WI & HI

Friday July 19, 2013
We will use almost any excuse to get to Hawaii (at least I will). We left FL to head to WI for a 40th Wedding Anniversary for my brother and sister-in-law (Tom & Sue). We decided since the flights to WI were already expensive and we were already flying to a nice destination, that maybe we should make it a multi-city enjoyable trip. Therefore, after we leave WI on Sun. we head toward Kialua-Kona, HI. This is on the Big Island.
We met Anne (our daughter) in Chicago and flew from there to Milwaukee. We did a bit of shopping at REI and then headed over to Tom & Sue's for an afternoon visit since Heidi was also In town. Matthew and Casey and Madeleine drove in from St. Louis and were ready to relax and feed their little gremlin and get her in for the night. Madeleine, who is now 14 months old,
was the center of attention while we were there.
The party is tomorrow afternoon, so our morning is free to check out a few places in the area before we arrive.

A busy week in FL for Garrison Family

Anne, Garrison and Emily arrived late on Thursday evening (May 30). It was about 11 pm which is way late for a toddler of almost 18 months. She immediately fell asleep in the new car seat that Anne had sent down to Fl. It faces forward so that in itself was pretty neat for her. Needless to say, it was dark and not much to see, so sleep was more important.

The next morning we did not make it to rope drop at any of the Disney Parks but we did make it for the official first hair cut. There is a small little shop on Main Street in The Magic Kingdom that specializes in just that sort of thing. It was rather like a 3 ring circus to keep her entertained just to get her bangs cut. Emily didn't even want to wear the neat Mickey hat that celebrates that 1st haircut.



Bubbles are a lot more fun than a hair trim.



Emily has the hat on but it is off in a flash.


We do have a cute family by the castle, so we know they got past the hair cut place.




Anne and Garrison stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort which of course does have a very lovely beach. Just look at all of those little footprints to get down to the beach. You know it is hard walking on that soft sand.



The resort also had a very nice pool, but that requires getting on a swimsuit. That is quite an ordeal to get Emily ready for a swim. In fact it is a family affair. :-)



She did get into her suit and enjoyed not only swimming and dunking, but also drinking the pool water.



She had lots of fun just watching people scream, cheer and put their arms up as they went down the Expedition Everest roller coaster.


There was also a little down time in Celebration to walk around and check out the various plants and animals. She seemed to find DUCKS as long as they kept their distance. One of her favorite words.






Garrison had to head back to TX, so Anne and Emily stayed a few more days. We did get back to the Magic Kingdom once again. All of us had gone to EPCOT as well as Animal Kingdom, but The Magic Kingdom does have more for little children. Needless to say we were trying to fit in some things between naps and rain. Dumbo did make it and Small World had to be done
twice. She slept through it the first time, so therefore a rerun was necessary. She really liked all of the activity so it was well worth it.



The rain did strike and the Electrical Parade was cancelled. Maybe next time.



The new fashion trend for keeping mom and toddler sort of dry.

From FL to TX and Beyond

We flew down to Houston with Anne and Emily. Luckily we were bumped up to first class. At least Emily had a little more room to move. Unlucky for the other first class passengers to be blessed with a noisy toddler.

She colored I the small child room in The United Club. Then onto the plane where Anne was really stressed trying to keep Emily attentive for 3 hours. Even though you get food and beverages, a toddler just has more items to get their little hands into. Whew!






Despite the long trek, Emily did a pretty good job.


Swim lessons were on Emily's agenda so we did see her in action and she wanted to make sure we saw her from behind the glass enclosure.






Here she is incognito in her car seat seeing the sites of TX.


The park also kept her busy as well as all of us.


Just look at the bearded baby. Yogurt is just the perfect beard, much better than the milk mustache.


The following are all of Emily being busy. Could you guess that maybe Emily is sort of the main event of this blog.



Sorting theses shapes is. Piece of cake.


Water always tastes better after it hits the pavement. Mmmmm.


The Splash Pad is really neat.


Blowing bubbles with Daddy.


Mmmmmm.


Now I will wear my First Haircut Mickey Hat.

In LA

We got into LA about 9:30 this morning, but it did take time to go through Customs and then to get out luggage. Brian picked us up and we spent the day with him. We are a little tired but will make it until we can go to bed at a fairly normal time tonight.

We flew on a A380 which has 2 levels. The upper level of course is for First and Business Class. We were in the lower level with the steerage. :-(

We take off on Thursday morning and head to Orlando. Then to rest up from a wonderful well organized trip.

Last travel day enroute to Christchurch, New Zealand

Monday April 22, 2013


We have breakfast beginning at 6:30 am and luggage out at 6:30 am and ready to depart at 7:15 am. We are off and ready for our farm visit to see sheep shearing in action. It started out very foggy this morning with very little visibility of the mountains as well as the road. It is a bit brisk. We will be taking a couple of breaks before we visit the farm.
So far, not a good day for photos.




This is the church of the Good Shepherd where a number of weddings take place due to it being right over the water. The lake is hidden behind the church.



Here is a sheep dog figure that is a trademark for the area. It looks like a silhouette in the clouds.

We did get to the sheep farm. The owner and his wife are young. They have 4 young children to assist. He was a Philosophy Major and now this is his career. This farm is a third generation farm. His mother called him as he was taking his final exam since the farm was in great duress at the time. His father had tried his hand at dairy farming but didn't know the business very well. Charles the son and current owner was dropped into the business. He pulled the dairy industry together for a time and has since sold or leased that portion. Seems he made a good profit from the dairy portion and now has only sheep.

He has also written a children's book entitled "Sam & Poppy A Dag of a Tale".



He also writes professional books and gives lectures or goes to the farms to assist others in trying to make their farms profitable.

He has gone through training to shear sheep which takes about 5 years. They compare sheep shearing to running a marathon, therefore if you shear sheep for 4 days of 9 hours as day, then you would have to have the endurance of running 4 marathons. Whew!








The sheared wool is then somewhat sorted according to where it was sheared from. The thickness and fineness are decided.


The wool is then put in large bags and sold according to kilograms. The finer wool is worth more per kilogram than the thick variety.

After our little tour we were invited over to the homestead and his wife Abby had warm cookies and juice waiting for us. That was where he had his book available for sale and he was there to autograph it.

Their house is also one of those that had earthquake damage. That has been since 2011and is now almost ready for repair. Ir has taken some time to get lots of areas of Christchurch and surrounding towns back to normal. Their home is quite old and can not even be washed until repair is complete.



You probably can not tell, but there is plenty of bird poop all over the side of the house.

We toured the Antarctic Museum. It was very authentic with the 123 mph wind area. Wow!
and we thought WI was cold.



Brrrrrrrrrr




We were also able to see some penguins.


Then we had a nice dinner at a historic home (actually a large tent outside the home). This was due to earthquake damage to the historic home.
Now to get things packed so we can put our luggage out at 3 AM for our first flight to return to LAX.

Location:Holly Road,St Albans,New Zealand

Journey to Mt. Cook

Sunday April, 21, 2013
We had a dinner last night with a host family. We were picked up at 6:00 PM along with another couple to enjoy a dinner with a New Zealand family. It was a very nice visit and dinner. The food and the conversation were both very good. The host couple live in Arrowtown.
We had a fire alarm this morning that got everyone out of the hotel a bit earlier than planned. The alarm did not even sound on our level, so hotel staff were going up and down the hall knocking and opening doors to alert guests to evacuate. It must have been a false alarm since everyone was allowed in after about 10 minutes.
We drove to Arrowtown which is only 20 minutes away from Queenstown.
Here we walked up and down the streets of shops. The town used to be an old mining town and the building fronts have been preserved to keep some of the history. There are still some miners' cottages that have also been restored. It was a neat little town.




The old town look. The street is now paved but the old fronts are a nice touch.




Here is a miner's cottage but this one is a bit larger than most. This miner must have done quite well. The shutters and trees and fence of course have been added. There were no native deciduous trees at that time.




It definitely is fall in this part of New Zealand. The leaves are so colorful with the sun shining on them.
We stopped at a Mrs. Jones large fruit stand which had cookies, nuts, candy, jelly as well as lots of fruits. We drove through the town of Cromwell that was once flooded and rebuilt. It is considered the oldest new town in New Zealand. This whole area is noted for fruit so hence their town icon is a a large display of fruit. It resembles Fruit of the Loom a little bit.




I had a little bit of a problem taking this photo on the opposite side of the bus.




Some snow on the mountains, so it is cold at higher elevations.
We got toThe Hermitage Hotel which is in the Mt. Cook National Park. We are not able to actually see Mt. Cook but we did get a glimmer of sunshine and a speck of blue sky for a better photo of the snowy mountains. It really is beautiful.




Just a speck of blue is so pretty against the snow covered mountains. The dark mountains are in the foreground. Where there is snow there is cold.
We had a nice reception with our group this evening before our dinner. It was nice to get together and chat with lots of folks before we make our final return. We hit the road early again to tomorrow and the following day we take off for Los Angeles.




This is the view from our room. It is hard to see the snow on the mountain, but it is there.




There was a neat 3 wheel motorcycle that was parked at the hotel. Just had to put it on the blog because it looked so different.

Queenstown Safari Trek

Saturday April 20, 2013
We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take a safari on Range Rovers to see some of the sites where The Lord of The Rings was filmed.
We drove through a road which is covered with water to see various areas that were major film spots.




The road was a bit bumpy but we stayed dry. A little difficult for photos through wet windows.




A very narrow one way road without a guardrail. It would be a problem meeting another vehicle. Someone would need to back up if too large.
We also went on an old coal powered boat. This seems pretty tame compared to the excitement this morning.




It belched out some black smoke.