling down a shaft to a huge cave below, floating around in the dark and getting an upclose look at all the glowworms (which were awesome! It looked like a planetarium), squeezing ourselves through some small limestone formations, and then rock climbing oursleves back out of the cave! All in all, a great trip!! We then made our way back to Taupo where we took a plane 13,000 feet above the lake (and it was such a clear day we could see clear across to the coast) and flung ourselves out. See mom, aren't you glad you didn't know about it until AFTER I was safe on the ground? That's gotta be worth something!!! It was awesome!! I reackon even better then the first jump (on my 18th b-day). This time around, I had a better grasp of what was going on and was able to focus more on the fact that I was falling at 170mph to the ground below. A great feeling, really! Molly loved it and spent the rest of the night beaming (after having a few glasses of well deserved wine) "I jumped out of a plane". It was awesome and one day I'm going to convince the big bro to do it...no sense arguring ry, it's gonna happen. :). The next day, we lounged by the lake before driving over to Turangi--got an early nights sleep and woke the next morning at 5:30am. We were shuttled to a dropoff point of the Tongariro Crossing (a tramp that is listed as 7-8 hours that takes you over 2 active volcanoes, to an altitude of over 1600 meters, down to the craters, past the crater lakes, and over the hot springs) and started the day long tramp before the sun even came up. By the time the sun came up, we were about an hour along and had a beautiful view! The most difficult part of the Crossing came soon after that and we spent a couple hours climbing over the loose, steep terrain. By the time we reached the top, the temperature had dropped a ridiculous amount, the fog had rolled in, and we were straining to stand up aganist the wind! Before long, we had layers of clothing on, complete with gloves and hat! We reached a part that is known as the scree slope and we basically dug our heels in and slide down. The weather cleared a bit a few hours later and it was a great view but I think the challenge of it was the best part. We got to the end nearly 7 hours later and are still feeling the fatigue in our legs!! Okay, I think that pretty much covers it!! We have a hungry Sarah F here that we need to feed!! Hope all is well!!

Love and miss you!!
PS-feel free to call the house number (64 4 934 4580) for the next few days!