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Blue Pools Walk - Drive from Wanaka to Haast Pass

It has officially been 17 days since my last post- the longest I have gone without posting in the two and half years I have been rambling here. On our last trips, I'd had time to write some posts early & have something up while I was gone. I really wanted to get more caught up around the house & done with all my trip photos before returning to blogging, but I've got one last photo set that will just have to wait. I needed a break, but now I think I need a break from my life & just a few minutes to something frivolous instead of working like a maniac on my To Do lists.



Auckland Harbor

No such luck this time. Not only have I been swamped at work (2.5 out of the other 3 engineers) are temporarily sidelined, we left for New Zealand right in the middle of purchasing a new house. Between now and the end of April, I have 3 local inspection & trips to Pittsburgh, San Diego/Santa Barbara, the UP of Michigan, Denver/Wyoming, Detroit & Tennessee!



Dart River

In addition to packing for our trip, the last few weeks before leaving were filled with packing up our house. That is really the small part of it- the enormous amount of paperwork that needs to be done these days to get a loan is astronomical. We're not selling our house, so add "Rent House" to the list of things we set out to accomplish in the last four weeks.



Karekare Beach outside of Auckland

I am still crossing my fingers VERY tightly that we can actually close tomorrow. We have already pushed it back from this past Monday & I've had to reschedule a variety of workers and delivery people. I'll be traveling several days next week for work & we've got movers scheduled to take all of our big furniture to the new house next weekend. I'm hoping to spend this weekend painting!



Lake Pukaki en route to Mt Cook National Park

Our trip was great- I took nearly 3,400 photo & I've roughly narrowed it down into 5 sets of photos with about 1,400 pictures. Don't worry- I won't attempt to blog them all, but I imagine it will take me several weeks to cover the highlights of Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown, Wanaka, the fjiordlands & the glaciers.



I picked today to return to blogging because it is my brother's 16th birthday. I'm amazed at how much he's grown up in the past year & I can see him turning into a great guy before my eyes. Earlier this week he was picking out his classes for his last two years of high school & I had a chance to share some of the fun stuff he gets to look forward to as he kicks into high gear for college prep.



Today he got his license & officially moved up to his mom's old Tahoe. Since Spring Break is next week, they are leaving tomorrow morning for a ski trip to Utah.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: It is busy, but that's how I like it! :)