We're Back!

Happy New Year!!!

We arrived home last night after a wonderful vacation down in Wanaka. I have gobs of pictures, so many I filled up my camera's memory card! I took Dugald's old trusty laptop with me so that I could check my email once in awhile, but I couldn't upload photos so you are about to get them all in a few picture-laden posts. Actually I won't post them ALL. . . I'll try to self-edit a bit. 

Wanaka is down near the bottom of the South Island and we live on the bottom of the North Island. Our original plan was to fly down and rent a car, but we soon discovered that all the cars with the capacity to seat our family were spoken for. . . so we changed our plans and booked our car and ourselves on the ferry instead. I was still pretty darn sick when we left, I got the flu the Friday before Christmas and it hung on for quite some time. Thankfully our sail through the Cook Straight on the ferry was calm and uneventful. I've seen the ferry crossing in what I would consider VERY rough seas, so I was grateful indeed for the smooth ride. 

The ferry crossing is three hours and then we drove down to Christchurch, normally a four and a half hour drive, but it took us six. Oh well. It was beautiful. Here is a picture of the girls at our first stop - "The Pacific Store". It was a lovely cafe right on the shore so they went and got their feet wet.

We had two nights in Christchurch, so we managed to squeeze in a photo with Santa Claus, except for Ellie who was not going near him despite my desperate bribes.
Then, because I was ill, and Dugald was tired from the drive, we decided to go see a movie. We saw "Bolt" which was adorable, but in the theater the girls saw their friends from HSM3. Oh the joy!
Later that afternoon we went punting on the Avon - 




After punting we strolled around and saw Balentines famous Christmas window. We decided to go in and Josie tried on a few hats.

All of which was enough for sweet Ellie, who fell asleep on her Daddy's head. 
The next day we headed out for our long drive to Wanaka. I can't remember how long it took us, but again the scenery was incredible. Here are the girls at Lake Tekapo where we stopped for lunch. I should have taken more pictures of the lake but honestly I still was feeling pretty awful and didn't have the energy. The water is an amazing blue due to copper deposits, it's unlike anything I've ever seen.
Last stop before Wanaka was a salmon farm where the girls got to feed the fish and we bought some delicious fresh salmon for Christmas day.
Finally we arrived to Kate and Ant's incredible home in Wanaka. I didn't get a picture of the house from the front, but here is the view from the back. If you enlarge the photos or look closely you can see Meggie, Katie and Holly the black lab looking into the paddock.

I'll post more tomorrow with pictures of the family and more details about the fun we had!