Snow Joke

Well there's nothing like walking on beaches one day, & then digging a couple of feet of snow the next! We finally arrived home from New Zealand late Tuesday night & laughed when we spotted our cars in the parking lot - actually they were more recognisable because they were the only two cars that weren't very visible due to being boxed in by snow.

So Wednesday afternoon brought on the Big Dig:

I always love the icicles this time of year - they remind me of huge stalactites!

Anyway, we had an absolutely fabulous trip & could've easily stayed much longer - there was no "we had a good time but are looking forward to being home" feeling. I could easily live very contentedly in NZ, it's a very beautiful country, with the most amazing scenery - you can go from rainforest to fiordland, mountain, sandy beach or city within a couple of hours of each other, it's quite spectacular.   

I especially loved the relative solitude over there, even though it's their summer & high tourist season. NZ is about the same size as my homeland in the UK as far as landmass goes, but contains only 10% of the population. It was great being able to enjoy hanging out in bars or restaurants without being crowded, & similarly with regards to attractions that we visited. In my younger years I was always a city person when it came to where I wanted to live, enjoying the hustle bustle of activities that cities had to offer. But over the years I've come to much more prefer living in quieter regions & traveling into the city whenever I needed a "fix". So I could definitely appreciate living in some of the beautiful lake or mountain regions of NZ.

Two and a half weeks definitely wasn't enough for me, but it was certainly a great amount of time to get a good sampler of the different regions of the country. I'm going to gradually share photos here from the trip so those of you who've never visited NZ can enjoy some of the nice scenery by proxy at least!

In the meantime, it's back to reality in chilly New England. Shortly after Wednesday's Big Dig it started snowing again. A few hours later we'd had another foot or so of snow & my car required another 40 minutes of digging out at 5am before work yesterday morning (although I was very grateful to M who wrapped up warm to go & dig it out for me!). The snow piles are ridiculous right now:

And parking is even more of a nightmare - hehe!

Hope you're all well folks - I'll try & catch up soon!



Roll Out The Barrell

Well it's been a busy start to the year so far. We spent a couple of days in Boston to end 2010 and ring in 2011. The weather here over the New Year weekend was remarkably nice for this time of year - temperatures were in the high 40s to low 50s & it was bright & sunny - perfect for walking around comfortably without 6 layers of clothing!

We spent the afternoon of New Year's Eve at the Sam Adams Brewery in the city - despite having lived here for over 5 years, I'd never been to the brewery before. It was really busy that day - clearly many others had similar ideas on how to spend the day!

Lots of fun though - tours last almost an hour & end in their drinking room with 3 samples of Mr Adams' finest on offer!

The city was busy around dinner time, unsurprisingly. Naturally we didn't have dinner reservations but did still manage to get a table at a lovely Italian restaurant in the North End. 

We wandered back to the hotel after dinner, & despite having grand ideas about heading out in time for midnight fireworks at Boston Harbor, we were tucked up in bed & fast asleep by about 10:30pm!

Next morning we took advantage of the continued nice weather though & took a walk around Bunker Hill to take in some history before heading back home.

Since we'd fallen asleep early the previous evening, we'd missed out on our champagne, so we decided to have some sparkly stuff on Saturday evening instead - along with some tasty ice cream cake (we couldn't go wrong - it had peanut butter in it!), especially since we were celebrating my birthday a few days early due to M's absence on the day.

He had to head back down to GA on Sunday to finish the clearing process on base down there. I'm pleased to say that he returned tonight though - and tomorrow we fly out to New Zealand!