It's been a while

So this is the longest break I have taken from blogging since I started in October.  I was amazed at how many people told me that they and others missed the blog entries.  I can't promise this will be the start of a whole new string of regular, interesting blog posts, but I will try.  It is hard to blog sometimes while living in Queenstown for 2 reasons:  1.  Time flies here.  I can check the date for upcoming birthdays and all of the sudden it is March!?  When did it become March?  I sometimes find myself wondering where weeks have gone, and forgetting to keep track of time.  This is way more like a vacation than real life.  2.  Sometimes I try to think back to what I did with all of these weeks that are flying by, and it seems that it is just a bunch of stories about hanging out with people that I adore, that no one back home really knows.   Maybe i'll try to write more about my friends here, but I sometimes think that is boring for my readers.

Well apart from my very long rant that attempts to justify my absence, there have been a lot of really exciting things going on here lately.  Jeff's family came to visit this past week, and it gave Jeff and I the opportunity to experience Queenstown from a tourists point of view.  I had the entire week off except a short shift Sunday night, and Jeff had his nights free and Thursday and Friday off.  It was so nice to have some money saved up and be able to enjoy Queenstown as a holiday spot rather than our home.  I guess I will just write about the trip in chronological order, so if i need to stop I can just pick up where I left off.

So I picked Nancy, Tom, and Laura up at the airport on Tuesday afternoon, and Jeff can conveniently working at the airport that day.  We were very happy to see that they arrived safetly and on time.  I took them to their hotel to shower up and once Jeff finished work we went to dinner at a place suggested to us as "american and good", called Lonestar (not the same one as in America).  It was a decent meal, but our most expensive meal, and least impressive.  Despite the long trek to NZ, everyone seemed really excited to be here.  After dinner we took Nancy and Laura back to the hotel and grabbed a few drinks with Tom, but soon jet lag started to kick in so we headed home.

Wednesday Jeff had to work so I took everyone to the market to grab some groceries and we went to the Hilton to book our Milford Sound cruise.  The Hilton offers employees a discount of excursions so we were able to save some money on a coach cruise coach trip on the BBQ bus.  (We initially chose a different bus, but it was booked, so we decided to take a leap).  We met Jeff for lunch at Hamill's where it began to appear as if Tom had severely injured his eye with his mom's contact solution.  We urged him to run across to the eye glass store to have it looked at.  They confirmed it was a peroxide burn to the eye and it would take a little bit of time to heal.  With his present injury, Tom decided to sit out of the hike up Queenstown Hill.   It is a 600 meter hike with great views.  This is a hike Jeff and I have wanted to do for sometime, but often don't get days off together.  Laura, Nancy, and I started climbing, and were all surprisingly fit for the walk, but it was Nancy who was spitting out the optimistic phrases when we were slowly approaching the summit.  It was very impressive to see her climb to the top at age 60, with more ease than Laura and I.  We all napped and recovered and decided to try out the casinos 2 mains for $25 deal.  We had 5 mains, 2 desserts, 4 beers, and a glass of wine for $115, and the food was all really good!  I would say it was the weeks best bargain, and Jeff and I will definitely eat there again.

View from the top of Queenstown Hill

I must go make the same thing I make every night I am off work... Burritos/fajitas/quesadillas!!  Will finish the trip's details soon!!

Cheers!