View from above

Today was all about gorgeous ocean views off of balconies – on the ferry and from our hotel room.

Due to our late night movie, we slept in this morning. We had to check out of our hotel by 10am, but our ferry to the South Island wasn’t until 2pm, which left us with a bit of open time. So, we did what seemed most practical – shopping! ;) Shopping in downtown Wellington is a lot of fun! And we even got awesome parking spots, which was nothing short of a miracle. In addition to shopping, we took the Wellington Cable Car to a beautiful lookout point and perused the Cable Car Museum at the top.

We underestimated traffic and forgot that we had to fill up our rental car with gas to return it before the ferry. That resulted in a bit of a rush and half running from our car to the check in point. We ended up having a few minutes to spare. Upon sailing, I began to get seasick. That doesn’t usually happen to me, but the ferry was rocking back and forth quite a bit. Grant went in search of a remedy and ended up getting me some Ginger Beer (like Root Beer, but with ginger). It did help quite a lot. It’s also fun to try the unique foods and drinks of New Zealand.

Sitting on the ferry, drinking my ginger beer, and working on the blog.

The rest of the ferry ride was relaxing, and the last 45 minutes were breathtaking, as we were sailing through Marlborough Sounds to get to our destination, Picton, on the South Island. We spent much of this time overlooking the ship’s balcony. While we were outside, we spent some time reading the Bible together. It’s something we’ve been doing almost daily during our drives or down time. We’ve been reading several chapters of 1 Samuel each day, processing what we read, and then applying it to our lives. It sparks a lot of thought and conversation between us, and it has been so nice to have ample time to discuss things with one another and learn from each other.

Beautiful view from the balcony of the ferry. We sailed through the path you see ahead.

Another amazing view off of the ferry.

Our hotel is a two minute drive from the ferry terminal with a beautiful harbor view off of a private glass balcony, so that it doesn’t obstruct the view at all. It is the nicest room we have stayed in so far. We spent the rest of the evening cooking pasta, relaxing, and getting things ready for Scuba diving tomorrow! We will be out all day on three dives, so I’m sure we’ll have a lot to write about.

View from our hotel balcony. You can see the harbor, the ocean,

and the Marlborough sounds in the background.

I'm finishing the post this morning because our internet was beyond slow last night. Hope you all slept well :)

We "fell back" with Daylight Savings Time ending last night. We aren't complaining with the extra hour of sleep.

Love, the George family

Which way do we go?

This is yesterday’s post. Our hotel didn’t have internet, and we had a busy day, so we got behind a bit.

"Which way do we go?" was a common phrase, or at least thought, during our stay in Wellington.

Ohakune was the perfect stopover location on our way to Wellington, and we still had over four hours of driving, including the crazy Wellington traffic. We set out early, eating and packing everything up by 7:30 am. Once again, the landscape was beautiful during the drive. There was a lot of farm ground on the way and part of it was the closest we’ve seen to Kansas, except for mountains in the background and more vegetation growing.

Farmland as seen driving from Ohakune to Wellington.

You can see the mountains in the background.

It was the first time we met any speeders. The maximum speed limit here is 100 kilometers per hour, which is about 60mph. Most people go back and forth between 85-100 kph on the highway (50-60mph). It was a pre-curser to what was to come. Wellington traffic was the worst traffic we’ve had. This was mostly because Wellington is built on a very hilly, steep region (like what you visualize in scenes of Greek Sea Towns, but with British architecture).  What we found out later is that Wellington was founded on a grid, despite the sharp hills and valleys. There really isn’t room for modern roads in Wellington, which makes for quite a few one way streets and very confusing traffic. Mix that with a GPS that can’t get a good signal through the skyscrapers, and we had an interesting time getting around the downtown area.

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and is known for its artsy culture. We enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the town, as well as the diversity we encountered here.

Weta Cave was our “must see” in Wellington. Weta is a company that does consulting work on many movies you’ve probably seen, such as Avatar, the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, King Kong, TinTin, District 9, Halo and The Water Horse. They specialize in the special. They do all the most memorable costumes (think hand-made chain mail), makeup (like full rubber paint on suits for Orcs), special effects (for when there aren’t really 10,000 actors to make up a “crowded street” scene), props, computer effects, and much more. It was quite fun to look around and see a video of the restricted areas. You can’t go back there or you’d see the special stuff for movies that aren’t out yet. Weta employs 30,000 people that all work in one area of Wellington called Miramar – and they all park on the street. We were lucky to find a parking spot half a mile from Weta Cave.

Posing in front of the Weta Cave sign.

Ahhh, an orc! Weta Cave had a lot of awesome movie memorabilia.

We continued our trip at Mount Victoria. This provided the best views of the city, as well as a lot of scenic walks.  We ate a nice picnic lunch. We haven’t eaten in a single restaurant since the first day, but we’ve saved a lot of time and money this way. It’s also enjoyable to have nice, quiet meals together in beautiful places. We walked along several trail paths while we were here.  Several scenes from the Lord of the Rings were filmed here, and we saw a few of them. The hikes were steeply up and down hill, so it was fairly exhausting.

Posing at the top of Mount Victoria. There are so many houses ALL over in Wellington!

After Mount Victoria, we drove to Old Saint Paul’s, which is a church.  As we walked up, we noticed a bride standing in the doorway waiting to enter her wedding.  Obviously, we couldn’t go in because of the wedding, but it was nice to see the church getting proper use.

Our last destination was Te Papa, a free museum of New Zealand history. We weren’t sure what to expect, and were pleasantly surprised with how much detail went into the six floor museum. We enjoyed the exhibits on volcanic activity and earthquakes quite a bit. There were many exhibits on Maori culture that were the best we’d seen. The top floor was filled with contemporary art, and upon entering, we were handed a clipboard that had questions about several paintings.  When you were done, you put your sticky notes on a big board and were able to see how others had answered. The answers were quite funny. One of the paintings was supposed to be about breaking the rules (I don’t know how black and white shapes break the rules unless possibly it’s not allowed to be art). The associated question asked when you had last broken the rules. Answers we thought of were “walking on the right side of the sidewalk in New Zealand,” and other people wrote things like “running in the museum” and some confessed age old sins that they obviously had been thinking about for decades.

Te Papa museum - posing in front of the replica of a traditional Maori building.

Since we had so efficiently hit the highlights of Wellington, we had some extra time in the evening. We decided to pick up a movie (Hunger Games, to be exact), and in the process, experienced downtown Wellington on a Friday night. We walked up and down the streets, ate gelato and then made it back to the movie theater to sit in our assigned seats. An upside is that we could bring in our own drinks. Most people buy their tickets online, select their seats, and print out their tickets. Everyone showed up 5 minutes before the movie with bags of food and drinks. By the time we got back to our hotel, it was nearly midnight and we were exhausted. Cindy said this bed was nicer, but I never really know since I’m so tired. Tomorrow, we cross to the South Island.

Love, the George family

Fallin' in love...

Waterfallin', that is. Leaving Rotorua behind, we headed off for Ohakune with a stopover in Taupo today. I had read online about Huka Falls and the Spa Thermal Park, both of which are free and appealed to me quite a bit. We then drove to Ohakune with a few stopovers to take in the beautiful scenery. Once here, we spent most of the afternoon and early evening hiking, mainly to see other waterfalls. I chose this morning to go on a run and slightly regretted it after several hours of hiking up hill. Oh well! I can't say I didn't get my work out in today. :) Back on topic, though, today filled my heart with love, as I adore waterfalls! They are so powerful and beautiful. Here is a quick photo journey of our day.

Huka Falls - it's kind of hard to see it in the background. There isn't a big drop off, but the falls move very rapidly and create a lot of wind and noise. Very powerful to watch!

Spa Thermal Park - natural hot water pools that spring out of the earth. We swam in two of them; this one was much more secluded and we only knew about it because a New Zealander was in the first one with us and told us to head up the path a bit to this hidden gem. This is something I've always wanted to do, so it was very exciting for me!

One of the beautiful sights we stopped for on our way to Ohakune. This is Lake Taupo, which is huge! It looks quite like the ocean, actually.

Once to Ohakune, we stopped at our hotel and went straight to the mountain! We drove all the way to the top of the roadway, which was a bit of a scary ride, but the view was worth it. We then stopped at Mangawhero Falls (a ten minute hike), which is a waterfall area that was used in the LOTR filming - very neat!

Waitonga Falls is what you see in the background. It was spectacular! The hour and a half hike was well worth it. Grant walked up pretty close to it and got some nice photos.

Our last hiking destination was an area called the Rimu Loop, aptly named for the Rimu trees which inhabit the area. They are very tall. In fact, the Buttressed Kahikatea is the tallest tree in New Zealand, and the Rimu is its close relative. The trail went through the rainforest area at the base of the mountain and was a nice contrast to the forested area in the middle and the lava/desert at the top.

Ohakune Mountain. This is where we are staying this evening. Stunning!

All in all, we had a very adventurous day. We spent some time relaxing in the hot tub at our hotel this evening to soothe our aching bodies. I'm sure we will sleep well tonight, which will give us energy for our day in bustling Wellington tomorrow. It will be our last full day on the north island!

We are starting to miss our home a bit, but are enjoying the different hotels. So far, we've loved all of our accomodations. The people here are very helpful and kind. Until next time.

Love, the George family

Kia ora

Update #2 for today: this one is actually about today :)

"Kia ora" means hello in Maori, which are the indigenous people of New Zealand. Today we experienced a bit of the cultural heritage of their people in some unique ways.

We started off the day by visiting the The Redwoods Whakarewarewa Forest...don't ask me how to pronounce the name. I've never seen redwoods, so it was a brand new experience for me. It was breathtaking to see the towering trees. We took a short hike through the forest and almost froze again. The tree coverage trapped all of the cool air, and I was wearing shorts! It was about all I could take to get through the whole trail, as gorgeous as it was. The air smelled so clean and crisp, and the ground was covered with fallen leaves. It is fall here, which is my favorite season, so I've been enjoying that quite a lot.

Where's Waldo, er, Cindy? Okay, I'm not that hard to spot, but it gives some perspective. We got some nice close up shots, but they could not capture the vast height of the trees.

After the redwoods, it was time to head over to Te Puia, which encompasses the Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley (once again, no idea how to pronounce that - these people must have enjoyed saying long words). It is a thermal valley, therefore we saw geysers, mud pools, hot pools, and an area they call the cooking pool. We weren't quite sure what that meant, so we had a look. Indeed, it looked like a fabulous spot to cook - it had the appearance of a nice sized hot tub, except the water was boiling and steaming. Quite nice to cook a quick dinner, as long as you could stand the smell and still have an appetite. Again, I'd never seen geothermal activity like this, so it was amazing to see in person, and honestly, a bit disgusting. There is not much to say for bubbling mud in a pit. Here are a couple of pictures, though!

We attended a Maori cultural performance at Te Puia. What we did not know is that we would become a part of the performance. One of the performers pulled me out of the audience to perform a cultural dance with the ball you can see. I'm sure I made a fool of myself.

He then pulled Grant out of the audience to perform a tribal war dance. The dance they did was much more hilarious than the one I had to do. Don't worry, we have video of both of our star performances!

And here is one of the geysers. It was windy and kind of cold, so I actually enjoyed getting close to the heat. There was steam coming out of the ground everywhere at the park.

We also saw kiwi birds, which don't fly by the way. They are about the size of a chicken, but much more adorable! Sadly, they are endangered. One of the kiwi birds made a calling noise while we were watching, which was very neat to observe! I'm very happy that we got to see the kiwi - definitely a highlight of my trip so far.

We spent a bit of time relaxing today, but we had one more must do attraction while in Rotorua: OGO! It's kind of hard to describe. You dive into a giant ball and essentially roll down a hill. You can either do the dry version, getting harnessed in or the wet version, where they put water in the ball and you slosh around. We chose to do the wet version on the zigzag slope. It was quite fun at first, but then Grant was trying to move away from me a bit to get a good picture and we went around a curve. He ended up on top of me with my face smashed into the water. It was fairly frightening and then I began to feel claustrophobic. Needless to say, I was anxious to get out of that ball! I might do it again someday, but I would definitely suggest staying in place. It was a wild experience, though! The best part was that we took the underwater camera in with us and got some neat photos and a video.

Getting ready to go down the hill. This is looking into the ball.

As you can see, we are already soaking wet.

Here we are going down - huge smiles!

That's all for now. We are watching a movie before bed. Tomorrow, we are off to Ohakune, a small mountain town. We chose it because it was a nice halfway point between Rotorua and Wellington, which is our final stop on the North Island.

Love, the George family



There and back again

This is yesterday's post. We were way too tired at the end of the day to write, so I (Grant) am writing today. We'll post about what we did today soon.

Today we had a very eventful day. We said goodbye to Auckland (for about 45 minutes in gridlock morning traffic) and headed toward Rotorua. Thanks to our friend TomTom we arrived at our first destination, Waitomo Caves, despite taking a sheep road to get there. The main attraction of the caves are the gloworms that live in them on the ceilings. The worms have little lights on their tails that they use to attract insects into strings hanging down from them that I'm guessing are sticky like a spider's web.

Gloworm Caves. We weren't allowed to take pictures so here is a picture of the advertisement.

It was neat to see. It was like looking up into the stars at night, except there weren't any city lights. At the end they take you on a very short boat ride out of the cave with a final viewing of the glow worms. After we were finished we ate a picnic lunch with some deli meat, bread, cheese and chips. The food prices over here are a lot higher so we've been buying food at the supermarkets to save money. After the caves we hit the road again on our way to Middle-Earth, in particular Hobbiton.

We stopped during the trip to Hobbiton to take this picture. The landscape was very beautiful. New Zealand can change very quickly as we drove through rainforest suddenly and came out later to these beautiful hills and valleys.

Us in front of Bag End!

We thought Hobbiton would be quite interesting, but it turned out to be quite a bit more fun than we thought it would. There were dozens of hobbit holes. Most of them don't even open up inside. The sheep farmer who owns the ground they wanted to use for the movie essentially paid for the set with the generous profits he made letting them use his land - it was an afterthought when people kept coming to his house asking to see the set before they tore it all down. Otherwise it wouldn't still exist.....except that they are coming out with the first Hobbit movie in December so it would have been rebuilt for that. Despite all the money and effort put into this, only a few minutes of the movies were actually filmed there.

We also got a lesson in special effects. I'm officially a hobbit for this one.

(Cindy says that I'm her little hobbit hubby!)

We finished up at Hobbiton and made our way to Rotorua to check into our hotel. The remainder of the evening was spent walking to the supermarket and soaking in pool at the hotel which happened to be filled with mineral water from a geothermal well. Try everything once even if it is full of weird metals and isn't completely clear. A lot of people in Rotorua invest a lot up front to get free geothermal energy from all the activity in the area.

Love, the George family



Busy city, windy beach

Today we explored Auckland! It was absolutely wonderful. I will share a few pictures that capture our day quite well. This hotel is the only one that has complimentary breakfast, and we enjoyed it quite a bit. To answer your question, Bethany, one of the things we miss in America is cold milk. Our cereal was just not quite the same with warm milk. Free is good, though. :)

We took a ferry into the city. It was spectacular to be out on the ocean again - it just feels like home. Auckland is quite large - we found tall buildings for all of the big 4 accounting firms. I told Grant he could go back to EY and request a transfer to New Zealand, but I was joking of course. The people we talked to don't really seem to enjoy living in Auckland - the consensus is that the south island is much better and that Auckland is only a popular city to live in because the jobs are here.

Our first stop in Auckland - the sky tower. It is by far the tallest landmark in downtown Auckland. We went up to the highest observation deck, which is the ring of windows that you see at the very top. What a fabulous way to see Auckland and the surrounding islands!

Here we are on the main observation deck! Don't fall!

We ate lunch at the cafe in the Sky Tower. We had a delicious lasagne and real Sprite! On the airplanes, Grant had lemonade several times because they don't have Sprite in much of Australia. He said that it is similar, though.

We did some shopping, walked through Victoria Park to check out a cricket field, and then headed back to our hotel for a bit. Our ferry was a fun ride itself. In the background is part of downtown Auckland's skyline.

A gentleman we talked to on the ferry suggested that we check out Auckland's west coast for the beautiful beaches and rainforest. So, we did a bit of research and headed to Muriwai Beach, which was amazing! The waves and the wind were so strong (windier than Kansas really!). We brought our swimsuits, but even with a jacket and pants, I was still COLD! We walked on the sand, dipped about one toe in the frigid water, and hiked around for about an hour. The sand is black, supposedly from iron. It was very sparkly and quite beautiful.

You can't see them very well, but these are gannets. They are birds that nest on this rock, which is known for them. They get a boost off of the incredibly strong wind gusts and head to Australia once mature, where they stay for several years. Amazingly, they then return to this exact rock, mate, and rasie their young to head to Australia. It was a lot of fun to watch and listen to the hundreds of birds gathered here.

We were quite hungry after our day and lunch was light, so we stopped at a place called Kabob. I got a lamb salad and Grant got a chicken kabob on pita. I was a bit nervous to try lamb, but I really liked it. All of the food was delicious! Then, we stopped on the side of the road and shared a fresh strawberry and mango smoothie. Mmmm! Our next stop was the grocery store. Food here is expensive, so we will try to make as many meals as we can. I ran a couple of miles in the workout room at our hotel, and then we had a slow paced evening, cooking and reading.

We made some coffee and had cold milk from the grocery store. We ate on the patio off of our hotel room. The sound of the nearby ocean, the much gentler breeze, and music drifting out from our room was the perfect ambiance for a relaxing midwest favorite: corn on the cob. Grant teased me a bit for picking corn on the cob out of everything at the grocery store. What can I say? It sounded good...and it was! :)

All in all, we had an amazing day! I still can't believe that we did so much in just one day. Tomorrow, we have to be up bright and early, as we have two tours booked on our way to Rotorua. 

We were excited to see that KU advanced to the Final Four. Wish we were there - we were supposed to go to the Final Four games last year and when KU lost, we sold our tickets at the last minute. We find it a bit ironic that they have done well this year. That's how life works, right?

One final caution: Beware the crazed Americans when driving in New Zealand. Just kidding. Grant has done a fine job of adjusting to the roads - he did try to get in the passenger seat while a local watched. He got a laugh out of that! ;)

Okay, off to bed. Hope life in the States is peachy.

Love, the George family

Good day mate!

27 hours = how long we've been travelling. We have about an hour to wait for our final flight to Auckland, which is three and a half hours. We have had fairly uneventful travels so far. The UNC/Ohio game was on at the Dallas airport, so our layover there went by quickly.

Of the hundreds of people on our giant plane to Brisbane, we ended up sitting next to a gentleman from Wichita. What a coincidence! I had a very nice chat with him at the beginning of our trip for about three hours. He is originally from Ireland and has been living in Wichita for about 15 years. He was travelling to visit his son's family in Brisbane. I learned a lot from him about Ireland, and he shared many interesting stories with me about his life, Ireland, pretty much everything. Thankfully, I then slept off and on for eight hours, probably getting the equivalent of five or six hours of sleep. Grant slept almost that whole time, so he got a bit more sleep than me. He will be driving, though, so it's better that he's well rested.

Upon arriving in Australia, we had to clear security a second time and I mistakenly left a water bottle in my bag. The security was pleasantly kind, even at six in the morning. The gentleman that helped me told me that the flight we were on is the longest flight in the world. Crazy! So, now we can say we've survived the longest possible flight. I wouldn't recommend it.


UPDATE: We are now in Auckland. Upon arrival, our luggage was nearly the first out and we cleared customs without a hitch. Smooth transition to New Zealand. I'm loving the accents, and the driving is a bit crazy. We're getting used to everything - I keep reminding myself that I go to the left side of the car as a passenger. I'm sure we will be used to it by the end of our stay. On the drive to our hotel, I was already taken by the amazing scenery. The trees are so lush and green, and they are everywhere. Auckland is even more beautiful because there is a large harbour here. We are looking forward to exploring some of downtown Auckland tomorrow.


We miss some American things, and are enjoying the differences here. What fun to become immersed in another culture and experience their life. Hopefully I will post pictures soon. I am too tired to upload pictures and add them to the post.

Love, the George family

Going kiwi!

It has been quite the rainy few days around here. I typically enjoy rain and storms - the smell of rain, the cool air it brings, the power of lightning. It was nice for a day or two, but I'm getting a little stir crazy. I usually spend several days a week outside running and lately I've had the windows open almost daily. Needless to say, that hasn't been happening this week.

So, for those of you enduring the rainy spell with me, I'll share the story of how in the world Grant and I are even GOING to New Zealand.

This is a map of New Zealand. We start in Auckland,

drive all the way down, ferry across to the south island,

 drive down the east side and back up the west side,

finally driving across to end at Christchurch. Of course,

there will be plenty of stops along the way!

It all started when we were dating. As our relationship became more serious, we increasingly talked about future plans. Travel was one thing important to both of us. We wanted to make a concerted effort to travel. Dreaming, thinking, talking - it was a blast! Over time, money was put aside for a big trip together. We were serious!

A throwback: our first date!

Fast forward a few years: I've just finished my first year of grad school, Grant's still working at the big bad accounting firm, and an international trip together seems like the furthest thing from our reach. I maxed out subsidized loans for school, and we still owe a hefty amount of money for my second year. Enter: Grant's deal seeking wonders. He found a credit card offer that included 100,000 bonus miles if you spent a certain amount in the first year. That amount was - you guessed it - exactly the amount that we owed my school. And, we'd saved our homebuyer tax credit to help with school expenses. We have not seen another credit card offer anything close to that deal since!

My second year of grad school goes by, sometimes in slow motion and sometimes at super sonic speed.

We made it! Grant gets an honorary degree for standing by my side.

I take a month off, study for my licensing exam, get licensed... And then I'm not sure what to do. We don't want to plan a trip because I'm not sure when or where I'll be working. Upon the arrival of 2012, we talk about our goals and hopes for the next several years and realize that it's now or never. We have the money saved up, we have plenty of skymiles, we have the ability to go, and we don't have kids! What's been holding us back?!

We spend hours on the phone with American Airlines to get our free plane tickets (thanks to the aforementioned air miles, another almost as good deal for air miles he found at the same time, and miles from his accounting firm travels), and we finally have an itinerary! It's official: we're going to New Zealand! How did we pick New Zealand, you wonder. Well, we wanted to see another part of the world. It was either Europe or Australia. Grant has always wanted to visit New Zealand, so that was going to be part of the trip. And we wanted to have time to really get to see a country, so we decided to leave Australia out of the itinerary. Sad, I know. But it will be worth it as we immerse ourselves in New Zealand!

We have a layover in Sydney, so we will see about this much of Australia. :) 

The other amazing part of the story is that we had no clue what to do over there, and we didn't have much time to plan. We found a company that offers tours of New Zealand via rental car...and then we realized how expensive it was. They gave a detailed description of the itinerary on their website, so we used what we wanted of it and changed the rest. We were able to book our trip for MUCH cheaper than they would have charged and it includes exactly what we want. We had enough money to pay for our dream vacation! Without the free flights, there is no way we would have gone to New Zealand - those flights are pricey!

We chalk it up to the favor of the Lord. He cares for all aspects of our lives, even the crazy parts of us that want to fly halfway around the world to see the culture of the Kiwis. We are still blown away that our dream is becoming a reality.

We are amazed at how this has all come together. We could never have planned it all in such a perfect way and are incredibly thankful. What important or seemingly unimportant details of your life has the Lord proven He cares about? Something to ponder.

Love, the George family

There's no place like home

If you're reading this, you probably already know that we have done a LOT of work on our house. From painting and recarpeting to replacing all of the windows and the basement ceiling, it's been a work of love. Grant spent an entire summer fixing the sprinkler system. I've spent countless hours decorating and organizing.

Despite all that we accomplished when we first bought the house two and a half years ago, there was always one giant project looming over us: the basement! The layout was messed up and there were a million things we could have done to more effectively use the space. A couple of months ago, we decided to just start working on it. Enough planning, dreaming, thinking...we were ready to put the rubber to the road. So, one quiet Friday evening when we didn't want to spend money on a date night, we decided to stay in and kick down some walls. And let me tell you, it was fun!!

Since then, we have patched over a useless second door into the "bedroom" (there's no fire escape so it's not technically a bedroom), created a door to access our previously walled in heater (that happens to be 26 years old), created another door that added space to our storage room, did a bunch of electrical work, and other stuff I'm forgetting. All I can remember is that I very strongly dislike mudding and sanding. Ugh!

All of the boring stuff aside, here are some pictures of our work:

BEFORE

A look down the hallway into our basement. Notice the unused space at the end of the hallway. We tore down the wall on the left from the end of the hallway up to the closest door.

AFTER

Same hallway. Notice that we used the space at the end of hallway to create a larger storage room. The light in the ceiling that you see in the other picture is now inside the storage room.

BEFORE

The two doors you see lead into the same room. What a stroke of genius!

AFTER

There is now only ONE door leading into the "bedroom." This gives you another perspective on how we've shortened the hallway and added space to the storage room.

And the door on the left used to be part of the wall. Our good and faithful heater is behind it.

We've done some other work, too. We changed out almost all of the door hardware upstairs to brushed silver. Much nicer than the retro gold we had, not to mention the fact that we had about five different styles of door knobs. And the guest bathroom door didn't lock. No big deal. We got a steal of a deal on a china hutch, which freed up a TON of space in the kitchen. We also rearranged our office, including a much needed desk for Grant off of Craigslist. We love good deals.

Enough for tonight. I'm still recuperating from the crazy Purdue/KU game. If you didn't watch it, well, you missed a good one. Unless, of course, you loathe KU, in which I apologize for your poor choice of team support. (I'm a bit sarcastic, by the way.)

New Zealand is coming up quickly and we are excited! I will tell the story about how we are even going in my next post.

Love, the George family

Welcome!

Welcome to our new family blog! We decided to create a blog to document our upcoming trip to New Zealand (I know, I can't believe that we are actually fulfilling a dream of ours and going to New Zealand!), but I am hoping that we keep up with it as a way to document the happenings of our lives for family and friends.

We look forward to sharing our lives with you and hopefully sharing in your lives, as well.

Love, the George family

This is us before our Valentine's Day date.

And, of course, a picture of Bandit. She was enjoying the warm air coming from the heater on a cold winter day. The mess you see was a result of us re-doing our office. We are really happy with how it looks now!