Wanaka, New Zealand

Greetings from the little ski town of Wanaka in the south island! The mother and big bro have successfully made it back to the US of A after a great 10 day visit to me and molly (which happened to fall on my birthday! What a great gift! :)). Despite a few days of mucky weather, the trip was great and the weather seemed to clear up at the perfect times. We loaded up everyone into mills and gave ry and mom a little taste of the traveler's life! It didn't take long for them to completely lose track of the day and time---that's the way we like it round here! Once again I can't possibly write about it all but our first time visit to franz joseph and fox glaciers was a definite highlight, as was our walk around Matheson lake in which we could see a beautiful reflection of Mount Cook in the water. The weather held out just long enough for us to see the snow-covered peaks of the mountains and then poured down on us for our walk to the terminal face of fox glacier. But there was no stopping us! Not even the rapid streams (which would probably be all but nonexistent in fine weather) could stop this crowd---, and the rain made the rainforest-like surroundings of the glacier breathtaking (waterfalls everywhere!). We had 2 days of rainfall when we stayed in Wanaka but the beautiful cottage we had (what-up Roge!) made up for it! Then I ALMOST convinced ry that jumping off a bridge was a fabulous idea but time was just not on my side! I nearly had him convinced and the lady came out announcing "last jumps" and I just couldn't get it down it time! I'm sure he regrets it already :) There will be other times. After our brief visit to Queenstown, we took off to Manapori where we loaded onto an overnight cruise through Doubtful sound. Somehow, as soon as we got out to the sounds, the weather turned brilliant (it must have been the beachy music and sunnies in the car ride) and stayed that way the entire trip. Nearly as soon as we starting sailing away, a big pod of dolphins started running with the boat and only attracted more!! We were entertained by dolphins jumping LIKE CRAZY for a good 30 mintues!! Dolphins make me happy!! And these guys were out to play for REAL!! We had an amazing sunset that night (and have a ridiculous amount of pics to prove it!), a beautiful star-filled night sky, and then a great sunrise the next morning. Everything on the boat was great! After the crusie, we made our way back to CHCH stopping at Dunedin for 2 nights (where my poor bro FINALLY got to go out for a little bit!) and then at a little town where we saw 2 ADORABLE little yellow-eyed penguins! I could watch them waddle and hop around for hours! It was great having you guys here!!! Miss you already! :)

It is now back to me, mol and mills and we have made our way back to Wanaka--where we now live!! Despite the competiveness of this place in the winter, we managed to score a great little flat. Well, it's more of a unit then a flat. It's just me and molly living there but we have 4 people our age living right above us. It has everything we need (aka, a self-contained unit), though there has been talk of building our own shelves and table! It's small but really modern and has ridiculously awesome views of the mountains. We can only imagine what it will look like when the mountains are covered in snow. So, our new address:

77 Matai Road (downstairs)
Wanaka 9192 NZ

We are still waiting to hear about jobs but have made ourselves known to the ski places and are prepared to be a thorn in their sides until they hire us! :)

also, there are new pictures up under janelle's family visit
http://photos.yahoo.com/mollyfoos