Thank goodness for Fire!

So we are still amazed at the fact that we are starting fires in our living room. the wood stove is amazing, cranking out the heat for the house. The glow is entrancing and it is just wonderful to have a greater control over the costs that keep you warm, plus the house is warmer than ever... even my grandmother would be toasty! Just wanted to share some pictures of the stove, for those of you who haven't been able to visit to see it yet!






We are reuniting with our friends this evening for a belated v-day party and struggling to stay awake as the hartman-menzel couple kept us up until 3 this morning. Happy weekend to everyone!

For all of those concerned, we did in fact arrive safely home Monday night. Today is the most tired I have been, struggling to pay attention at work, through a preschool program and am going to meet with the boss to catch myself up at work. It is definately not fun to have to get back into the swing of things, but nice to be in our home with a stable place, different clothes, a full size pillow, comfy bed (while we survived tent camping for 5 weeks, get a little old), a full size towel (2ft squares are hard to use at times), our kitchen with 4 burners, an actually sink with soap to wash our dishes, a brush for my hair... oh the things you miss!

I am now just tired and ready for some good sleep. The jet lag is hitting me hard currently and I am not being productive at all.

I just wanted to add 2 pictures (downloaded from the internet, for those who can't understand how I could have pictures already without a digital camera) The Kauri trees were amazing, no branches until 60 ft. up and really big.
The tasman sea was awesome as well as the Pacific ocean, this picture is from where the two collide.

Hope you are all well.

Kate

We're coming home

Sorry that I haven't updated, trying to get in as much as we can. Winding down and I will update the blog with a huge new zealand picture journal in the next weeks or so.

We are trying to deal with leaving, this place has everything, and is perfect. I haven't had an asthma attack the whole time, have felt more healthy than ever before and am just sad that this place is all the way on the other side of the globe from everyone that I love. I will be a mess upon returning home, I always am upon returning from another country, just missing vacation and the like. Trying to adjust back to the previous life that you left behind and hoping that you aren't in a rut that you have been trying to avoid.

We are back in auckland after huge trees, huge sand dunes and the meeting of the Pacific ocean and Tasman sea, great sandy beaches, lots of swimming and good relaxing. We are taking our trusty rental toyota back today, tear.

Am looking forward to seeing you all, so don't make me wait too long.

Look forward to the pictures, they are going to blow you away.

Kate

Heading north

We are departing the south island via ferry from Picton and heading to Wellington. We are reaching the last leg of our journey. It is very sad, but it will be nice to be sleeping in a bed and showering more regularily.

Yet to come though are the oldest trees in New Zealand, (think sequoias) hot springs, swimming in the pacific, a volcano hike and hopefully some lord of the rings hot spots-- most of the filming took place around Wellington and the north island.

We spent the night last night on a beach (the campsites are amazing!) and did winery tours all day yesterday which was nice.

Spent the days before in a great cute cabin at Pelourus bridge, a huge river with great deep swimming pools. It was awesome, lots of rocks to jump off and stuff. Did a sea kayaking tour of the marlborough sounds, beautiful and have been eating really good food!

Have to find some fresh water to drink! Hope everyone is happy with february!

Kate

A quick update

Just in Nelson trying to figure out how to book some stuff for our next track. We are in great sunny weather, starting to sweat. Did some fishing the past two days, ben "caught" a huge brown trout but wasn't able to land it. It was very exciting though.

We are heading back into the bush tomorrow. Should be beautiful, perhaps dolphins and lots of water, rivers to ford and an opportunity for swimming!

Saw two of the glaciers here. that was incredible. they looked like raging rivers magicked to be frozen. Very cool and up close to them like having the air conditioning on outside. We had an awesome beach front campsite on the Tasman sea, the snow capped mountains and glacier's providing an awesome backdrop for the night. The sunset was great and we took lots of black and whites on the beach. Ate a great meal and slept well.

Last night we were on a lake that was incredible, but incredibly infested with sandflies! Luckily we ate early and then found shelter in our tent. We woke up with them swarming all over the tent and got the hell out of there as fast as we could!

We are off to book things.

A lazy morning

We have worked our way south and our now heading back north. Saw sea lions and yellow eyed penguins on the south coast along with beautiful beached. were in Dunedin and saw the royal albatross and seals playing in the water. Are finally getting into some farm country and seeing road side stands and signs for farmers markets. Visited a sheep/wool farm, oh the yarns. I am planning on knitting myself a sweater out of the natural wools I found here. They are cheap! and beautiful and I am thrilled to have found some wool.

We have some fishing to do today, should please ben, still haven't caught a fish, but had a bite!

The weather is warmer in the south opposed to the mountains, but we will be in the mountains tonight, so back to long johns. Had a great bed last night and a shower, those are good to.

We were in Milford s0und three days ago, took a boat ride on an overcast perfect milford sound day, got to venture out to the tasman sea. It was beautiful. So much water! Seals as well, rocks and just more water. They get an average of 7 meters of water per year! That is a lot of rain, you could just see all of the water pouring out of any mountain crevice it could make it into, lots of falls.

We are trying to find a money exchange to pay for our accomadations last night, ben has left me at the hostel as collateral! They have free internet. Haven't posted due to the fact that it was $1 for 8 minutes and you really can't do much with 8 minutes on a slow computer.

Having the rental car now is fabulous, we can be on our own timetable and it is cheaper than taking the bus for one let alone both of us. Petrol is pricey, but we heard that the new zealand dollar dropped relative to our money, so we are hoping to get a better exchange at the next big bank. things are expensive here, but we are making due. Accomadations are cheap, they have camping sites everywhere and Holiday parks- which you can camp, hook up a motor home or stay in a cabin, regardless you get a shower, we try to stay there every other or third day.

Going out to enjoy the gardens. Hope Ben can get some money in this small town!

Kate

Update Finally: Kepler Track

So we emerged from the bush last Sunday from the Kepler track. It was amazing, challenging, beautiful and kicked our asses at times. Being above the bushline was such a dramatic change. It was incredible. We enjoyed a day in the alpine before an incredibly hard descent that sent our knees into incredible amounts of pain. On the first day of our tramp we only hiked for about 4 hours, and the second day was 10 hours of hiking, with plenty of stops, but we ascended and descended in the same day with heavy packs. We are in good shape now! Day 3 was gorgeous, winding through the valley of the peak we reached, some great forests, and wetlands. This country really has it all. The campsite on the third day was amazing, right on the beach again. There was a hut there, but a family that came in by boat was using it.

we got back to town and slept well on a mattress which was wonderful. Slept great and recovered from our aches.

We're in Love

New Zealand is the most amazing place, with the most amazing air and we havn't see anything. The people are great and the hostel is amazing. We have a great big window with lots of fresh air coming in. It is perfect for a honeymoon.

We went out for Indian last night after our 3 hour flight turned into 6 hours on the plane with computer problems and fixes. Sooo glad that we sat on the plane for that repair!

Today we have been prepping for backpacking, getting food- we found an awesome asian market with dried tofu and vegetarian lamb products as well as couscous and udon noodles, oh and coconut milk in cardboard containers and curry paste, so ben is cooking up gourmet on the track.

Not too much new.

Going to grill up some New Zealand grass fed, organic beef and lamb tonight! Hooray!

Not so much to report on this actual day. wE went to the Sydney fish market and ben cooked us up a feast as I did a round of laundry and we are preparing to depart for New Zealand HOORAY!!

I posted all the days below so don't forget to scroll.

Hopefully I will post from New Zealand soon.

Love you all.
Kate

The Blue mountains

So Friday found us taking the early early train out to Katoomba, a starting point for the many beautiful views of the blue mountians. WE were lucky that we brought our rain jackets as we saw a lot of that and fog. It was an amazing 6 hour hike in the rain forest, through rain (which kept the mozzies away!) and such a thick fog that at times I felt like I was floating amoung clouds. These pics are of what we hiked past and saw in pieces through the fog.

We went up and down over 3000 stairs and feeling really in shape for new zealand.

I had quite a time, drying all of my clothing in the visitors center bathroom. Fun, standing with my rain coat covering me with the drier on for a long time.

We got coffee at a great little joint and had a wonderful day.

Beach Bummin

Thursday we spent bumming on beaches, after a let down visit to a market. We saw lots of surfing action on the overcast day and tramped around to two other beaches north of the ever so Manly beach. It was an awesome day. Lots of rock scrambling, ben saw a baby shark and we investigated tide pools. Oh and saw a sea turtle on the way in off the ferry. Had great fish and chips! Got some sun and loved being in the water. It was beautiful. The ariel shows the beaches north that we went to.

Reason why australia is so cool: Every where there is public access. We were walking atop apartments the other day as that was a public walk way and on this day the coolest thing were the public pools, filled with ocean water on the side of all the beaches, very cool.

We dashed over to Bondi beach (the hot spot in Sydney) for a sunset wine and cheese dinner. It was fabulous.

Ku Ring Gai

So we spent Wednesday at this park. A very hot walk, but not as grossly sweaty as we had suspected. I think this is what a dry heat means. The views were great the terrain tough but we made it. Saw tons of lizzards, cool birds, snakes and sorts. This isn't my pictures, but the view on our hike. Oh and we saw lots of crabs and the coolest Euculyptus trees. They are amazing (the trees) with blood red sap, I honestly thought that an animal had died on one.

We were hoping to see some aboriginal art, but weren't at the right part of the park.

We're here

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, we actually weren't jet lagged and made it a full day in Sydney. Saw the typical sights and started to enjoy the most amazing botanical garden!

The flight was long, but not too bad. The worst part of the trip was the wait in Vancouver, we had a bit of a run around and ended up having to go back through US customs, even though we had just arrived from the US and then they confiscated the last of my tangelos from the coop! Bastards! Anyway we got to do a little nature walk outside the vancouver airport, squished some winter green berries between our fingers and then didn't enjoy the canadian side of the airport long enough before going to the american side--which sucks! Made it to Honolulu, again got to enjoy their outdoor gardens, palm trees, fern trees an almost full moon... it was lovely. The fresh air before the smokers started in on it.

Slept the flight to Sydney, got here and immediately started sweating. Made it to the hostel easy and showered. Okay hostel, nothing remarkable. We are here for 4 more nights. We saw the opera house (didn't tour it), russell crowe's house (i really don't care or like him though, but the hostel dude thought he should let us know where it was and we walked right by it), the coolest ficus trees ever. They are huge and beautiful! Oh and fox bats that are really scary and actually problematic in the botanical gardens. We saw a dead one hanging from a tree, mouth open and scary teeth!

We are taking a train to one of the parks on the outskirts of Sydney today, should be fun!

Hope you are all enjoying the cold, while I am sweating!

Kate

Australia Here We Come

So we deapart early tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will be able to handle the fricking incredibly long flight that is up in front of us. We fly from Bloomington to Chicago, an 8 hour jaunt in Vancouver, 1 hour in Honolulu before making our final flight to Sydney! Hooray! I am so excited and can't wait to be there. Hopefully there is a good movie on the plane, because I know that I am going to watch it, and I wouldn't want to waste that sleep time on crap.

Enjoy the rest of winter! I won't be crying for cold gray Illinois days while I am watching surfers on the sunny pacific ocean. I will be posting from our hostel.

Later,
kate

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

So the nature center is closed this week for cleaning. Meaning a great week of “working from home.” I am doing surprisingly well preparing for our 5 weeks away and hope to leave my job in top shape so that my co-workers won’t have to work too hard covering for me.

It is so exciting to think that I will be in Sydney this time next week and New Zealand the week after that. We are going to most likely rent a car although if we find a cheap one at the airport from a traveler heading home, we may go for it. We have some great tramps picked out, I have conceded on seeing where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet due to time and heading all the way north on the island will take about 5 days, stopping along the way, doing the 3 day backpacking trip, so instead we can climb a glacier and kayak in the sounds on the northern tip of the southern island.

Enjoyed our 4-month anniversary wine. The stash had a red wine and a Wisconsin Port. The 27th of December was forgotten as our 4 monther and we held onto the bottles for the new year. Now we have a dilemma- do we wait until we get back for the January 27th bottles or can we drink up early? Hard call, I may need some wine to get me through ben’s travel stresses.

Alright, I am done pretending to work at the office today, I just cleaned up the worst stinking snake poop thanks to floyd and scared one of our owls off her perch, plus she’s the one with only one wing, so she can’t fly, but I suppose she forgot, she attempted and fell on the ground… shame.

Oh and Cathy found out she is having a baby girl! Sonogram this morning we get to celebrate at stitch and bitch tonight! My last one for 5 weeks.

For New Zealand posts refer to campwedding.blogspot.com

So, I normally try to avoid being to martha stewart ish, craftiness is often associated with her, and I really think that I am cooler, so damn her for having all the staff on her side thinking up things first.

Anyway, I get her Kid's magazine, it is so cute, helps me come up with good ideas to use for programs and this holiday season: gifts. So these are pictures of my button ornaments. it would have been cooler if I were 80 and had a button collection of my own, but I made due with some day camp and purchased buttons. Pipe cleaners really are under-rated you can do so much with them.
It is really hard to pick a favorite. The pictures are pretty cool.

Janet took them for me at the nature center's solstice event, my buttons were up on our lame silent auction. they were a hot item!

So it is the biggest eve of the year. I think that i will just be drinking with my hubby at home. Wow are we lame... no we still are cool we went out last night. Fat city was happening, with orange and blue sprayed all over and Illini fans coming in after the game. Man do they have bad beer there and they got rid of all the good bar food. I ate shitty nachos with iceburg lettuce, jared salsa, gross cheese and not enough jalepenos. At least the shuffle board table was fun and I got to meet the infamous Smoke and Joe, who dominate on Friday nights. Sweet outfits, cigars, and their own finger towels really made for some competitive shuffle board-- I think Smoke, was starting to flare up a bit when Eric took the lead on him. He was hitting the wall at one point when he failed to block his puck, I wanted to assure him that I sucked and wouldn't ruin his game, but there is only so much you can say to a 5'4" man with a finger towel attached to his belt.

Tomorrow is the day of roast pork loin, and our countdown to the honeymoon. As much as it sucked on not going on one in September after the wedding, it is going to be so awesome to go away now. Our friends that just moved to Australia will be meeting us at the airport for 5 fun days there and we have our first few hikes planned for New Zealand. I packed last night- the trial run as I am only allowed 6 tops, 2 pairs of shorts and 2 pairs of pants. I have to take things that I really like and am okay wearing a lot over the course of the trip. It isn't as easy as you might think.

The Wine Stash

I don’t think that I ever gave due props to the most amazing gift that my college roomates, their significant others and Fran gave to Ben and I on our wedding. I just uploaded the rest of the pictures from Connie and Dale and just had to post these for all to see and appreciate.

First off the vessel that it came in. Check this out, not only did it weigh a lot, (just ask my uncle john who moved it into our house) but it was completely hand crafted and designed by Dale, with recycled timbers some of which came from an old(ish) chicken coop (very appropriate for our home). So they brought it all the way to the wedding and then actually used the golf cart to transport it to the art center. Some good shots of this.









Then you can see the double-hinged doors, revealing all the coolest little compartments, which are latched with nails that were bent and also recycled from old wood. there are a lot of hinged on this thing all intricately placed. what a great design.
Then inside each of those, more presents. We were given the best twist on the wine of the month club, the wine from your most favorite people, with hand made cards for each month. See the bottle sticking out. With each is a scroll describing the wine and there is a bottle of red and a bottle of white for each month up until our one year anniversary. The gift that just keeps giving. We have enjoyed some great wine and sampled quite a few that were actually made in Wisconsin... I was suprised how good these were- you know Wi being known for cheese than wine- but hell they go great togehter. So we have really enjoyed the first 3 months. Each time giving us a chance to reminice about the wedding and how perfect it was. Thank you to everyone who made that possible.

Here we are reading the most thoughtful card that went with the gift. I don't know where this idea came from, but I was so honored to recieve something that obviously took so much work I was crying everytime I thought about it. Holy crap do we just have the most amazing people in our lives.

I love everyone today.

I have been working on the coolest presents and am swamped with holidays, but I love these rushes!

Later

Kate

New Zealand

So I just met with Eleanor who is one of the coolest people I know. She brought me a map of New Zealand and a couple of books and I am so so excited to start planning. We really have a lot of work ahead of us, but it is going to be great. Her biggest advice, which is like my motto, was don’t plan too much. Things in this country just flow. I am so excited to meet all the Kiwi’s and hang out. The huts that I was imagining to actually be huts are completely enclosed building with kitchen and all. She recommended some cool towns, great day hikes and all that. I am thrilled. It is so cold here today and the prospect of having summer again in January is awesome!
In other news, we have heat in our house! Ben was able to replace the pipe for the radiator he removed and clean our other radiators, and our house is warmer than ever. We put up a cool new corner shelf in the bedroom and went to menards this morning to pick up the wood stove and chimney. We are going to be grouting tile this evening! The tile is beautiful, we laid it out last night and it just looks so good! This wood stove thing is going to rock! Too bad we will be having second summer in New Zealand and not be at home to use it! No bother, we will use it plenty before we go.
I get to get outside today and do some orienteering with my homeschool group. Damn it is cold. I don’t know if we will last long out there. I may be having them make their own scavenger hunts inside for the other group to follow. I actually think that that is the best idea yet. Thanks blogging for helping me get there!
My day is complete.

28

So my birthday this weekend was swell. I had a fabulous time. Went out in Madison with the gang, had great food at an indonesian restaurant, had fireworks set off in the city for my birthday and was overjoyed with my first experience in a smoke free city. I didn't know it when we arrived but Madison went smoke free in July. Just another reason to love the best city in the nation! It was so rewarding to see the smokers suffering in the shitty weather outside (cold and rainy) and to walk into a beautiful bar and feel like it was the first time being in such a clean bar. The air was fresh and my asthmatic lungs that were overrun with a phlemy cough last week were grateful! Hooray, I know I have family members that smoke, but I am so happy that people are finally thinking that people's right to breath clean air is more important than an individuals right to get their nic fix. It is hard to believe that someone smart is actually making policy! Congratulations to the world.

Today is going well enought although I would like to curse out those godforsaken central illinois winds. My bike ride to work this morning was hell. Just when you think the winds have died down, you round a corner and it is there to greet you. Not to mention this freaky weather that we are having. not that I am complaining but I dress warmer than need be and sweat, yet if I remove, the wind gets me. I will take perfect fall temp (minus wind) anyday of the year. Plus it make's ben's days working out in the fields harvesting much more enjoyable for him and therefore for me!!

Interesting things of note:


Been working hard on getting wedding pictures in albums. I have been making my own albums that are incredibly funky and have made me proud, who knew that quilting batting, funky fabric, cardboard, ribbon and page refills from Michaels could work together so well. I am a little bit scared of becomming a scrapbooking obsessive, but as a control freak I just can't help doing everythign myself. No one had albums that I liked, unless I wanted to spend a hundred bucks, and as a farmer's wife, environmental educator that just isn't happening!

On a wierder note, I was checking up on ms. natalie's blog and hit the next botton and was directed to this girl's blog who I think is me only with a better fashion sense and more metropolitan. She is my idol, I love her. She got married the same day as me and just has so many similarities. I love this whole blogging thing! Although I do feel a little like an obsessive. I guess that describes me though.

I also woke up with some wierd hive bumps on my arms this morning, in case you were wondering!

I am off to another frickin BIOBLITZ meeting. this is truly the event that will never end.

Wedding Bliss

I am thrilled that we have almost all of our pictures together. This exit from the ceremony was snapped by Ben's uncle Ben. It is one of my favorites, because you get a sense of the whole event. I am going to post more pictures on the wedding website. It will take some time though because the computer here is just too slow!

I will have to wait until I am elsewhere. Just thought I would share with the few people who check this site.

Kate