Christmas 2015

Long journey back to Gillette to spend Christmas with family. It was cold cold cold. Snow everywhere. Pretty but cold.

We spent a day on Christmas gifts. The usual, some toys and some gift cards. The kids are getting older and that makes buying more challenging. Ellie wanted to have Lego this year. But there were no more classic Lego set on the shelves. Luckily some one in Walmart found us a new set from the back.  Daddy insisted that she should starts with classic.

Night before Christmas we found out that we should also get gifts from Santa so daddy went out again for another round of shopping. Christmas,  lots of kids,  lots of food, lots of gift opening! Ellie had a lot of fun with Kade and Kase and Donny. She was so proud to show Kade thed tablet and all the games, especially the plants vs zombie game!

The only sad thing was that we all came got sick.  I started fever Christmas night. The next day was ellie then Rian. Traveling with my sick family is probably the most terrible thing in the world.

Not only we have to travel sick.  We also need to get up for a 6am flight. Dealt with the holiday crowd, and missed the connecting flight and got stuck in salt lake city for a day.  Anyways we made it to LA safe and ready for the next leg of our journey.

Christchurch, New Zealand

We left Queenstown and moved on to our final stop in New Zealand - Christchurch. The bus ride took about 8 hours including breaks and lunch. On the way there we passed by a very beautiful lake called lake Pukaki. Bright blue water from the glacier dust and snow mountain range in the background. It was breathtaking and it was hard to put my camera down.

Christchurch is the second biggest city in new Zealand and I read something about art and museums in the city. After we got here we found out that the city centre was damaged severely by earthquakes in 2010/11. 80% of the buildings were destroyed. That includes some iconic buildings like a cathedral built over 100 years ago.

Walking down the street I had a very sour feeling. Graffiti on the sides of the remaining buildings to beautify the badly damaged city. Broken and abandoned buildings and empty parking area everywhere. The art museum has a big neon sign on top "everything is going to be alright". And there is a shopping mall built from cargo containers called "restart mall".

As devastated as it sounds, it is, however, a very good education material for all of us to understand the impact of earthquake. Ellie learned about what earthquake is for the first time. We went to a museum called quake city. There were quite a bit of information documents the events and also a Lego station to help redesign the new Christchurch with Lego pieces. We had a good time there.

After the visit to the museum we walked to grocery store to get enough food for the next few days. This time we are staying 6 nights so finally we can make something more interesting. First night: venison tomato sauce pasta. Second night: mashed potatoes chicken and corn and cabage. Last night: kumara fries, pasta again and lots of veggies. Way more than we can finish. Yum!

The house we stayed was an airbnb townhouse. Very homey and comfy, much better than all the motels. And daddy learned how operates an expresso machine. It requires us to clean up the house before we go. I have been trying to keep it clean so it wasn't so bad.

The next couple days we went to Canterbury museum and botanical garden. Again the museum is much bigger than I thought  (and it's free!), but since we split it in 2 days so it was fine. The botanical garden park has a very big kid pool but it is still too cold to swim.

We also visited the shopping mall (because daddy wanted to see dick smith, an electronic store). We played video games, bought a new jacket for myself, pants and shoes for ellie. And we learned how to take metro bus!

The weekend was also the reopening day of the art museum. It is quite boring for ellie so we didn't stay for long. I am happy to see the city slowly coming back to life.

The way back home was a bit painful. 4 flights, 30+ hours traveling from Christchurch, NZ to billings, Montana. Goodbye Christchurch. Goodbye new Zealand. Ellie said, "stay safe, no more earthquakes!"

Dad's favorite: mountain and landscape
Mom's favorite: sheep and flat white

Beautiful blue lake

Kids meal delivered from the tube system in the cafe

Lego structure to help rebuild Christchurch

Done. Ellie said, say "sculpture!"

Restart mall. Local business built from containers 

 

Fountain in front of the botanical garden 

Snowmobile simulator in the Antarctica center of the Canterbury museum 

Beautiful flowers. On our way to playground 

Colorful sheep everywhere in the city centre

Broken cathedral 

"Everything is going to be alright"

Fun colorful graffiti

Domino!

A game of bowling at the video arcade 

Fun pack from the arcade

We found spot's  mom and dad!

Fluffy clouds from the sky

Back in Seattle. Only briefly.

Star cruise

Mom and dad got a balcony room on the 11th floor and we are on the 8th in an inside cabin, no windows. Our rooms are pretty far away so we had to communicate by phone in the room.

Our room is definitely dark and a bit depressing without any windows. But it is a bit bigger than mom and dad's probably because it is a corner room. When we wake up in the morning, we usually have no idea what time it is. There is a TV channel to see outside though.

We figured out that the food pretty quickly.  12th is the buffet. The non buffet on the 6th, but it takes forever to finish a meal. There are other restaurants on the 7th but they're not free. There is 6000 dollars credit on my dad's room so we have tried them a few times.

There is also a video game center, but not much kids play area other than that. Probably because of renovation.

Most of the time on the boat we ate either eating in the cafeteria, playing at the child care center or video games. We did went swimming a few times. At the end of the trip, when we were cruising the Indian Ocean. The ship was rocking so much that it wasn't even safe to swim in the pool. Ellie did enjoyed the hot tub.

The girls at the child care center were very nice. Ellie liked them and also made a few kid friends. We played puzzles, a monkey game, read books and she learned paper folding and we learned Balloon twisting. It is quite sad that we had to leave the balloon animals. Hope that we can still remember how to do that so we can make more balloon poodles and flowers when we get back!

Ellie carefully placed the phone on the chair. Turned around and took a selfie of her own butt. Haha!

Daddy got sun burn :(

Ellie and mommy's chun-li combos are kicking daddy's butt!!

Bye to the ship! On the way to Perth

Queenstown, New Zealand

I read so much about how pretty it is in the south island and I was happy to be here to see it with my own eyes. The trip was however very tiring for my family so we have decided to take it slower and will spend more time in one place.

Flying in the view from the airplane was quite spectacular. Snow mountain range, rivers, lakes. We found the airport shuttle and arrived in our motel in the afternoon. The motel was so so. A bit dated and the bathroom was super narrow. It has a playground, however. That was the reason I booked that place.

The next day we got some lunch, walked around a park, and booked a tour to see milford sound. That was the main reason I wanted to go to queenstown. Queenstown is an action activity center. Bungy jump, jet ski,... but since we are with Ellie, there isn't much we can do. It does have really nice mountain and lake view and lots of restaurants. And also a ridiculous number of tours/activities booking places.

We got up really early for the milford sound trip. Bus getting there took 4 hours. The bus driver was keeping us entertained with some local info and picture stops. The scenery was really spectacular. The big mountains, waterfalls and bright blue streams. In comparison it seems that the cruise wasn't as impressive. We did get really close to waterfall (we got wet and had to ran back to inside the boat) and saw a few seals.

After the day trip to milford sound we decided to stay in Queenstown for a few more days to space our the long bus trips. The weather wasn't that nice and we didn't do much. We did get a better motel room with a loft, which ellie loves.

The highlight of the few days would have to be ellie learning to swing. I swung next to her and I saw her trying to mimic my move and quickly got the technique! She kept swinging on and off for almost 3 hours in the park!

Queenstown is a tourist city by a lake surrounded by big mountain. Very beautiful place 

On the way to milford sound. Sheeeeeep!

Spectacular mountain view just out of the tunnel

Cruising milford sound

Pedro house of lamb

Welcome to the family! Little lamb!

Learning to make scramble eggs

Guess what. I learned how to swing practicing hard!!

This is super fun to ellie. And a good exercise for dad :)