Passo 2.0

I have been in a blogging funk lately! Sorry for my fans who haven't gotten to read anything in a while...haha, who am I kidding?

Many of you know that we lost Passo a couple weeks ago :( He was our first right-hand-driving car and we loved him very much! Enough sadness...we have moved on to....

who is better in every way! :)  

It's a Honda Civic and we got an amazing deal on him! We took a little mini roadtrip just to test him out this past weekend and went on a hike. The hike was good and muddy! My pink tennies will never be the same :( Looks like I'll just have to buy some new Nikes when I'm back in the States! ;) Which if you didn't know...will be for four weeks in October/November! We are so excited to see everyone we have been missing and to meet some new faces!! Ben and I will have a new nephew and my BFF will be a mom by then!! :) Some of our must-see/do's include:

-Fightin' Texas Aggie football! Whoop!

-Mexican Food...mmmmm

-Shopping!!

-Nutcracker Market...the most wonderful time of year :)

-Visiting friends and family

AND

-Early Thanksgiving!

Any name suggestions for our new car?? We can't think of anything good...

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End of an iPhone era

So, this past week, I decided I needed some Wicked Soundtrack to hype me up for my morning workouts. When adding music onto my iphone, I ran out of room and had to choose between music and my 243,270 pictures (okay, not that many but I love them and keep them all for a reason)! They begin when I got my very first iPhone for College graduation (Thanks Mommy and Poppy!) and go all the way up until last night! So...I took a page from Rachel's book and uploaded all of them to our SmugMug account! I had to hide one or two here and there :) But if you have the time and energy...you can relive my last 3 years! Here are some of my faves (not in chronological order...):

One of my summer school kiddos drew this wonderful depiction of me...I gotta big head!

Ben and I were driving around Katy one day and we saw this bad boy parked outside an auto parts store! I wonder what kind of parts they needed...

Ben used to come over to help me watch Kyle...here is the beginning of his helpful pictures...

Haha! Little elf...

Sleeping...

More Sleeping....

Thanks bud! :)

The next two pictures, we are at a pawn shop and Tyler found some legi chain mail in a box. He then decided to try it on...

And then he couldn't get it off...I think I laughed so hard I peed a little during this incident! Poppy had to come and help him get it off! PS-it cost $400!!!!

My last weekend in the States, Kyla, Kayla, and I went to most of the bakeries around Houston and had a cupcake taste off. We had about 2 dozen (big/mini) cupcakes and my ultimate fave was Crave!!!! This was not a unanimous decision though....

Hahah! Karmia...gotta love snapchat :)

Beautiful Karmia with her face mask...bleh...

Haha! I sent this picture to Rebecca H. originally because we were looking for a Ken doll to put on Kathryn's bachelorette party cake! It is very hard to find a Ken doll with moveable arms and legs...but I was successful!! Sexy!

This is another gem from watching Kyle! The Wii asked me this one day while I was weighing him...

And last, but not least, in my first grade class, we used shaving cream to spell words, math, etc. and I let them have a little play time when we were done. One of my babies wrote this for me one day! Love it!

If you want to see the rest of my 700 picures you can go to our SmugMug account...I bet you can find one of you!! :) 

Fun in the Snow!!!

Post #50! Woo Hoo! Here's to another 50!

Everytime we go somewhere new, I declare that it's my "new favorite place"! The problem is everywhere we go ends up being my "new favorite place!" Well, this weekend we went to Ohakune with some friends from church and got the chance to play in the first big snow of the winter.

We also did some hiking, eating, Carrot Festival-ing, and just relaxing! It was a great weekend. Since Ben and I have never been south of Auckland on the North Island, we decided to hit up multiple spots on our wish list! I have read reviews for and been wanting to go to Te Tiro in Waitomo for some time but we just hadn't managed to make it there.

Cool, entrance huh? Well, we finally did for one night and it was amazing! We stayed in our own little cabin overlooking the countryside, which was so quiet and peaceful! 

The B&B also had it's own glow worm grotto which is was so cool to see! Waitomo is known for its glow worms and caving so it was nice to have our own little private display! We definitely want to head back to Waitomo (and Te Tiro) during the summer to do some blackwater rafting!

Also while we were down in Waitomo we did a little bit of hiking to a really cool natural bridge!

I have to admit I wasn't quite sure what a natural bridge was to begin with but I am amazed...and a little scared to walk underneath! :) It was a really fun weekend and having a Monday off makes for a wonderful 3 day week!! 

It's officially Winter!! With love from the snow,

the webers

Gertrude's Saddle

Okay, I promised a part two of our Fjiorlands (correct??) trip! But first, I have some exciting news...we got a dryer!!!! I can't even think of the last day we have NOT had rain so it was kind of a necessity! I had even forgotten what it's like to have fluffy, soft towels! I don't know if I'll be able to go back to the outside drying hangy-thing when the rain lightens up...but, our electricity bill is high enough as it is, without the added dryer! So, we'll see what it's like this month :/

Okay, back to trip pictures! Here are some of my favorites!

Last you heard, we had just arrived in Queenstown and done the gondola and luge (so fun!). The next day was supposed to be the ONLY day with sun/no rain so we decided to make that our Milford Sound/hiking day! We woke up and drove 4+ hours to Milford Sound. It would have taken less time if we didn't stop every second to take pictures of the amazing scenery! Pictures don't even do justice to the amazing landscapes and mountains surrounding us! Just the drive there was worth going!

We found this waterfall going under one of the bridges and you could climb all the way under it! Very cool!

We finally made it to Milford Sound and had lunch. There was a hike around Milford Sound but it was closed when we got there :( Too bad because it looks super cool! 

 After getting some recommendations from someone who worked around Milford Sound we decided to change our plans and head out to find a different hike, Gertrude's Saddle. This one was a LOT more intense and much longer than the original 3 hour hike we planned to take. We were first greeted with signs like this:

Good thing it was Summer (ish) and no snow around! The hike was pretty tough and I can't say that I made it as far as Ben and John did but it had some amazing views! 

We found this perfect pool of water (it looks deceptively small in this picture). If it wasn't freezing, I probably would have jumped in!!

I'm told this is a lake at the almost-top of the hike. I didn't make it this far... :( I was enjoying sitting on a rock and contemplating how I was going to hike back DOWN! 

In this picture we have climbed pretty far up! You can see by Ben's wrist is the carpark where we started! And the hike started by following that riverbed on the left. I wish it was just a little less bright :(

And I'm pretty sure I posted this on my last post but this is my favorite picture from the trip! The clouds dripping down the mountain...this was on our way back out of the hike...It almost does the beauty justice!

And last but not least...a reminder of our accomplishments as "fit and experienced trampers"! 

I'm off to get my hair done today...it's going to be cute!! Keep a lookout :)

New Zealand Holiday Recap (pt. 1)

It has been almost a month (but not quite...) since my last blog post! But the last month has been a blur! We did so many exciting things, had a week off of work, travelled down to the South Island (loveee), and just relaxed! It was so nice to have both Ben and I's parents here to visit! It has been 8 months (!!!) since we moved to New Zealand...time flies! We have been blessed with so many good friends but it's hard to replace your family. Especially a family that we lived with for 14 months prior to our big move :) Thanks Mommy and Poppy! :) They were here for almost 2 weeks and we got so much good stuff packed into those two weeks! In Auckland, we explored Cornwall Park, hiked to the Kitekite falls (which John and Ben climbed to the top of!) and watched a sunset on Karekare beach! We took advantage of the sunset to take some funny pictures! I laughed so hard I almost peed! Here's some of my favorites :)

Virginia and John

Our "W" for Webers!

After the "W"...Ben is being so sweet while John beats up Virginia :)

"N" for Nixons! (This is where I almost peed in my pants :)

Heart :)

After a couple days in Auckland, we headed down to Queenstown, which is my new favorite place! We had a great weather while we were there. It was only rainy for small amounts of time and it was warm-ish up until the day we left! Perfect! We rented a house which was absolutely amazing and had the best views. If anyone needs a recommendation of a holiday house in Queenstown, let me know! 

Our first day there we rode the gondola up to the top of a mountain and did the luge! It was so much fun! Mommy, Poppy, Ben and I all did the "beginner" luge and then Poppy and I went back and did the "adventurous" one! 

View from the top! Our house was on the backside of that peninsula

Poppy beat me :(

Another view from the top! Isn't Ben such a great photographer!? 

Okay, I have so many more pictures but you are just going to have to wait until the next blog post...I promise it won't take me a month to write! If you want to check out our pictures from the trip in the meantime head over to our Smugmug! 

Kai Iwi Lakes!

Blehhhhh...I have had wayyyy too much Easter chocolate! And now it's tempting me with it's "50% off" stickers at the grocery store!!

Anyway, for Easter, Ben and I had our first Kiwi camping experience! Now, I have been "camping" before but this almost always ended with us packing up early and heading home because a) it was too cold or b) we ran out of some sort of provision. Good 'ole college camping out at Lake Bryan :) Luckily, the people we went with this time were super prepared! They had a pretty sweet set-up! They even shared their tent with us :) We really enjoyed eating, tree climbing, reading, relaxing, taking underwater pictures, biscuit-ing...

...Boxhead...

 

...trying my first (and only) Marmite and chip sandwich...

...The Adventures of Chick-Chick... 

...my first successful wakeboarding...  

  ...and swimming in the crystal blue, fresh water! 

Thanks Karmia and Caleb for taking us! 

Now that we're home, we will probably be relaxing around the house and getting ready for our parents to come visit in less than 2 weeks!!! We have lots of exciting stuff planned including a trip down to Queenstown where I'm trying to get Ben to agree to some bungee jumping! :) We'll see how that works out...

You can see all the pictures from our weekend on Smugmug! Along with an awesome video of me wakeboarding (and bailing...)! 

love love love

the webers