It's Finally Here (Departure in 10 days and counting!)

2 Posts so close together?! Crazy! If you missed my Halloween/Fall recap, see pprevious post below- otherwise continue on your way here!

After months of excruciating waiting, the time has finally come! New Zealand!!! Meg and I booked these tickets way back in....March, was it? That's what we get when we decide on a spur of the moment purchase, but want to wait until the weather is decent in the country of choice. Anyways - be jealous, cause here is our intended list of things to do!

NOV 18: Chao, O'Hare airport, Hello adventure, here we come!

NOV 20: Christchurch, NZ (remember folks, we're halfway around the world and a day ahead now! Where did Nov 19 2011 go? It'll forever be lost in my life!)
- We get in bright and early (8am) and have the whole day to explore and roll with the punches! Hit the weekend Market? Maybe. Climb to the top of Christchurch Cathedral? Possibly. Have an amazing time? Guaranteed!

NOV 21: Dunedin, NZ
- Hopefully if the weather is nice, we'll be taking surf lessons (with some hunky hunky Kiwi men? Girls can dream....)
-Other options: Cadbury chocolate tour, Hike up the "steepest street in the World" Baldwin St, Tour Larnach castle? Again, Rolling with the punches (after all, isn't that the only way to travel happy?!)

NOV 22: Te Anau/Milford Sound
- KAYAKING!!!! Here (below!)

If this picture doesn't make you want to drop everything and travel, please check your pulse. You may be dead.

NOV 23: Queenstown - Adventure capitol of the world!
- Bungee Jumping anyone? It's already booked so it's a go! My friend Allison did this on her trip there and I've been jealous ever since! Hopefully I have as much balls as she did (or they'll just have to push me!)

This is Kawaru Bridge. The location of our jump

NOV 24: Fox Glacier
- Hike hike hike! I've never been on a glacier before so I'm pretty jazzed!

NOV 25: This is a "Choose your own Adventure" Day. Wherever the wind blows us and our hearts take us (as long as we start heading North for our next day!)

NOV 26: Marlbourlough
- Who ever said you can't drink and drive? Or at least drink and cycle. Full day of winery tours by bike! Tour beautiful country side? Check. Drink lots of yummy wine? Check. Fall off our bikes drunk and laughing? Most likely.

NOV 27: Kaikoura
- Beach, hiking, whale watching? Taking it easy on our last full day

Click for larger map! And see if you can find all of our hotspots!

I am so fortunate to be going on this trip with my best friend and partner in crime! I'm hard pressed to find such a kindred spirit who's willing to take off 10 days of her life and backpack across a foreign country with zero guarantee of showers, comfortable beds, or decent meals.... yet who is just as excited about it as me! You can keep your all inclusive resorts, just leave the adventures for us :)

See you when we return!

Halloween recap

Despite the fact that I've been mostly jazzed about my upcoming trip to NZ, I leave you one more post about the random stuff I've been up to before I start bragging about my trip and it's intended itinerary.

The end of October took me 1) to A Corn Maze! It was a lot of fun - the first one I've ever done. It was Cat in The Hat themed - so apparently if you took a picture of it from above it would look like:

And each numbered station we found was a Dr. Seuss question which, if answered correctly, would lead you the correct direction. It took us about an hour to own that beast! But we succeeded and past numerous small children in the process (Yes, I am smarter than you're 6 year old and yes, I will get annoyed if they are slowing me down! I'm here to win!)

Children of the Corn!

Navigationally challenged.

Winning!

2) A Haunted House! No pictures here though (of course) but it scared the poo outta me! I was even creeped out in line by some goblin thing that kept scaring me. Which of course, once they know you're an easy scare, they keep coming back for more.... can't win there! But how I do love it!

3) Carved pumpkins! I did the Perry the Platypus one and was quite proud. The pumpkins traveled with me to Michigan on Halloween weekend to spend a belated b-day with my brother and best friend. No exciting Halloween themed shenanigans ensued, but Meg and I sure know how to make an empty bar the most happenin' place in Grand Rapids :P Who says you can't dance on the bar top at a TGI Fridays, anyway?

Happy to report that the pumpkins not only rocked, but the seeds were de-lish

4) Finally, and most recently, I've had a very sports themed weekend. It started off with an Admirals hockey game (complimentary of course from the free tickets I won in a previously mentioned frisbee toss game!). They won, cause they rock. And I also hit up my first ever University of Wisconsin-Madison football game (GO BADGERS!) It was a crazy sea of red and white, but we had awesome seats by the 45 yard mark and it was a perfect fall day to go!

Bucky the Badger

My seat!

Yuck, it's taken me 24 years to only start slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm just not one of those girls who takes gorgeous photographs! But here I am! Goofy as ever.

Mostly now, I'm just preparing my pack list for my trip and trying to get all my ducks in a row (and make a little extra $$$) before leaving! Check back here in a few days and I'll have my pre-trip post for you!!!!

A little old and a little new

Hello again! I hope this post finds everyone reading it happy and healthy!

It's almost been a month since my eye surgery and everything has been going great. My eyes are a little dry in the morning when I first wake up, but beyond that, no complaints. I have my one month check up next week and hopefully they tell me everything is perfect! Fingers crossed - I'd really hate to hace to do the eye surgery thing again so soon!

I was so excited to tell you all about my eyes, that I never told you about my trip to the Renaissance Faire! There are designated Ren Faire grounds in southern WI and it's open every weekend in the summer. I'd never been before and wanted to check it out before it closed for the season and I must say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! Here are some pictures! One of the best games to play is "employee or enthusiastic guest?" Some people are real nuts about dressing up! Even if you're not into the shows and food available, the people watching is so worth the admission cost.

I thought these acrobats were amazing! Not to mention the girl had abs to die for! Yeah - I was jealous...no that does not mean I'm gong to be doing more crunches. I still have my priorities (ie pizza)

Who knew 'professional whip cracker' was a career choice? I missed that one in the GVSU book of majors... He was really good and funny too!

Me and my giant turkey leg! (See, I told you I had my priorities!)

Watching some jousting

The Queen!

The shows were all very funny and there was so much to see I can see why some people would buy season passes. There was shopping left and right, pub crawls, and more shows than we got to see. But I can imagine that if you frequented this often, you'd be broke on your ass! They definitely know how to get your money from you!

I also had gone to Discovery World right here in downtown Milwaukee with my friend Adam. It may have seemed a little more geared towards kids, but let's be honest here, I pretty much and a 10 year old in a 24 years olds body. It's a museum with a lot of hand-on engineering stuff (playing with gears, machines, blah blah blah etc etc etc). I thought it was a hoot and a half!!!

Using pulleys to hoist myself up to the mast!

I ran in this giant hamster wheel to make a lightbulb go. It was tough (both the running and the muscling out small children to get my turn). I believe the general population of WI would be much slimmer though if this was the only means to watch the Packers.

Laying on the bed of nails!

Adam trying to recreate sounds from Star Trek with this funny little noise do-hickey (He'll be annoyed I don't remember it's name...)

Getting a kick out of the fact that Adam doesn't fit well through the boat quarters.

There was also an aquarium portion, too, but I don't have any pictures from that cause I was too busy sticking my hand in the tank to touch the creatures (something Adam had no desire to participate it - lame!)

Ok! Notice all those pictures were with my glasses!? Let's move on to something a little more current! This past weekend was full of hiking and roller coasters!

Saturday, prompted by my work colleagues, I visited Lapham Peak. A really close portion of the WI State Forest. It was a gorgeous weekend where it looked like fall but felt like summer so it was a great day for a hike. It was the first time Jim has ever been on an official hike, but I still made him pull 6.5miles. The colors were gorgeous! And since we did a longer route, we hardly ran into anyone. At the parking lot there were a ton of families, but we quickly ditched the small children.

The park had a tower you could climb to overlook the county. It was a pretty view.

Me at the highest point in Waukesha County. A whopping 1233ft!!! Eat your heart out Rocky Mountains!

Jim around mile 4 smiling despite his legs hurting (a fact he complained about all the next day too! What a weenie :P)

Taking a rest mid trail.

Sunday we went to Six Flags for their October Fright Fest celebration! Again, it was a beautiful faux-summer day, but man was it crowded! I didn't remember it being that bad last time I went, but the last time the water park was open, too, so the crowd was dispersed in there. Good news about the waterpark being closed: I don't have to stare at 300 lb men who appear to be wearing sweaters despite t-shirts being removed or 16 year old girls who need to eat a sandwich. Glass half full? The rides we did get a chance to go on were fun though and we even wrapped up the day watching a hypnotist show which was funny. I don't know if I believe it, but it was curious! The major bummer of the trip: I bought a souvenir cup for $15 cause I was DYING of thirst and if you bought it, you got free refills all day long! Figuring I'd use it and then some, I splurged. Unfortunaly, people are not very honest and my cup was stolen while I was riding the Batman coaster :( I was majorly bummed out. Stupid people. At least I had already gotten 3 refills before that point, so it wasn't a total loss, but still!

King Kong!
Waiting in line. And waiting, and waiting, and waiting.....

That's all for now! About one month until New Zealand! Are you excited? I sure am!!! Oh and a big THANKS MOM for making Echo some lovely kitten mittens! Even he he doesn't love them, I sure do! Haha!

Ignore my tired eyes- this was right as I was post op! Echo has no excuse though.