Our first REAL vaction

Wow! Nick and I had an amazing week. It did have some down points though, one to be exact, but first I’ll start with Thanksgiving. We were completely out of idea of what to cook, so our kiwi employees offered to host Thanksgiving dinner for us. What a bunch of slackers we are. Stephanie, our fellow employees cooked us chicken, vegetables, cheese and crackers, potatoes and mud pie. She invited over the pilots as well. So in exchange for her hospitably, we taught them the meaning of Thanksgiving and thanked Stephanie for hosting her first Thanksgiving dinner for us. Happy Thanksgiving!
Now the bad news, Nick got his hair cut. I was planning on cutting it, but Barry, a pilot, ended up doing it by accident. We borrowed Barry’s clippers, which only had a number 4, and I was just going to take a little off the top. Well, when Barry got a hold of the clippers he took Nick down to a 4. Tears were shed, but not by Nick. I love Nick’s curly hair, but I’m slowing liking his new look. It’s not bad, but it was just so different that I couldn’t hold back. Just a side note: I have never once cried over my hair and I find it highly amusing that I cried over Nick’s.
Since we have officially been in New Zealand for a month, we treated ourselves to a holiday. We took four days off and drove 6 hours to the sunshine capital of New Zealand, Nelson. It was a perfect vacation. We booked ourselves a hotel with a king size bed, a kitchenette and a jetted tube and both of us agreed it was the best thing we did in Nelson. We went shopping, walked around the town center and ate at a very bohemian restaurant. The next day we went on an all day catamaran, sailing in the Able Tasman National Park. Able Tasman was a Dutch explorer who first discovered New Zealand. Fortunately, he wasn’t able to claim the land because the Maori natives drove him out. A few years later Captain Cook, an English explorer arrived and claimed New Zealand. Anyway, it’s so beautiful there with golden beaches, lush greenery and aqua blue water. It was such a clear day and the weather was beautiful. That night we ordered pizza and enjoyed our television.
For the next day we made our own Maori bone carvings. The process was from start to finish. We drew out our design on paper, transferred that to bone, cut it out, sanded it smooth and added all finishing touches. It was fun to be able to handcraft a Maori necklace. Mine is a Maori fishhook, which symbolizes our journey through life and I added two carvings representing me and Nick. Nick made a teardrop, which symbolizes the power of emotion and he dyed his a tea color. Both are very unique and designed especially by us. Later we went to the beach, searched for seashell, walked along the coast and watched the sun set.
Sadly our holiday came to an end way too soon. We drove home taking the scenic route. We stopped off at anything that looked interesting. The only attraction the proved to be wroth it was the pancake rocks and blowholes. It’s exactly as if sounds, basically thin rocks stacked on top of each other to create a look of stacked pancakes. It was beautiful and although it took us an extra thirty minutes, even Nick finally agreed it was worth it. This week was perfect and much needed. It was nice to see the sun and get out of the rain. We relaxed, had a wonderful holiday and I eventually got over Nick’s hair.